Why are some people allowed to be parents?  Seriously, why were eggs/sperm placed in their genitalia?  Some people are less designed to be parents than Naturally, I'm not talking about all parents, or even most.  I'm talking about a select group of parents: the ones who discipline their children by yelling. 

I am admittedly no expert on children or how to raise them--I've never read the books (it's never really been applicable to me...) and or have any of my own (children, that is... I do have books), but I do know when people are making large mistakes.

We have relatives staying with us this weekend, and I could definitely do without.  Whenever the children (ages 3 and 6) do anything--regardless of what it is--the parents yell at them.  If they touch the glass on the door, they are yelled at.  Walking in the general direction of the china cabinet makes Mommy bellow like a longshoreman.  Daddy shouts when, I don't know, the younger one breathes too loudly.  Then, naturally, when they actually do something dangerous or that they shouldn't do (putting their hand dangerously close to the blades on the fan, for example), they don't respond when their parents yell.  And this baffles the parents.

I would like to tell them that their children have not yet reached double digits in their years and are unable to distinguish between "Mommy is yelling as she always does" and "Mommy's voice has gone up 1/2 an octave; this means that I must be doing something that could produce unsound effects on my health."  I have had to leave the house twice today and go outside for a few minutes just because of all the yelling.  And the kids are not neglected; they're well-loved and not abused or anything.  They've grown up in this culture of yelling, so it's all perfectly normal.  I, on the other hand, who was rarely yelled at as a child (and knew to respond instantly when my parents did yell), find this constant shouting grating.

This is not to say that all yelling is bad.  If the children are about to stick their fingers in the fan blades or are simply acting so atrociously that even Mary Poppins would fail with them, then yelling can have its justifications.  But all the time?

In addition, both children still drink out of sippy cups.  Did you happen to catch their ages?  Three and six, in case you didn't.  The three-year-old, that's fine; a sippy cup is a good thing.  But when a child is six, can swim underwater (she told me), and is almost done with kindergarten, a sippy cup for plain old water seems unnecessary...