JEDDAH, 22 September 2005 — So I am seated in an auditorium in a family park on the Corniche. It’s my day-off, and the press event that brought me here is more than three hours late starting. It’s almost midnight.
The PR man, for the past hour-and-a-half, has been trying exceptionally hard to cater to my every whim. Thanks to his efforts, my sense of self-importance is beginning to inflate. VIP doesn’t get any better than this.
So now, I am sitting front and center, “So you can take the best pictures,” the PR man tells me. He really is trying hard.
Ten minutes before the show, a five-year-old boy accompanied just by two nannies comes up to us and simply states his family name. I recognize it as that of the family that owns the park.
There was no “please”, no greeting and no smile — nothing like that — just the family name.
Neither the PR man nor I knew what to make of him, but it was clear that he wanted the entire row for himself. The PR man ignored him and urged me to remain seated.
Then again, this child growled his family name at us, but this time with a more insistent strain in his voice.
Sensing that he wasn’t getting his way, the boy ran off followed by both nannies, now in hot pursuit.
Moments later, he was back with his slightly older sister, and now, three nannies. “I am a (from that family) and the front two rows are for us. You have to move.”
A few choice words came to mind, and I felt a lecture rising in my throat, but suppressed them both, as a discussion about manners and civility with these two, I was not prepared for — especially when the show meant more for them than it did for me,
Turning to the PR man, I couldn’t help but chuckle at the predicament he was in. On one hand he had a journalist and photographer, on an official visit from the Middle East’s leading English language daily; and on the other, he had the owners’ tyrannical kids.
Much to the kid’s credit, it worked, and we decided to let the kids have their way and moved.
Five minutes later, the parents, more kids, more relatives and more nannies filed in. For every child, there was a nanny. The parents sat on one end of the row, and the children on the other — all separated by nannies. Their large number indeed filled the two front rows — so the kids did have a point and possibly reservations, and if not, well, they did own the park after all, right?
Seated three rows back and stage left, I found myself more entranced with the little dictators now seated front and center, than with the show. These little darlings in a matter of seconds had spoken volumes about their inner family workings and upbringing, than a one-on-one interview with their influential father would have ever revealed.
Your children, in their dealings with others, speak volumes about you. Do you know what they are saying to others by their actions?
Don’t count on the nannies to tell you either.
