At this point, we’ve been around town enough to make some obersvations about the people around us and one of them is this: children are everywhere! Whenever we go out shopping, to restaurants, or even just walking around, we see tons of kids all over the place. Seriously, I’m beginning to wonder if there aren’t more people here under the age of 12 than over (at least in our area). Now, usually the prescence of youth isn’t something particularly noteworthy, but we’re starting to feel a somewhat bombarded by the little buggers. Most families we see have at least two kids, and we almost never see a couple walking down the street without a little pipsqueak in tow.

They’re all as cute as can be, of course. Too bad the parents seem pretty nonchalant about the whole “supervision” thing. Katie was waiting outside the “dollar store” (that’s what we call it, at least) the other day watching some kid with his tricycle, and in those ten or fifteen minutes she couldn’t figure out where his parents were. He was just chilling out, going up and down the ramp. It seems like kids here are allowed to roam free; even children as young (to our eyes) as 4 or 5 wander the sidewalks unaccompanied, or sit and eat ice cream while mom and dad are off shopping. It’s also acceptable to pick up someone’s kid and tickle them, hold them, etc—even for total strangers on the street. A little odd, from our point of view.

Perhaps having a large family makes each child just a little less precious, but I find that hard to believe. We’ve heard that parents tend to spoil their kids at home because they feel guilty for pushing them so hard in school and their various extracurricular activities (like learning English from foreigners like us, ca-ching!). Competition is fierce here, and it’s understandable that parents want to find at least some way to keep their kids happy, but man, shorten that leash a bit. It’s starting to make us nervous.