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 ...
Whether she felt intimidated I can't say. She'd be the one to say, and she didn't say.
But the kid stopped kicking.
There's always one on the plane who wants to knock into the seat in front of them.
I haven't had the problem with kids knocking the seat, it's the adults or the hyper teens who knee the back of my seat I have the problem with - or pulling back on the chair when getting up. The small kids get my patience 100% compared to the others.
But, maybe you chould try and book those seats with the space in front of you. It would give the kids some extra room and room for the baby seat too).
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1590865/posts
Ah - the good old days!
95% of kids in public behave like heathens, and their parents tune them out. We'll leave a restaurant if we can't be seated away from children, not wanting to find out too late that they might be in the 5% of the well-behaved.
Thanks! I cannot wait to check this out.
LOL.
Freeriders Rule!
Honey, we need to band together and start a march for Straight Rights.
LOL -- That was a great commercial! Thanks for the link.
I have to agree with you. Or the store could wall it off so the sound is contained. It isn't reasonable for the store to provide a place for kids to play and then expect them not to make any noise while doing so.
Do I need to reproduce the original post in its entirety?
Even the excerpted portion left implicit the fact that there are moments, though fleeting, where it is impossible for us to do so.
To illustrate for the chronically obtuse (read: you), here are some examples:
1) when I stand up to let someone into their seat, I cannot hold my child's feet for approximately 30 seconds. Unless and until my armspan is increased approximately 3 fold, this is a physical limitation with which you will have to deal.
2) when I open a jar of baby food or put a straw into a juice box, I use two hands, leaving (do the math) zero hands with which to restrain a child.
3) when I reach to unbuckle my child from her carseat to hold her because she is crying, my hands are unable to restrain her kicking.
4) I realize that people such as yourself are exempted from the human frailties of defecation or bladder evacuation, but in those instances as well, where my husband (and his mere two hands) are insufficient to hold down four little feet.
5) When I rummage through the diaper bag for a toy, video, book or other distraction, my hands are momentarily occupied and unable to hold down a baby or toddler's feet.
But I suspect you're not after concrete details. You're a didactic know-it-all, hell bent on perpetuating some pecking order of parental inferiority. Good luck with that. You show promise.
My parents didn't have much of a problem with us when we were kids because they had one simple rule: Act up and we leave. We didn't want to leave because 1)it was fun going out and 2)Leaving meant a meeting with the yardstick.
We've tried. They won't let you book empty seats.
We've tried to reserve the bulkheads. We've had mild success with that (they're very coveted seats apparently). We've tried to do two and two seats, where two of us are in one row, and the other two are directly in front of the others. That still leaves one poor sucker who ends up getting kicked.
We have always bought seats for the kids, even when they were lap children (where you can hold them on your lap) to ensure that we have enough room to at least reduce or minimize the amount of disruption to others, but as was my original point, it's just almost impossible to eliminate all of it.
"We did cover the electrical outlets, though. There are too many, and that's a bit more difficult to teach."
Even when they should know better. My 13 year-old shoved an insulated paperclip into a light socket and shorted out his classroom.
But why can't Mr. Fork and Mr. Outlet be friends??? :-P
It's obvious you're doing everything you can. Some people think that kids are like robots and you can pick up the remote control and make things happen. It is obvious this must upset you alot. You're going to end up with an ulcer if you have to do this more than once a year. hang in there.
The good news is....they will grow out of it! BUT, then it will be a different issue. It will be a story to tell your boy when he's grown with his first love : ) (or with his own boy).
All the folks in my office have a basket of toys and books in their offices for the client's kids that visit.
It strikes me that some people were never kids themselves.
Next time you fly why not try and get seats at the front of the cabin?
It stopped immediately. LOL.
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