This is no doubt a judgmental post and I most certainly don’t know all the facts, but these thoughts are derived from what I simply observed.

WifeGeeding and I are at our local Schlotzsky’s (funny name, serious sandwich) for lunch as we see a father and his two kids enter.  I know they are they are his kids because they call him “Dad.”

After all three of them order they sit at the table directly in front of us.  The father and the older kid gets up and takes advantage of the free Internet.  Once their order is ready I see the father and the kids get their food and place it on their table, and only the youngest boy remains seated and eats all alone for what I think is 20 minutes while the father surfs Facebook and the other son plays some sort of online game.

It’s obvious the father doesn’t care that his toasted sandwich gets cold because he remains focused on Facebook the entire time without even turning around once to check on his son that is eating alone.  The other son eventually goes to the table to bring his pizza back to the computer to finish his game playing, and the youngest is still left there eating alone, all alone, without any attention, for what I thought was 20 minutes.

Once the youngest kid finishes his meal he gets a little restless, playing on the floor, but all of this is oblivious to the father as he never turns away from Facebook to see if his son is even still in the restaurant. We eventually left but I never saw the father get to his sandwich or spend time or say anything verbally to his two kids once they got their food.

I found this entire episode heartbreaking, and hope I never adopt some of those attributes I saw in that father.  Perhaps he is a real loving father, perhaps he was having a bad day, I don’t know.  I just know what I saw, and I pray I don’t become that.