On a blustery April 11, I pushed my 3-year-old daughter to Mercerdale Park for what I expected to be a fun 10 or 15 minutes of watching my daughter and a hundred other children meandering about the grass, picking up Easter eggs and candy. But what my daughter and I experienced was not a happy Easter, but a nightmarish chaotic dash of adults rushing out into the field, snatching up eggs and candy for their children, oblivious to the fact that they were pushing, bumping and shoving other children out of their way to fill their own child’s Easter basket.
What I saw at the Mercer Island Easter egg hunt intended for children ages 1 to 5 was a bunch of adults crowding out everyone behind them and picking up eggs right out of the line of sight of other children. My daughter was left standing there, holding her Easter egg basket and crying as every egg she saw was quickly snatched up by an adult. By only five minutes into the hunt, every piece of candy and every Easter egg was gone. As my daughter and I wandered on the field looking in vain for some remaining eggs, I could see that nothing remained. What was worse is that of the three pieces of candy which my daughter managed to pick up, two had been trampled by adults into the mud. We wove our way out of the crowds of adults and their children on the grass and passed many a child with baskets full to the brim with eggs, probably numbering anywhere from 20 to 30 or more eggs. My daughter looked at her three small, dirt-covered pieces of candy and back to the other child’s basket and began to cry again. My heart broke as I consoled my 3-year-old little girl and told her the Easter Bunny would visit her at home and leave her more eggs and chocolate.
The adults at the 1 to 5-year-old Easter egg hunt on Mercer Island should be ashamed of themselves for the callous behavior they exhibited as they gathered eggs for their children. They displayed the worst kind of obliviousness, and I would imagine that it was not just my daughter who suffered. There were other children like my daughter who had no eggs, no candy and were basically pushed out of the way so that these parents could gather a bunch of candy and eggs for their children.
I can only say that if anyone actually reads this, and you were one of those parents on the field oblivious to the 3-year-olds you shoved past, shame on you. Trampling over 3-year-olds to get your child 25 eggs while those same 3-year-olds got nothing is just pathetic.
To the organizers of this Easter egg hunt: you also should be ashamed of yourselves. This was one of the worst planned events I think I have had the displeasure of attending. I will not attend next year, and I will suggest to all I see not to attend. Not only that, I think I will petition the city to no longer allow you to use Mercerdale Park for this ill-planned event, since it seems that it was not for the children anyway.
I guess I was mistaken when I thought that most people around here were considerate and kind. Turns out that many of you are just a bunch of inconsiderate jerks who would not hesitate to shove a 3-year-old out of your way to get your child the most Easter eggs.
John McClure
