Unruly kids in the burbs?

I went out tonight to see a movie with a friend of mine. I waited near the front door of a Richmond Hill movie theatre to wait for the friend to meet me.

Two mothers and four children exit the movie theatre into the parking lot area. The movie theatre is built into the lower level of a plaza built on the side of hill. So there is a sloping road that connects the main plaza (on the higher level) to the theatre level (lower level) around back. The kids chose to run up the hill leaving the two mothers at the bottom yelling at the four kids to walk, not run or roll down the hill.

The kids played at the top of the hill for a while. Meanwhile the mothers continued to demand their kids come down to the bottom of the hill walking while cars continue to go by on the busy access road at the bottom of the hill.

The kids eventually walked down the hill. However, they refused to hold both hands of the mothers in order to cross the street. One car just stopped on the road and waited for one mother to physically pick up one of the children and walk them across the street then come back and grab the other one by the hand and walk her across the street.

I was utterly shocked how undisciplined these kids were. If I ever refused to hold my mothers hand when I was four or five years old I would be in deep trouble! I cannot imagine what these kids will turn into.

I was waiting for when one of these kids to come running down the hill and be hit by a car. I really did think something was going to happen while the two mothers continued to yell and scream from the bottom of the hill for their children to come down so they could go home following the movie. I know my mother would have slowly come up the hill and picked me up around my waist and hauled me down the hill.

Seems times of changed......pitty.