You can't make this stuff up

Maureen Downey usually write a ed blog. Today she wrote about teenaged parents who apparently are casual in the parenting.

I had already planned to write about a mother I saw today at the airport. The Atlanta airport is very busy. This mother was with her two kids (a boy about 3 and a girl about 7) and spent almost an hour (while I was waiting for someone) reading facebook on her blackberry. At one point, the little boy was crying and doing the I-gotta-pee dance and tugging at his mother's arm, but she would put the blackberry down. Finally she gave permission for the little girl to take her brother to the bathroom, about 20 feet from us.

Did I mention that the airport is really busy?

She didn't look up the whole time they were gone.

Did I mention she and the little boy wore hearing aids?

I am not a helicopter parent (I hear my children breathe a sigh of relief, although they do call me the stalker mother). I wouldn't have left mine on the table or let them go to the restroom at that age.

My parents (mom has turned into the helicopter grandmother) let me tide a city bus to the library when I was 10 and take my little brother (I was 12, he was 10) to hang out at the Washington Mall and all the museums for the day - but that was a different time.

There are more people now.

Whatever.