Bed Time and Curfews

Working in a grocery store, I have the chance to see many families in different situations.  There are people with no kids, people with lots of kids, people with loud kids, people with quiet kids, and just about every other situation imaginable.  From almost the beginning of working there I started to be amazed by one of the situations.  Kids in the store around dinner time makes complete sense to me.  But, why is there children in the store after 9:00 pm? 

I'm not talking about teenagers that have later curfews.  I'm talking about little babies in their pajamas and 10 year-olds in the store with no adults.  I'm not saying that 10 year-olds need to be supervised all the time, but the other night there were some kids in the store with no adults later than some teenagers have curfews.  And what about the little babies and toddlers who have no choice?  Their parents drag them out of the house because of a "need" for food at 10:00 pm and they have no control over whether they leave the house or go to bed.

The more I think about all this though, the less it makes me mad.  I feel sad for the little kids who are obviously tired and need to go to bed.  But, looking at my own situation tells me that I don't know their stories and their reason for going to the store so late and dragging their children along with them.  My son goes to bed about the same time every night, but there are times that everything does not go according to plan.  Just the other night family was over at our house and my son decided that he did not want to go to bed while fun people were over at our house.  Even though he tired, he got so excited by them being there that he could not sleep.  In fact, when everyone left he was still going strong.  The quickest way to get him to sleep was to go for a drive.  So we drove the 3 minutes to the grocery store, bought a quick treat, and by the time we drove the three minutes back he was asleep.  And this all took place after 9:00 pm.  I became one of those mothers in the store after 9:00 pm with my sleepy kid in his pajamas.

And it definitely could be worse.  I am grateful that the kids are with them rather than the parents being at the store and the kids being home alone.  It is more safe for the kids to be with their parents than home alone.

So yet again, I have decided that I cannot judge the other mothers around me.  I have my own ideas about bed time and curfews but since I am only the best mother for my son I don't have the power to decide if my ideas are good for someone else.  As long as the kids are safe and treated well then they really are not in harm.  And as hard as it is for me some times I have to let others do what they deem right and let go of the bad feelings towards other people.  They don't have to act the way I do.