Ballistic!

This white man has in times past reflected with bemusement upon the antics of over-zealous primary school parents in all sorts of situations. Today provided another lowlight in the annals of parents behaving badly much to the embarrasment of her son and everyone else present. The first day of summer saw Mackellar Primary School's Prep to Grade 2 classes begin their swimming program at Flippers Swim Centre in Sydenham. The first task for the small group of four besieged swim instructors is to group all the kids in accordance with the standard of their swimming skills. A short test on each kid quickly and effectively sorts out the porpoises from the pilchards and everyone moves on from there. Well usually everyone moves on...

One young Grade 1 boy, who looked reasonably competent in the water, appeared to have been mistakenly grouped in a lesser skilled group. This didn't please his Mum at all who started fuming in the parents area glassed off from the main pool deck. "What's he doing in that group?! He's better than those other kids! I don't pay big fees for his private swimming tuition for this crap! Change his grouping now or he won't be back tomorrow! You'd better do something or I'm really going to go ballistic!!" Honestly I think everyone feared seeing what 'ballistic' would entail! I guess there must be degrees of difference between merely ballistic and seriously BALLISTIC! Anyway, all the most venomous invective just continued to pour out of this poor kid's mum in one big spiteful rage-filled splurge! She was really flippin' out at Flippers!

This white man isn't sure what happened next - he decided to beat a hasty retreat to the safety of his car where the cricket on ABC radio provided a better form of entertainment. But it still causes me to question why and how some parents totally lose all semblance of self-control when it comes to trivialities involving their kids. Obviously it's not trivial to them but even so - you'd think there'd be a less loudly extraverted form of protest possible? Oh well - each to their own...if only they could keep it to their own!