Do not try this at home!

I do not hold myself up as a parenting expert. Since I have no children, I tend to keep my mouth shut. However, I saw something this weekend that dismayed me.

I drove onto campus (a rare event) and passed by a house where the father was blowing leaves into piles for his children to play in. (The fact that he was using a blower "borrowed" from my crew without my knowledge didn't occur to me until later.) What disturbed me were 1) that the piles (and the children) were in the street and 2) that the mother called the dog to come off the street but not the children! One of the children said, "There's a car behind you," but at that point I could have mowed down at least four of the five.

I swear. There should be a testing and permitting process involved before parenthood. Honestly. Something more difficult than "Put Tab A into Slot B".