No Brats Allowed!

MSNBC ^ | 8/15/06 | Victoria Clayton

[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....

[Tax-chick]

I know dozens of "Kate" types, but Bill, Tom, and James rarely meet other boys with their names. Pat and Dan are a little more common.

[MarkL]

Sounds divine. The old timey crying rooms worked out well for everyone, and it's something they should consider for today's theaters. And maybe a "phonebooth" room for those who insist on talking on the cellphone throughout the movie? ;)

In what is IMHO, the greatest TV show ever, "Firefly," Ron Glass' character "Shepherd Book," a preacher, is lecturing the captain of the ship on his treatment of his "new" young wife that he was tricked into marrying...

"If you take sexual advantage of her, you're going to burn in a very special level of hell. A level they reserve for child molesters and people who talk at the theater."

Mark

[HungarianGypsy]

Great commentary! I will never forget going to a restaurant in one of the casino in Laughlin, Nevada. When some woman made a loud comment of, "Oh no! Not another baby!" (this is the part where people will ask, "why did you have a baby in a casino?" we were staying in Laughlin for a rodeo) Our son didn't make so much as a squeak until the end when my husband was picking him up and our son started laughing the most infectious laugh (same laugh that livened up my dad's funeral. :-)) We had compliments on our son's behavior and people in tables around us were smiling at him. Even the companions of the lady who had complained. She didn't look too happy when my husband's stepmom made a comment loud enough before we left about the behavior of "some adults".

[B-Chan]

Leonard Cohen
"The Future"

from the album THE FUTURE (1992)

Give me back my broken night
my mirrored room, my secret life
it's lonely here,
there's no one left to torture

Give me absolute control
over every living soul
And lie beside me, baby,
that's an order!

Give me crack and anal sex
Take the only tree that's left
and stuff it up the hole
in your culture

Give me back the Berlin wall
give me Stalin and St Paul
I've seen the future, brother:
it is murder.

Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
Won't be nothing
Nothing you can measure anymore
The blizzard, the blizzard of the world
has crossed the threshold
and it has overturned
the order of the soul

When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant

You don't know me from the wind
you never will, you never did
I'm the little jew
who wrote the Bible

I've seen the nations rise and fall
I've heard their stories, heard them all
but love's the only engine of survival

Your servant here, he has been told
to say it clear, to say it cold:
It's over, it ain't going
any further

And now the wheels of heaven stop
you feel the devil's riding crop
Get ready for the future:
it is murder

There'll be the breaking of the ancient
western code
Your private life will suddenly explode
There'll be phantoms
There'll be fires on the road
and the white man dancing

You'll see a woman
hanging upside down
her features covered by her fallen gown
and all the lousy little poets
coming round
tryin' to sound like Charlie Manson
and the white man dancin'

Give me back the Berlin wall
Give me Stalin and St Paul
Give me Christ
or give me Hiroshima

Destroy another fetus now
We don't like children anyhow
I've seen the future, baby:
it is murder

[Feiny]

I ....I get worse...

[Allegra]

I can't decide whether to laugh out loud or choke someone.

Well, just remember...you're not allowed to vote. ;-)

[napscoordinator]

Oh yeah. I'm with ya brother. There is no such thing as free speech when the wife is around. lol.

[Richard-SIA]

LOL!, And I mean it, best laugh I have had in a year or more!

[Jersey Republican Biker Chick]

shhhhhh, they didn't revoke them yet.....

[Scotswife]

"Well, I pray you find the answer for your son, I really do, I think many of us have experienced the same, it's not easy, that's for sure."

Thank you...we're getting a little closer - a possible language processing disorder, but tomorrow we also have the audiologist test him.
Kindergarten will be interesting this year. Sometimes kids are so much better for adults other than their parents!
Being a parent is a very humbling thing.

[Scotswife]

"It always seems that the 'EXPERTS' never have children of their own. They are experts because of their nieces and nephews. You know, the ones that aren't with them 24/7?"

Most of the "experts" who kindly give me their advice on our situation have raised one child....one perfectly behaved child. Good for them.

[brushcop]

"...Being a parent is a very humbling thing..."

Now, there's a point not often made. In our extended family we have a couple of handicapped (mentally) children, well, they are adults now and functioning quite well.

They taught us far more than we did them. They taught us to LISTEN, to WAIT for an answer, and not to ASSUME that they didn't "get it".

[Scotswife]

I've been humbled by my other kids as well.
My oldest son - who usually was trustworthy to take out in public - once went up to a woman with a noticeable mustache and said "are you a lady or a guy?"

I nearly died....but what are you going to do?

[Niuhuru]

My cat Cassie is a perfect example. Bailey, my dog, likes to indulge in 'playtime' with Cassie and Cassie usually likes to claw at the dog to keep Bailey away. That brat of a dog still thinks that Cassie is just the perfect playmate.

[RobbyS]

Accurate observation.

[Quix]

When clients insisted they couldn't find a sitter for a counseling session . . .

I'd warn them on the phone . . . either they controlled the kid(s) or I controlled the kid(s) or they'd leave.

Usually a 2 year old was in charge of the family.

[Quix]

My very brazen mother was quite free with advice to mothers of acting out children in grocery stores and elsewhere. She'd almost invariably offer to teach them how to hold their hands over the screaming kids mouth and pinch their noses until the kids decided breathing was more important than screaming . . . as my dentist had taught her at one of my very earlier years.

Or she might observe somewhat obnoxiously out loud nearby . . . "What that kid needs is several good whacks on the behind right here and now!"

or

"If you were my kid, I'd give you something to really cry about!"

She wasn't really timid at all about such things.

The church had to remove her from working in the nursery or with toddlers. Too many complaining parents.

[Quix]

I think what we are seeing is a bit of a natural backlash against the inevitible result of the abdication of discipline in our society for the last 30 years or so.

= = = =

INDEED.

[Quix]

Agreed.

[Quix]

The fact that it's a family restaurant doesn't make it okay to let little Johnny run amok and annoy the other patrons.

"...the well-to-do parents won't tolerate the little darlings embarrassing them in public."

My parents weren't well-to-do, and they would never have tolerated bad or rambunctious behavior us in public.
= = = =

My double cousin Rhonda kept her aging parents in a garage bedroom with bath. My mother's sister married to my dad's brother--Aunt 'O'--had Alzheimer's.

Sometimes they desperately needed to eat out. They'd go to a nice place with a big booth in a U shape and put 77 year old Aunty in the middle.

Otherwise, Aunty would gobble her food quickly and then roam around to the other tables sampling their food or trying to.

One time, with Aunty seated in the middle of the U, aunty started the children's favorite of slinking down to the floor to crawl out and go roaming around the other tables to sample their food and ask them if she could go home with them because her daughter treated her so mean (total fabrication).

Finally, in exasperation, Rhonda said to her mother:

"Mother, if you don't sit still and be quiet until we are finished eating, I'm going to cast the devil out of you right here in front of God and everyone!"

Aunty replied: "You wouldn't! Would you?"

Rhonda: "I certainly would!"

Aunty quieted down, amazingly.