The Little Rascals 

“Boys will be boys” is often quoted to give kids a green light to be loud and rude in public. There comes a time, though, when immature actions are simply unacceptable. For instance, disrespectful behavior, intentional bullying, and obscene language are visible signs of bad manners, especially in the presence of someone old enough to be a grandmother. This afternoon, at the resort, there were three boys I would guess between the ages of 8 and 12. They were congregating around the public showers made available for rinsing the sand off your feet at the edge of the beach. I could see they were on task at first, so I waited patiently for my turn at one of the four nozzles. Soon it became apparent they had no intention of leaving and had gone from rinsing the sand off their feet to playing in the water streams. I inched my way around to one side and asked if they would mind me using the water for a moment. The oldest boy began to spit at the other two boys, which resulted in some horseplay that involved boogie boards. Still, I rinsed my feet. At that point, this same kid dropped the “F” bomb, proving to himself he was one tough cookie. The smallest boy immediately responded by saying, “Watch your mouth.” As you can imagine, it only inflamed the culprit into toughening up with more shoving, spitting, and swearing. As I finished my task, I looked at the young brown-eyed boy, smiled and said, “Thank you.” His face broke into a smile. How refreshing it was to see such respect and manners coming from the boy who clearly should have seen the older boys as role models. 

14 thoughts on “The Little Rascals ”

  2. Wonderful post Gail…My word so there are rascals even in Hawaii 🙂
    I often wonder why, why is that bad behaviour necessary? what are they trying to prove? to be big stuff?….questions, questions…but at least you got that smile from the younger boy. Manners do exist. 🙂

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