I'll have to remember the "bathroom exorcism" statement!! (and I can tell you my children all experienced it once - it usually didn't take more than that)

There is a sig on here from someone (can't recall who) that says......raising children is like being pecked to death by chickens.....when I first read that one, I about peed my pants laughing!

A restaurant in PCB Florida has this hanging on the wall:
WARNING: Unruly children will be cooked and eaten!

My younger brother took his, shall we say, "unruly" daughter to a retirement party for a good friend of theirs. He and his wife let their daughter run with the other children that were brought along by parents that also wanted to enjoy the party without being bothered about watching their kids.

Before you know it all the running kids get tangled up in the power cords for a computer. The computer that was running the slide show and music of the retirees 30 year career. The slide show that took hours to make and was the highlight of the party for the retiree.

They never did get it working again that night and the poor lady that was in charge of it broke down in tears from frustration and embarrassment.

I have 2 children and I maintain that there are places that children simply do not belong.

I've been reading all of these posts about how children behave at public gatherings and it's bring back memories of misbehaved children in my family. While I do not have any kids, or brothers and sisters for that matter, I have a rather large extended family. My dad is second of 10 so with Grandma, siblings (and spouses), grandkids (and spouses), and great-grandkids there are about 50 of us or so.

Growing up when there were not as many people we would always get together on the major holidays which wound up being around 4-5 gatherings a year. As my youger uncles started having kids and then the cousins my age began having kids. It became very evident and a few of my aunts and cousins would not watch their children. The worst offenders would stand in front of where the food was set up and talk and eat the entire time. My dad started describing them as cows grazing at the food trough. Over the past 4-5 years the people in my family that would so graciously open their homes to my entire family stopped volunteering to host events because the kids in the family were so uncontrolled.

It came to a head last year when my grandfather passed in the summer and my one aunt volunteered to host the wake at her house. Well the kids decided to go into my uncle's garage (he runs his own electrical business) and proceeded to completely trash his garage and break a number of things. My aunt was so mad she decided that she wasn't going to host Christmas. Because of what happened at my Aunt's none of the family members that have a large enough house to host Christmas would volunteer either (the family members that have large enough houses are none of the offenders that don't watch their kids). So for the first time ever in family history we didn't have Christmas. It's really disappointing because I'm going to start trying to have kids next year and my cousins and aunts have ruined my future kids getting to know what it is like having a large extended family.

Sorry this happened to you, but I'm glad you said something rather than "oh, that's alright". I have 4 small kids and they better be well behaved or I pack their little butts right up and we leave.

I would have been the not so popular mom their also, I would have agreed with you.

Okay, I have to chime in with one more story, then I'll shut up!

I was at Ikea today and saw a 4-year old boy jumping from couch to couch in the showroom. The father just stood there, saying, "Stop. Didn't you hear me say, 'stop'?" To which the kid replied, "Yeah." Wow, that really worked in the discipline department!

The father was a big guy, certainly capable of scooping the kid up to MAKE him stop. That's what I would've done if it were my kid (and was even tempted to do today ).

True. I had hosted Thanksgiving dinner for my husband's side of the family (about 20-25 people) for years, and the first year I decided not to do it, NO ONE invited us. So we had Thanksgiving with my side of the family that year. My sister-in-law has invited us for Thanksgiving since then. One year, we stayed home--just us. Now we do whatever we feel like doing on Thanksgiving.
Yup. Traditions change, and sometimes you have to force a change.

That still would be upsetting though...having no-one in that family invite you after your hosting all those years. You can pick your nose, but not your family!

FWIW, I am all for pleasing myself and my immediate family for all the big holidays. Too many forced attendances in my younger years compelled me to now stick to what creates the least stress.

Stress-free holidays! I love the concept, but I can never achieve it.
Wouldn't it be great if we could pick our relatives as easily as.....Never mind.

I'm reviving this forum because...
Today was our family reunion. I made a three-tiered wedding-type cake (my first) using SPS. It had edible image pictures from my grandparents' wedding, and all their children's (my parents, aunts and uncles) weddings. It also had a few edible image photos from the 1940's, before my time.
I wrote the quote, "All because two people fell in love", and placed red fondant ribbon roses and an Italian flag on it . The tiers were a little uneven on the bottom edges (I need to work on my SPS measuring skills), so I covered them with wide white ribbon. It was far from perfect, but the concept was great. Everyone loved it when I brought it.
Not five minutes later, I looked at the cake and noticed that the white ribbon around the bottom tier was missing. I thought it had fallen off. I asked if anyone had seen it.
My oldest cousin (a grandmother!) said, "Oh, I took it off because it was covering the bottom of the picture."
Me: "Where is it?" I wanted to put it back on.
Cousin: "I threw it out. Do you want me to get it?"
Me: "Why would you do that?"
Cousin: Shrug
Then she went and pulled it out of the filthy garbage pail and handed it to me. It had black, greasey marks on it.
Yeah...I'll be putting that back on the cake.
She's the same relative who poured two inches of turkey grease down my kitchen drain on Thanksgiving.
That's two strikes. BIG strikes.
So, my question is, why wasn't my aunt watching her ADULT child?

Family reunions are great except you have to let all of your relatives show up!

Wow I got lucky this year at our reunion most of the ones that make me crazy didn't show up Do you think these people realize that they are making others crazy or are they really in their own world
Who knows maybe I'm the crazy one and they all dread me showing up

Okay, so I read through all these posts and I agree and disagree. First of all I have two children one is 16 and the other 7. I also teach a preschool class of 4 year olds and have been doing so for several years.
It is true that kids will be kids and depending on the age of the child it was age appropriate behavior. Kids learm by exploring their environment. However children depend on us(the parents) to steer them in the right direction. The first time it happened the mother should have immediately apologized and redirected her child to another area or activity. Knowing that the child was curious should have been enough to have her pay a bit more attention to what was happening. The child chould not have been able to be near the area again. Period!
I would have been irritated by what happened. If the child was 4 or younger I would understand their wanting to touch it. And expect the parent to prevent a repeat of the incident.
A child over the age of 4 is old enough to know better as long as they were taught better.
I have been known to make hasty comments in anger as well so that I can not judge.
Please note that this is just MHO! No offense is meant to anyone. We all have different ways to live our lives.

You COULD forget to send invitations to some.....
Debi and other CCers, your thoughts on someone taking an element off a cake? And then throwing it away?

I'm with Debi on this one! Some people just have some b***s don't they?

Sometimes I think our gene pool is polluted.

What a dummy! I feel your rage! NO CAKE FOR YOU!!!!

OMG! I was just asked to do an awesome cake (don't know what I'm gonna do yet) for our upcoming family reunion and now I'm SCARED!!!! I'm pretty sure our gene pool IS polluted...but I've seen the parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins all lay the smack down when kids are doing something they shouldn't. Us rednecks don't let the kids get away with nothin'!

jonahsmom,
How do I "lay the smack down" on a grandmother? She isn't a kid. I'm still stunned by her ........ arrogance? brazenness? nerve?

We solve this in our family by surrounding said cake with candles , most young children are taught not to touch candles/fire . The child could become slightly burned if they reach across to touch so most parents pay very close attention to candles because duh their kid could be burned. Now not to sound like I am trying to burn a child , I do however insure that all candles are soy so the wax is not hot if turned over. I am also sure that votives with those battery operated candles can do the same

TOMAY, my kids would just blow out the candles when they were little. Now they know better but for a while they thought any candle was like a birthday candle and should be blown out.

Nope, candles won't do it, they'd blow them out. And razor-wire just isn't festive.

When I left the only wedding cake I've ever done ( a huge beast the fed 300) I was so nervous that some one was going to touch it that I took about 15 chairs away from the tables and made a "wall' around the cake table. I was still sweating bullets about it's safety.
The bride had EIGHT (under 10) kids in her wedding party and they were showing up just as I pulled away. They were angels and kept their hands to themselves. Very impressive.

Mommachris

Remember, earlier in this forum, the "kid" I mentioned who took the chocolate kisses off the peanut butter blossom cookies on Christmas Eve?
Well, his now-grown son took the fondant roses off the reunion cake yesterday! The cake had already been served, so I really didn't care at that point. I tought it was ironic because I said he was well-mannered at the time (on that long-ago Christmas Eve).
It's the ADULTS in my family who seem to be causing the problems, not the kids.

It is different regarding adults, I totally get that, but whether it's kids or adults, we have no problem letting someone know what they're doing is wrong or stupid. By "lay the smack down" I pretty much mean what indydebi said. If someone is doing something stupid, we have no worries about letting them know it. We all actually use the term "lay the smack down" quite often...to each other....as adults. Probably makes us even more "rednecky."