Posted on 08/15/2006 6:24:16 AM PDT by steve-b
For Cindy Nooney's 3-year-old twin boys, playing with the Thomas the Train set at their local bookstore in Southern California is a major thrill. Jack and Sam push Thomas, Arthur and friends down the track, they run around the table, jump up and down — and, of course, they squeeeaal.
Nooney expects as much in the children's section of the store. But on a recent afternoon, she was surprised by an employee who confronted her, calling her darling Jack a tyrant.
"He was a little loud but this is a children's section," says Nooney. "They run a noisy, cavernous bookstore but they don’t want kids to make any noise? It just seems ridiculous and leads me to believe that they don't want kids, they want silent kids."
The bookstore is not the only place that likes quiet, controlled children — and isn't afraid to say so. Across the nation, there are signs of a low-burning uprising against children supposedly behaving badly in public.
Eateries from California to Massachusetts have posted signs on doors and menus saying "We love children, especially when they are tucked in chairs and well behaved" or "Kids must use indoor voices." In North Carolina an online petition was started last year to establish child-free restaurants — the petition loosely compared dining with children to dining with cigarette smoke....
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
My mother says I did that to her ONE time. It was a Sunday, during Mass, following a large cocktail party my parents had hosted at our home the previous night. The priest raised the chalice and I hollered - SKOAL!
One with metal knives, forks, and spoons instead of SPORKS sealed in cellophane.
You are absolutely righ! Children are children, people are people (with all of their good and bad traits), and some 'let it rip' at the wrong times. But, not all children are as rambunctious as others. Thank God.
LOL!!
Recently, I was commenting about the weather, said the little poem:
"Spring has sprung,
Fall has fell,
Summer's here and it's hotter than (normally I say *ever*).
My younger, more impulsive child shouted "HELL!"
LOL. Yes.
I want special "strangers" or maybe their "teacher" so I can conjure up in my own house to shine the light on the kids behavior.
I often ask them...so, how would you feel if "Insert respected persons name here" could see you now?
Ha!
That's funny. Good for you. Sometimes, they need to have someone speak out, especially if their parents are wimps.
reposting this as my own description in my own words since the mods zapped my excerpt.
Although I agree with the majority of this article, how pathetic is MSNBC seeking out the obvious anti-parent lesbian for comment.
(attention mods, this is not an excerpt)
Josephine Charlton, who lives in in West Hollywood, Calif., shops in Whole Foods, and says she is overrun with “breeders”.
How obvious do you have to get?
I mean c'mon.. She's from West Hollywood, shops at Whole Foods, is unmarried and calls parents "breeders"?
The part I hate is the helpfulness factor. My children are so clean and helpful -- when they aren't at home. Argh!
"I told them if they didn't shutup I'd stuff them down the hole in the toilet."
Good! My worst was telling a little girl (who was using the WWII memorial as a sliding board) that she made the ghosts mad and they were going to follow her home.
> I don't think we are talking about
> isolated incidents. Those are expected.
How do you know? Unless you recognize the parents / children from a prior incident, how do you know if what you see in a reastaurant is isolated or not???
I work in a small law firm. One of our clients came in to fill out some paperwork and brought his 3 year old with him. (He didn't bring anything for him to play with or to keep him occupied.) The "child" proceeded to take apart a post-it pad, sheet by sheet until there was a pile of post-its on the table. I happened to walk into the conference room and saw what he was doing. I took what remained of the pad away from him. The father, sitting right there, was oblivious to the whole thing and said, "Oh, (name). That's a no, no. (then to me) I'll put it back together." SHEESH! He never "put it back together". I ended up trying to stick the pad of post-its back together so we could use them.
Problem there is you assume animals behave worse than humans. Only humans "rationALIZE" enough to ALLOW bad behavior! Sometimes we can learn from the natural animals - they don't think twice about discipline - yes, teeth, hooves, and other physical stuff! Why should we? (And that applies to raising animals in a human world, too!)
> Too many "again"(s) in there
> followed by a "finally" act.
Two verbal warnings before extraction? You can argue in good faith about whether one or none would be better, but it's hardly bad parenting to warn twice.
I have too!
You're evil...
...I like it! ;-)
> A 'nice' restaurant is a non-McD's type establishment.
I guess I'm screwing-up when I take the kids to a deli or something like that, then, which is odd considering they have kids menus, high chairs, activity evenings for toddlers etc.
I hear in Provincetown, MA that hetrosexuals are regularly called and referred to as breeders - because they are now the minority.
They don't call it "Terrible Two" for nothing. Big difference in that age and the two I had. While I can sympathize with your plight, think about all the poor people that were subjected to your child's screaming. I want to offer up a piece of "advice" just in case.
The first flight I ever took in my life was when I was 14 - I experienced pretty bad ear pain and my ears took about a half day to "pop" and I could hear again. My second flight, age 17, was from Cleveland to San Diego. I was in agony - literal agony. If I could've jumped out of that plane, I would have, that is how bad it is. From that point on, I was terrified to fly. Nothing worked - chewing gum, etc. Years later, when I was preparing to go on my honeymoon (to Hawaii!!!!), I was literally shaking in my shoes, but a good friend of mind, an M.D. explained that some people have allergy problems that, in effect, minic the pain one with a cold might feel when flying. He told me to take Sudafed before flying. I can honestly tell you that this has saved my life. I still have some discomfort, but I'm not in the horrible agony. Last year, I flew to Italy and had a terrible cold. I loaded up on cold stuff but it was the worst flight I had since I was 17 (31 years) and I am so grateful to my friend for his wonderful suggestion.
If your child ever exhibits screaming on a flight again, you might want to see if maybe the poor fella has something similar to me. It might've been just a typical two year old going bonkers, but you never know. He might've been in pain.
Anyway, FWIW.
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