Parents may love egg hunts more than their kids

Kids like Easter egg hunts, but I’m beginning to think parents like them more.


I came to this conclusion after watching the Stevens Point/Plover Area Breakfast Optimists Club’s 26th Annual Easter Egg Hunts Saturday, April 7, at Pfiffner Pioneer Park in Stevens Point.

I attended the event so my 7-year-old son, Braden, could participate in the hunt for his age category, but also to take some pictures for The Gazette. I’ve been at past ones, although I never paid close attention to the parents like I did this year.

Waiting for the 0 to 4 hunt to begin, parents and kids took up every bit of space and then some surrounding the egg rink. Occasionally, a child broke through the rope barriers and started collecting eggs early, but in every case either the parent or a volunteer stopped them. As these were younger children, that type of behavior isn’t only acceptable, but kind of expected. What kid wants to wait when they are so readily available?

As a result, there were a lot of crying kids. The really young ones didn’t understand what all the commotion was about, and the older ones just wanted to collect eggs.

Crying kids meant unhappy parents. Several of the ones around me said the organizers should start it early so the kids can have their fun. I silently disagree with them, though, as it’s not fair to parents who don’t arrive early, and because the announcer talked about all the sponsors for the event – businesses and organizations that generously donated items so it can happen. They definitely deserved a few seconds of the parents’ time.

Once the event started, parents and kids collected eggs in a matter of a minute. Taking photos was difficult due to the shear amount of people.

The 4 to 6 hunt featured the craziest parents. I observed some telling their children to ignore the rule about not using baskets or bags to collect eggs. After the hunt began, some parents went into the ring with their kids, despite being told that was not allowed.

The announcer took notice of this blatant rule breaking. “Will the lady in pink please get out of the ring,” he nicely asked. After she didn’t comply, he repeated himself. After repeating it for more times, he finally said, “Will an adult volunteer please get the lady in pink out of the ring.”

I looked for the lady in pink, as I thought she would make for a good photo on the “What did you expect for a buck?” page, but I couldn’t find her. There were too many people around me, coaching their kids.

The 7 to 8 hunt was the most civil, and also the quickest. That’s probably because parents could coach their kids more easily, much like I did for my son. I told Braden to not be selective about the eggs he chooses, as he has been in the past.

To my surprise, he wasn’t. Any egg he came across he collected. Another parent told him prior to the start to tuck in his shirt and put the eggs down it. He followed these instructions perfectly and came away with a bunch of eggs, most of which contained jelly beans but two of which contained restaurant freebies.

Such freebies can explain parents’ crazy behavior. Had I known such great prizes were in those eggs, I would have made my kid practice prior to coming to the event, as I believe he could have gotten a lot more eggs.
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Originally published in The Portage County Gazette on Friday, April 13, 2012.