Somebody help me understand.

Somebody please explain to me the mentality of the parent who thinks rules are for everyone but them.

You have to cross a busy road to get to our elementary school. It is the only road in and out of our neighborhood, the speed limit is 25 mph but most people go about 40 MPH. For years now there has been nothing on the opposite side of that road but acres of empty field. Now however, there is a brand new, bright, and shiny elementary school.

There is a cross walk, but you have to walk to the top of the hill to get to it. Now granted, you have to walk to the top of the hill regardless, but for some reason, it seems unreasonable to most that you have to walk to the top of the hill to cross the street. People want to cross the street at the bottom of the hill. They think that this should be ok. It's not!

So, my job is to stand at the end of our street with an orange vest, and a flag and make sure that people are using the cross walks. Most are annoyed but compliant when I remind them that our actions set an example for our children and that crossing at the cross walk is always the safest place to cross, because there is a stop sign there, so people will stop anyway, and on top of that, there are women with bright vests and stop signs that help our children safely across.

One mother this morning started to cross, I reminded her that we need to please use the cross walks because that is the safest place to cross. She said she wasn't going to. I was amazed, she looked me right in the eye and said "I decide what is best for my daughter" then she crossed the busy road right in front of me.

I simply do not understand this. Is it going to be best for her daughter when she is hit by a car and dies, or is handicapped for the rest of her life? Is it going to be best for her daughter to teach her at a very young age to have no respect for the rules or the adults who's job it is to enforce them? Is it going to be best for her daughter to learn that she can do what she wants, when she wants, no matter what?

Two years ago on my way to school I was driving through a neighborhood and came across the scene of an accident. A little first grade girl had decided to cross the street a block before the cross walk so that she could walk to school with a friend. She was struck by a teen age boy driving a mini van. I came to that place just moments after the fire engine arrived and I watched them carefully lift her limp head and place a neck brace around her before I was able to drive on. That image haunts my mind and I can still feel that sick dread in my stomach.

I have no idea what happened to that little girl. I don't know if she lived, or if she died. I have prayed for her family.

I hope I don't have to pray for the family of the little girl who's mother taught her to cross the street in an unsafe place.

Please please please if you have children, teach them the proper way to cross a street and to always be safe. You have to climb the hill anyway, teach them to do it the right way.

Say a little prayer that the city will listen to us and finally send an officer out to help us enforce the cross walk use and to ticket the parents who are so cavalier with their childrens lives as to cross a major road where people drive on average at least 20 mph over the speed limit without the assistance of a cross walk and a crossing guard.

I pray that no one ever has to plan a funeral because they were too lazy to climb the hill.