VBS...over...finally...

Vacation Bible School is over! Yay! Our church is very small, and had only about a dozen kids every evening, but we’re all exhausted anyway. My feet are worn right out from standing in the kitchen every evening for a few hours straight, and I will be thrilled if I never see some of those bratty kids again.

We had Spoiled Brat, the nine-year-old who resorts to bawling when she doesn’t get her way. She threw fits throughout the week because the adults kept telling her “No” – and most of us made it stick. She wasn’t allowed to get into the dunking booth on Family Night because she’s too small. When she tried to get in after being told “No” more than once, by more than one adult, someone saw her and told her to get down. She was bawling before her feet touched the grass.

There was Jerk, the ten-year-old brat who went into the kitchen after I’d already closed down everything. He’d been given a sno-cone during his snack break, just like everyone else, but wanted another one. Having been told “No” already, he decided to sneak in. I caught him with the bag of ice out on the counter and a Sytrofoam cup in one hand.

Even if I didn’t care that he was trying to pull an end run on me, we were borrowing an industrial sno-cone machine. Those suckers, in case you don’t know, are pretty sweet. They have lots of sharp blades inside and a large, electric motor to turn them. Like I really want to hose Jerk’s blood and bits of finger and bone out of the sno-cone machine.

Most of the helpers had at least one run in with Monster from Hell, the ten-year-old boy who did everything he could to piss off everyone. He trash talked his age group’s leader. During prayers, he stepped on peoples’ feet and made faces at the adults. When he wasn’t busy doing these things, he was running around like a monkey on crack, finding small objects to put in his mouth. The adults finally had enough when he started putting brads – the metal bits that you use to put pieces of paper together if you want to, say, make a fake clock with movable hands to teach your child how to tell time – in his mouth. Like anyone at the church really wants to rush this monster to the emergency room for surgery.

None of this seems too bad, I know, but we all put up with it every night for a week straight. All of the bratty kids were pulling their stunts at once, too, which made it kind of difficult to keep an eye on everyone. All of the helpers had both hands full pretty much nonstop, and it gets tiring after the first evening or so.

But to be completely honest, I’m not annoyed at the kids so much as I am at their so-called parents. I’m not a mother, and have no desire to become one later. But I know many, many parents, and the ones who really love their kids take the time to teach them that “No” means “No.” The kids who are truly loved are taught to obey their parents, and to be respectful. They’re taught that they aren’t special enough to circumvent social courtesies like waiting their turn and throwing away their empty cups after snack time. Their parents really care about them, and this is evident by the fact that these adults spend so much time and effort teaching the kids how to be functional, welcomed members of society.

Then you have the parents who just don’t care enough about their kids to do much beyond yelling, or making threats that never stick. I saw a lot of these unloved kids all week long, and I feel a little sorry for them even though they did nothing but tick me off.

My sibs and I are blessed because Mom loved us so much when we were kids – and she still loves us. She spanked us when we disobeyed her. She took away things that we loved when we didn’t do what we knew was right. She told us that she loved us at least once every day, and she made sure that we all had everything that we needed. Mom did a lot of great things for us all, but I think that the best thing she did for me personally was to make her “No” stick almost every time.