My Rant About Parents and Cellphones

So working at the Mall of America as a ride operator is a great job for the most part. I get paid to push a button all day. Easy job. Working on kiddie rides, I can't even begin to count the amount of parents I come into contact with every day. Lately, I have gotten so frustrated with parents and their cellphones. I have to constantly get on the microphone to tell parents to put away their cellphones while riding rides with their kids. Some of them are taking pictures and I'll get to that, but the parents who are so tied to the grown up world that they can't keep their phone in their pocket to ride a ride and watch their  child smile are disgusting! What kind of a parent ignores their child so they can check facebook, let alone ignores their kid while on riding on a machine operated by college students! I'm responsible and I do my job well, but parents come on! Your kid is only a kid once. Enjoy those smiles and giggles as they ride. Laugh with them. I watch kids look to their parents with a huge smile on their face only to be disappointed because mommy/daddy is too busy on their phone to even see their child looking at them. I know I'm not the first person and I won't be the last to complain about this, but it bothers me.

The other really annoying thing is those parents who are too busy taking pictures of their kid to actually enjoy the ride. I want to just scream at them "stop trying to capture the moment and live it instead!". I bet if you weren't shoving a camera in the poor kids face you wouldn't have to tell johnny or susie to smile and I bet they would smile at you like you're an angel for taking them on fun rides and giving them so much loving attention. Kids aren't going to care about a picture of them as a 1 year old on the carousel at Nickelodean Universe, but they are going to care about the relationship you build with them so that when they're 20 or 30 and they have their own kids and they take them to the mall someday they're going to remember how much fun it was being with their parents and they are going to give the gift of parental adoration and attention to their own children.

That's all I've got to say, so parents, get off your cellphone!