Tennis, Anyone?

So I went and played tennis this morning with my friend Amy. We tried to go early to beat the
summer sunshine. We had to wait about 10 minutes or so and then got onto a court. The other court cleared out after we had been playing for awhile.

Then I see I guy come and snag the empty court, he's smoking and standing around. Then I see that there are a bunch of kids in the parking lot and what appears to be an instructor and the kids' mother and a bunch of balls. They are still getting all their gear out of the car as a couple gets to the court directly behind the smoking man. So as the mother finally approaches the court, the waiting couple ask her, "what the hell, we got here before you ready to play and you sent your husband to snag the court ahead of us." (Or something to that effect.)

The woman replies, with a British accent, "we need to get the children playing before it gets too hot."

The man of the waiting couple then says, "everybody here is trying to do that."

The snotty Brit then replies, "the children are more important," and shuts the gate.

The man yells, "I don't agree with that." Alas, he is outside the court waiting and she is inside getting her kids ready to play.

So, I don't have too much of a problem with the husband snagging the court. It's a bit candyass, but the courts are "first-come, first-serve". I DO have a problem with people thinking their children are more important than anyone else in the world. Those kids could probably survive running around in the heat better than the guy who was waiting, he was probably late 40's, early 50's. It's symptomatic of our whole society's focus on children needing to be coddled and soothed and nutured until they're 25 years old and expect the same coddling in the workplace. I can't wait to see our all the full-grown babies in few years!

Oh, and this ultra-concerned mother? Yep, she lit up a cigarette while the kids were warming up.

That's pretty healthy for them.