i wonder if as kids this was happening but we didn't notice it until as adults
I may not speak for everybody in this forum, but as an 18 year old "kid," I can still remember a bit from my very early childhood and beginning days of Disney.
I can say that when i was very little, i never really noticed the grownups around me as much as i would now... age difference, looks, appearance, how they acted... a grown up was a grown up to me. I never bothered to actually notice how they would act, nor care to converse with them. The only grownup that i learned to pay attention to was whoever was in charge of my group or a cast member who's giving out instructions. This in no way meant not to respect other people though. At an early age i was specifically taught not to bother others around me, a very important thing to learn living in Orlando, FL and frequenting Disney multiple times.
Honestly, i don't remember caring much to "Weed out" rudeness as an infant...but I'm pretty sure it must've been there. The only time that i could ever classify rudeness on another person's behavior with my past memories was only because in the sequence that i remembered within my mind, i always thought it was my mother's fault as a child, when in reality it was the other persons.
You see, i have this memory of very long ago... I must've been 10, 11 at the very most. Where I was sitting with my mother on the curb around main street waiting for the afternoon parade near the castle. I was not a social butterfly to say the least, haha. I avoided contact with other folks, especially strangers. You see, that's why my mother would always make me feel so uneasy at times when we went to disney...being a castmember, she'd always try to help people out or give advice or shout some sort of friendly comment to people here and there (in her horribly chopped up spanish mother accent). As a kid, i was naive enough to assume that my mother was causing commotion for no reason. But i digress...anyways, we were sitting on the curb, and when the announcement came that the show was just around the corner, out of nowhere, these couple of people a bit away from us who were sitting on the curb with the rest caused this dreaded chain reaction of standing up on the curb, which is sometimes the worse thing one can do to ruin everybody else's view of the show...especially when everybody began to uneasilly stand up because they didn't want the person next to them ruin their first glimpse of the show.
It got around to the people right to the left of us standing up, and my mother stays seated on the curb and tells the kid next to me "hey, you don't have to stand up to see it, don't worry! sit down!" The kid looked maybe a bit older than me, but not by much, and what he did was tug on his father's shorts standing next to him. My mum just repeated the same thing again to the guy, except at mid-sentence the man replies to her "shut your mouth, lady."
As a kid at that moment, the only reason i bothered to remember that time was because it made me think "You see what you did mom? That's what you get." As if i were reprimanding my mother for her actions, how her "Behavior" ultimately compiled up to this event that gave her what she deserved.
I was the stupidest little boy in the world for thinking my mother was doing something wrong for joyfully (what i thought as a child to be pesteringly) asking the boy and his father to sit down, and assuming that the man had all the right to ask my mother to shut her mouth.
Now being much older and independent, it seems as if my mother's actions have really rubbed off on me. Whenever i go to Disney I come with the mindset that I was really blessed as a child to know this park so well that I have been able to see everything, do everything and enjoy everything as a kid... now it's time to make sure others are able to do the same. I'm no Cast Member, i wish i could be (but i will be moving away for college soon), but i know very well now that of course there are rude people in the park... I've had many experiences with them, that i have... it's explainable for some occasions, it really is when i try putting myself in their shoes.
But sometimes it just makes me frown and think that on select ocassions, where it just baffles me as to why people would allow such a behavior in such a beautiful plasce, that they really don't get it.
but this last trip we did. We were at MK, lined up along Main Street sitting for the parade when we were tapped on the shoulder by a woman. She was with another woman and 3 kids. She asked us if we were leaving soon to which we said "no", we were watching the parade. We thought that was that. Next thing you know (as the crowd is building for parade time) we hear her behind us telling everyone around us that she asked us to move and we didn't, we were being ignorant and we don't even have kids so why are we even there. Folks, this went on the whole time. Finally, near the end of the parade DH turned around and told her, a) you never asked to move, just if we were leaving; b) had you asked us to give up our seats for the kids we probably would've and stood behind (have done this in the past; and c) yes we don't have kids b/c we can't have them and last time we checked there were no signs saying you had to have kids with you to be part of the magic. She just looked at us but DH felt better about it. I try to not let stuff like that bother me but she did get to me a little because it seemed she was professing it to the whole park
