SFL 240 paper #1

Do parents have an influence?
On the first day of my SFL 240 class my professor purposed the question, “Are parents important?” to the class. My professor pulled us out of our shock her seemingly ridicules question by explaining that researchers across the world perposing that parents matter very little in a child’s development, and even if parents matter at all. All I could do is sit at my desk and wonder what the parents of the researcher who stated that parents are not important were thinking. Do those researchers have children of their own? and if they did what kind-of parents are they? I believe that children are influenced by their parents because children watch their parents to learn how to act in public.
After the hour class I went to work. I am a secretary at Seven Peaks (a local water park) In short I sale season passes to people, and file customer complaints. At first, I was horrified by the countless stroller-pushing-mothers who screamed at me (the under-paid-powerless-person-behind-the-desk) usually cursing at me over price differences of five or six dollars. After thinking if parents matter or not for a whole class period, and then going to work with such a lovely group of dipper-bag-carrying-people I wanted to stand up on my desk and scream, “Stop yelling at me! Don’t you know your child is watching you?” It is a good think I have self control because I don’t think that my fake wooden desk would have been able to hold me up if I stood on it. The truth was though that their children were watching them, and more than that their children were mirroring them.
Children come to the water park front office to pound on the fish tank, put their buggers on the wall, and kiss the windows while their parents or parent try to sort out purchases and rentals. To the children there the office is the torture chamber between them and a water park. To their parents the office is a torture chamber between savings and poor credit. Remember, I am just the under-paid-powerless-person-behind-the-desk. When I can not give a costomer what they want they say, “I wanna speak to your manager. Who can I speak to? You go and get them,” I will translate for you, “you powerless little idiot. Get me someone who can give me what I want, and I want it now,” The remarkable thing is that when a parent try to explain to their child why they can not go into the water park today the typical response is, “Why? Mom, we can jus‘ walk through the gate,” I will translate for you, “you powerless little idiot. Get me someone who can give me what I want, and I want it now,” Typically the child speaks the same way to their parent when their parent can not give them what they wanted as their parent spoke to me when I could not give them what they wanted. Now I know that I am acting biased. My translations are exaggerated, but are they really?
The truth of the matter is that sometime I feel like I am dealing with an overgrown child when I have to explain that prices change and that the bases component of a company is that they sale things to people who will buy them in order to make money. There can be a practical normal family purchasing a season pass in the desk next to me. All of that families children are putting on sunscreen, and tossing their towels in the air while the lady purchasing a season pass in at my desk is screaming at me to get my manager and her children are screeching that they want to go inside now. Every day I see parents come in to purchase season passes for their children. There is a theme, Parents who scream at me the under-paid-powerless-person-behind-the-desk are more likely to have “mis-behaved” children-even if there is a collected and calm family standing right beside them. Neither family seems to be influence by the other family, but individual families seem to be entirely enthroned in what is going on with their purchases. I think that it is just an everyday observation, but one that I believe Hart would agree points out that children learn how to act in public from their parents behavior and not from the behavior of those around them.