I am not a parent. I am not rising children. Hopefully, one day, in the not so distant future this will change. I hope to have children so while I may not have any children now I believe as a future parent I have permission to sound off.

Parents please wake up! I try not to do this, but I do pay attention to kids especially in large public settings and what I notice does not make me happy. I can understand that children do not need to be attached to their parent’s hips, but when the kids are 10 or 15 feet away from their parents in a shopping center or the kids are wandering around by themselves while their parents are 4 aisles away strikes me as irresponsible and unacceptable.

I may sing a different tune when I have my own kids, but I doubt it. I do understand that our eyes cannot be on our kids all the time at that even if we do keep our kids close accidents and tragedy may still happen.

What is it? Why is this happening? This trend seems to becoming more severe. Why does it seem to me that parents allow their kids to roam see far from them? Am I over-reacting? If I need to lighten up, please tell me. Parents! What is the deal?