I dare say that we have all been there.

You’re sitting in the movie theater, after having shelled out your hard earned dough on some overpriced tickets and a bucket-sized Coke.   The commercials pre-show is running, and you are trying to figure out which movie Adam Sandler starred in that mentioned the devil, or some such frippery.   You anxiously await the start of your PG-13 or R-rated movie, which may or may not include nudity, blood, cursing, convoluted plotlines, sex or any combination thereof in copious quantities. 

Then, to the horror of the entire movie theater, they come in.  The people with the little kid.

Now, I’m going to exclude infants from this category, which is probably a controversial move.  I am of the belief that the decibel level in most theaters is a bit too loud for such tender ears, but I have seen babies who have slept and/or nursed throughout the entire movie.  I’m feeling charitable today, so I’m going to give them a pass.

No, this is the toddler or the preschooler who will definitely NOT be napping or nursing their way happily through the movie.

This is the toddler or preschooler who has no business whatsoever seeing scary, sexy, bloody, curse-y, complicated-y types of movies.  The one who will bounce around in their seat, as bored toddlers are wont to do.  The one who will babble some type of information about Barney as you are trying to grasp who exactly the ambassador to Russia is, and why he is tied up in a hotel room.  Or the one who, and this is a true story, will scream as loud as hell when Nicole Kidman has that really freaky scene in the film when she is dead but thinks she is alive, but then finds out she is the one who is dead.  You know the one.  I think that child is scarred for life, and only after she had been gauranteed nightmares for the next six months, minimum, did her parents remove her from the theater.  Which was like, an hour and ten minutes too late.

So, come on up to the front of the theater, you Lazy Parenting Award Winners,^TM because we all feel the overwhelming need to pelt you with our popcorn as we shout, “Get a babysitter already, will you?”