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Free-Range Kids

Fire Department Cancels Easter Egg Hunt Because Parents Trampled Each Other in Rush to Make Sure Every Kid Got One

Not getting an egg: the end of the world?

Lenore Skenazy | 4.12.2017 11:35 AM

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Egg
Alexander Shalamov

While Christmas has long had the Grinch, at last, Easter has its own cartoonishly rotten holiday-ruiners: the parents in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. Their outrageous Easter egg-grabbing behavior has caused the town's volunteer fire department to cancel its decades-old Easter egg hunt.

"We know that the majority of our community is not the problem but we can't risk injury to children because certain individuals can't control themselves," read a post on the Norco Fire Company's Facebook page.

Apparently "certain individuals" are so desperate to ensure their kids get a gosh darn egg (which they don't believe the child is capable of procuring for him or herself) that they run rabidly through the egg-laden field, trampling less important species—grass, dandelions, other people's children—in the process.

The spokesman for the hunt, Deputy Chief Chuck Hipple told the Reading Eagle (Reading being a town, not a bird who reads): "They go in there and they push and shove. Everybody just runs out there and they knock people over. "

Don't these egg-pluckers understand that:

  • They could just bring their own eggs and put them right in front of their own kid?
  • We're talking about Easter Eggs, not the very last vial of polio antibodies?
  • Their kids are going to turn out just horrible?

In this era of everybody-gets-a-trophy mania, maybe we have to also promise parents that every child gets an egg.

Hipple does hope to reinstate the game in another year or so, after what can only be called a well-deserved parental time-out.

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Lenore Skenazy is president of Let Grow, a nonprofit promoting childhood independence and resilience, and founder of the Free-Range Kids movement.

Free-Range KidsParenting
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  1. Libertarian   8 years ago

    Further evidence of the coarsening of society, and the growing lack of respect for fellow citizens.

    1. Adans smith   8 years ago

      I always look forward to the egg hunt,seeing my orphans hunt for their Easter treat before they go back to work..It's only topped by the candy cane chase at Christmas . I deduct the 1 egg and candy cane,of course

      1. Brandybuck   8 years ago

        You haven't met your quota of easter eggs, johnny. Now get back out there and get me my eggs!

      2. MarkLastname   8 years ago

        It's most fun when you don't actually put any eggs out there.

        1. SQRLSY One   8 years ago

          I think that the solution here is for colleges to start offering 4-year degrees in Egg-Huntology (needs fancier name, of course, but my brain is weak today).
          Only board-certified parents with a degree and license in Egg-Huntology need apply!
          WHAT is the better name for Egg-Huntology?!?! Ovovenarilogy, is that fancy enough? Can I declare myself a Professor of Ovovenarilogy, and collect endowments and grants and subsidies from Government Almighty?

          1. mad.casual   8 years ago

            WHAT is the better name for Egg-Huntology?!?!

            Ovarian Forensics. Sign me up.

            1. MarkLastname   8 years ago

              "Excuse me ma'm, I believe you have something I'm looking for 'up there...'"

        2. Scarecrow Repair & Chippering   8 years ago

          Or 1 fewer than the number of children.

    2. Entelechy   8 years ago

      All

  2. Diane Reynolds (Paul.)   8 years ago

    Equal outcomes kill.

    1. mad.casual   8 years ago

      One pastel-painted grenade with the ring pinned to the ground would solve the whole problem.

      1. Diane Reynolds (Paul.)   8 years ago

        That would kill the kids. It's the parents that need the lesson.

        1. mad.casual   8 years ago

          I don't think we need the kids of parents who don't learn lessons delivered via hand grenade blast.

          1. SQRLSY One   8 years ago

            Eggs-actly!!!

  3. Brandybuck   8 years ago

    Amazing how parents have ruined childhood. First it's Little League parents punching the umpires, now it's trampling the neighbors kids to get an egg.

    1. mattcid   8 years ago

      The problems are similar. Parents get very competitive seeing their tots in t-ball, egg hunts, what have you. When the kids are NOT competitive it drives the parents up a wall and bad behavior happens.

  4. timeconsumer   8 years ago

    I'm surprised it wasn't cancelled due to concerns that momentary loss of visual contact with a child could result in abduction. Or that the eggs could be compromised by nefarious characters putting syringes inside them. The possible danger of those situations outweighs a minor character-building episode involving the feet of an obese housewife briefly encountering the back of a child's head.

  5. Stormy Dragon   8 years ago

    Note: Reading is pronounced "redding" not "reeding"

    1. $park? leftist poser   8 years ago

      Redding Rainbow?

    2. MarkLastname   8 years ago

      Of course; in order for Pennsylvania hicks to know how reading is pronounced, they'd have to know how to read first.

  6. Rhywun   8 years ago

    I heard on the DNC Channel (i.e. NY1) this morning that Trump's administration is in such disarray that they might not have an egg hunt this year.

    1. Rat on a train   8 years ago

      Faberge couldn't make the delivery date?

    2. MarkLastname   8 years ago

      Wow; cutting the egg hunt. We're practically a night watchman state now. Are you happy, libertarians?

  7. LoneWaco   8 years ago

    Nothing I looked forward to more as a kid than suiting up and finding a hard boiled egg that had been sitting out in the sun.

    1. HazelMeade   8 years ago

      Pretty sure they use chocolate eggs or plastic ones filled with candy.

  8. $park? leftist poser   8 years ago

    We know that the majority of our community is not the problem but we can't risk injury to children because certain individuals can't control themselves,

    "And you know who you are, Betty, Candace, Danielle, and Francine."

  9. AlmightyJB   8 years ago

    If you're not first, you're last

    1. $park? leftist poser   8 years ago

      When you play the egg hunt, you find eggs or you die.

  10. Fist of Etiquette   8 years ago

    Jesus is probably rolling over in His grave.

    1. $park? leftist poser   8 years ago

      Looking for an egg?

    2. HazelMeade   8 years ago

      Presumably if you observe Easter, you're supposed to believe he was resurrected and assumed bodily into heaven. So, no grave involved. Or even a corpse.

  11. pan fried wylie   8 years ago

    My first memory is getting trampled at an easter egg hunt. By the other children, not the adults, though.

  12. I am the 0.000000013%   8 years ago

    The egg council forgot to grease a politician

  13. oncefallendotcom   8 years ago

    This isn't a cancellation but an eggs-ecution. Perhaps it was an eggs-ecutive decision.

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