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....

[mrs tiggywinkle]

But it begins at home, right? If a child continually screams and acts up at the home supper table, who's to say he/she won't do that in public. Training begins early.

[B-Chan]

Huh? The pho place my wife and I eat at on Friday nights is run by a very nice American family of Vietnamese ancestry, and their little girls run all over the restaurant while we're eating. It doesn't bother us; the kids make a little noise, and the toddler sometimes fixes us with a baleful stare, but they never interfere with our meal in any way. Of course, the fact that they are both super cute doesn't hurt!

[MikeGranby]

Good behavior at home is a necessary condition for good behavior in public. It is not, unfortunately, a sufficient one!!!

[mrs tiggywinkle]

I'm not following you..

[HawaiianGecko]

"I ended up trying to stick the pad of post-its back together so we could use them."

Wow, you guys must buy some really expensive post-its.

Seems a trivial price to pay to help a paying client regardless of how thoughtless he may have been while filling out some paperwork. Why didn't you have an aide run the paperwork to the father's office or home?  Who's idea was it to have the father come to your office?

I can vividly remember many times when I'd get a call for some signatures and managed to have my kids with me. Usually one of the receptionists would immediately take charge of the kids without asking. Many times they just sat bouncing on the knee of one of the partners while we all exchanged lies and generally did our business. Typically a couple of legal pads were forfeited. Other times a couple of dry erase markers and a white board were tossed into the volcano of sacrifice.

 

[The Toll]

It's weird just something my wife and I noticed. We can go to Asian restaurants and be surrounded by families with well behaved children. It's very nice.

[the OlLine Rebel]

Actually 1 could see the "OP" as ironically exhibiting the way discipline should be handled. Serious threat (not the weak-voiced sing-songy "no, Donny, no, stop that now......"). Then a whacking.


BTW, the poster is a female.

[Xenalyte]

Is that the latest label for the child-free? Count me in!

[CatoRenasci]

And that's the whole problem. What is reasonable? ...As to choosing the right place, if they have high chairs, patrons can expect to have kids misbehaving.

I'm not sure I quite agree. Some places have high chairs because they welcome kids, have children's menus and cater to families with children, other places have a couple of high chairs or a booster seat or two as an accomodation to their patrons, but don't court children. Depends on the situation as we used to say at the Artillery School.

Even in a child-friendly place, I'd expect the kids to be enjoying themselves, perhaps a bid messy and a little loud, but not to be running around or keeping sustained high volume without parental guidance. As you go up the scale, of course, your expectations increase. By the time our kids could be taken anywhere at 10 or so, they were expected to, and did, sit without excess fidgeting, speak in normal tones of voice, carry on a conversation (and know what to do when the table turned), select appropriate items from an adult menu (with suggestions), select the appropriate utensils for what they were eating, and to make few, if any, mistakes in table manners.

[brittmac]

And bless your heart. It's people like you who make parenting just a wee bit easier.

[MizSterious]

"They learned it at home, so we didn't have to worry about it in public."

Bingo! I do recall that as a kid, I didn't get away with doing stuff at home that lots of kinds now do in public, at restaurants, movies, or stores. But we knew when we went out for shopping, etc., we'd better be on our very best behavior, will all the "yes ma'ams" and "thank you ma'ams" we could muster.

[steve-b]

I think the difference is, if other people see you TRYING to control your child, or if you are just letting them run wild.

*** DING DING DING *** No more calls; we have a winner!

(What really frosts people is when attempts to bring the problem to the parents' attention are ignored or rebuffed with an accusation that the person trying to get a bit of peace "hates kids".)

[Texas Mom]

It isn't the children who have the problem, it's their parents. I have seen children act like little hellions and their parents are oblivious to what they are doing.

[sasha123]

Maybe it's the way children are raised, maybe each child is different. Thank God, believe it or not mine has not broken a single dish or glass, his toys last forever because he treats them with respect. The toys that do get broken are when a particular friend or two comes over and is plain destructive. I don't understand this behavior, I am left baffled why some children are so destructive. They come over and break his stuff. (trust we've had some talks). I make a joke his destructive friends are the only way I can get rid of some of his toys. They add up because they stay in great condition. I have always told him, I understand accidents (spills, etc.),but I don't have tolerance for doing things on purpose. I don't want my son to feel bad if he does something accidently. He's a typical boy, but he has sense. When it comes to traveling - he puts me to shame. I'm the fidgety one...lol.

[mrs tiggywinkle]

**I think the difference is, if other people see you TRYING to control your child, or if you are just letting them run wild.**

Bingo.

[pollyannaish]

I agree. I worked for a while in an office where we often had clients with children in to go over plans.

I had a stash of materials for just those occasions, including little things the kids could take home with them. The boss would go over the plans and estimates with the clients and I would immediately take charge of the kids and go play for a bit. One of the favorite things was "building stuff" with all the pvc pipe and fittings out back.

We called it customer service and we got a LOT committed customers as a result. Children are part of our world and part of the business world.

While I heartily agree that parents need to do a better job of discipline, there is an attitude that all children should be completely out of sight that starts to really grate on me.

[steve-b]

As noted earlier in the thread, this slang term has evolved over the years. In this context, it refers to people who simply "breed" but are not real parents (presumably because they are adults only biologically, not mentally).

[antceecee]

I have to agree with you on that. If establishments are going to ask children to behave with "indoor voices" then the same goes for obnoxious loud adults.

[brittmac]

I agree as well. In fact, this is one of those situations where I like to remind the world of potential clients that lawyers are still in the customer service business. Sometimes they forget that, and sometimes their staffs forget it, but I find the better ones are usually the ones who remember where their bread is buttered.

[steve-b]

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???

What you do know is whether the parents are making an honest attempt to corral the kids and teach them to behave better next time, or not. Repeated exposure to the latter is what produces the slow-burn hostility.