KIDS ON A LEASH

I was walking down the hall of a hospital, a small hospital as most go and I spotted a man with his toddler child and he had the child on a leash! Not only did that catch my attention but as they walked the tether between child and dad made a pretty good barricade, like a piece of tape
POLICELINEDONOTCROSSPOLICELINE... and took up most of the hallway forcing me and others to walk way over to one side, and dad, it seemed, thought nothing of it.

"Here boy."

Oh, they try to make the kid leashes look like backpacks or any thing else but a leash, but with my sharp 20/100 vision I spotted it right away. A leash by any other... well you know the rest.

"Here boy. Heal."

I couldn't help but wonder why a leash, and the only answers that came to my mind were that he just didn't want the interaction of holding the child's hand, or he was just lazy and didn't want to chase after the child. Now I have seen children on leashes before, but it has been awhile. For some reason and in our current world of child priorities this struck me as a little inhumane. I'm not sure where dad thought the child would run off to but non-the-less there the child was on the end of that leash. In my day I would have let the kid bounce from wall to wall, catching him on the rebound hoping he would burn up some energy bring him closer to that treasured nap time.

"Here boy. Heal. Sit."

I guess I'm old fashioned. I believe in good old human contact. When my children were toddlers I, or their mother, held their hand while walking, or we carried them! Ya carried them, even when they smelled like poop. It's no wonder today's kids grow up feeling detached from their parents.

" Here boy. Heal. Sit. Lay down."

Perhaps there are some who have not evolved far from our canine friends. Or they just think; if it works for dogs then it works for me. What's the next step a kennel? Oh ya, about that play pen.

"Here boy. Heal. Sit. Lay down. STAY!"
"Good boy."