Easter Egg Hunt Canceled Due to Pushy Parents
Aggresive behavior on the part of parents last year spurred the decision to scrap this year's event.
| Posted Monday, March 26, 2012, at 5:00 PM
Photo by Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images.
An Easter egg hunt in Colorado has been canceled this year due to bad behavior on the part of participants' parents. Really.
The Associated Press reports that organizers of a public egg hunt in Old Colorado City have canceled the annual event because overzealous "helicopter" parents were too eager to help their kids secure an egg at last year's children-only event.
Last year, there were technical difficulties that made it so organizers had no place to hide the plastic eggs. The AP with more on the chaos that ensued:
... [T]housands of eggs were put in plain view on the grass. A bullhorn to start the event malfunctioned, so Baalman, master of ceremonies, used a public address system that was hard to hear.
That miscommunication was seen as a green light by some misbehaving parents to jump in along with the kids, only spurring more competitive parents to join. With all the pushiness, the hunt was over in mere seconds.
One man who seems to fit the hovering helicopter parent archetype told the AP about attending the egg hunt back in 2009: "You have all these eggs just lying around, and parents helping out. You better believe I'm going to help my kid get one of those eggs. I promised my kid an Easter egg hunt, and I'd want to give him an even edge."
You can read the full AP story here.
