another angry rant about out-of-control children

I just don't see why we can't all just come up with a list of rules that would let all of us Child-Free folks and Parents live together in some relative harmony. For example:

Don't let your children run around in bars even if the bars are attached to restaurants (for example: Long Tan. So many parents use the space between the wall and the barstools as a place to let their children run and vent when they get tired of sitting at the table. If they can't sit quietly for the duration of a dinner, don't bring them.)

Be aware that your strollers take up valuable room in bars (the Gate in particular and what are they doing there anyway?), restaurants (name it), stores (take your pick), sidewalks (they are for sharing after all).

Be conscious that not every one finds your precious bundle cute. When your toddler goes careening off toward other people or even simply walks over to investigate other people, table your incredibly important conversation and retrieve them.

I don't think it's too much to ask to be able to have a beer, dinner, coffee, shop for books, walk home without being tugged at, kicked, blocked, or having to listen to temper tantrums. On our end, we promise to coo and encourage these newly well-behaved tykes and even thank their newly considerate parents for, well, being considerate and raising such well-mannered children. Hell, we might even decide to have one or two of our own...

sje wrote: Maybe PS parents need to watch "Dog Whisperer". KIDDING.

Sometimes my friends and I say, "WWCD?"
What would Cesar do?

That latest "Guest" post: what intolerance. So a little child who walks over and looks at you or maybe says hello --- there's something wrong with that? There's something wrong with sociability?

"I don't think it's too much to ask to be able to have a beer, dinner, coffee, shop for books, walk home without being tugged at, kicked, blocked, or having to listen to temper tantrums."

This is the worst of the whole post. Go see Children of Men and you'll see a world where children are in the state that so many people on these boards seem to want them in: invisible. Take a look at what kind of world that is. I don't think children should be allowed to run roughshod over the world (or bars or restaurants or god forbid bookstores and sidewalks) --- but they exist. They exist as you exist. Why do you deserve more than them? Is there some boundary in Park Slope where children are not allowed to cross? Where is it? Perhaps that's the attitude that leads that fictional world in CoM to its ruin.

I'm disgusted by anyone who has this attitude.

kensingtonmom wrote: Sometimes my friends and I say, "WWCD?"
What would Cesar do?

Okay, clearly I am not a dog person because I read this and thought

"Julius Cesar would have slapped the shit out of these kids"

Then the light went on.

Here's the thing that I think many people are forgetting. Parenting is not about having the perfect child. It is about creating a functional, self-assured, well-rounded ADULT.

To my mind that means that its okay for you to say no to your kids. Or to make them unhappy, perhaps even miserable, if the result is that they will not develop habits that handicap them when they are 28 and no longer cute to anyone but you. I'd much rather discipline my three-year old for hitting a stranger than have to go to the police station to pick up my 18 year-old who has been arrested for fighting with someone in the street. Tantrums are part of growing up. They are a part of a child's development. Its how we adults respond to those tantrums that separate good parents from bad.

Seriously, how many women here have met men who are incapable of meeting their basic needs (can't cook, clean, or manage a budget). How many men know women who were raised that they were princesses, and can't change a tire, or a light bulb or a fuse. These people didn't get this way overnight. They developed that way because their parents permitted it.

The world does not revolve around our kids. It just doesn't. No matter how smart or wonderful or perfect we believe them to be. The world doesn't give a damn about your kids or mine, and teaching them to do for themselves and understand that they do not exist in a vacum makes it better for all of us. (See all the complaints on these boards about thoughtless neighbors).

I tell my SO all the time that our kids don't have to be perfect they just need to be good enough so that someone else wants them. If girls and boys want to date them, employers want to hire them, other people want to be around them then our work is done. If they are living in the basement when they are 40, with only cats and a comic book collection then I have no one to blame but me.

homeowner wrote:
Seriously, how many women here have met men who are incapable of meeting their basic needs (can't cook, clean, or manage a budget). How many men know women who were raised that they were princesses, and can't change a tire, or a light bulb or a fuse.

Actually most women I know cant cook, clean, or manage a budget.

brooklynpotter wrote: really? it's okay to be kicked and tugged at? screamed at? because if a dog or even an adult did these things i would call the police.

I think everyone on this thread agrees that a kicking out of control child should be disciplined by parents and there are lots of parents who don't bother for whatever reason so let's not cover that ground again.

BUT PLEASE, I am an animal lover but I really think constantly comparing children to pets is ridiculous. And maybe this is the problem that some of the hipsters are having with kids. If you ARE going to make this comparison, then you need to compare children to puppies--nipping, biting, running, barking out of control puppies. Children are not small adults and they are not pets. Even the most well disciplined child is still a child and doesn't always have control over the complicated emotions of adults and they do invade personal space as they are learning to negotiate the world. It is funny we love the playfulness of dogs we admire attributes of childhood such as spontaneity, inhibition and creativity but then are quick to condemn those in someone under 3 feet tall!

I love my cats dearly but my kids are a helluva lot funnier and more creative.

MOD NOTE: we have a newish board that doesn't get used nearly enough . . .
Brooklyn Kids
just an fyi to you parents out there who might be checking in on this thread . . .

carry on!

"Hipster?" Are we calling names now, or is this just part of a spontaneous/creative/growing experience?

Is the comparison between dogs/puppies and children doesn't seem hard to understand. Greene-Eyed Monster put it succinctly.

Gradon IV wrote: "Hipster?" Are we calling names now, or is this just part of a spontaneous/creative/growing experience?
.

No just lazy to come up with the politically correct term: child-free vs. child-less vs. people who don't have children vs......

sprite wrote: ...let's not pretend that a social interaction between a child and an adult is anything like the interaction between two adults. ...

Indeed. Let's also not pretend that it's responsible, whether you are 3 feet behind your child or 30, to let your progeny rattle around among strangers. You aren't socializing a puppy.

You simply can't compare a child in this instance to an adult talking to a stranger in a bar. Compare it instead to talking to a stranger in a bar with frosting smeared on your nose, your pants falling down and where the only thing you are able to say is "Hi." (Raise your hand if you do that with frequency and I think we might be able to start a club.)

As for me, I am 100 percent in favor of precocious kids. I would be happy to meet one (or more) per day for the rest of my life. But please do not, Random Park Slope Parent, be surprised if your little darling should happen to accost me, in a coffee shop or diner or clothing store, in the middle of a decidedly not-for-children interaction, such as telling a dirty joke or plotting an adult activity. After all, I exist. I exist as they exist. Why do they deserve more than me?

For pure entertainment value, this thread can't be beat. The way you ignored the points made in the last two posts that respond to you while implying that we think kids should be put down? Hilarious!

Let's see if anyone notices.

If any of those "points" were sensible, I would've responded.

Posts I see relate alot of kicking incidents. I've lived in this neighborhood for 8 years and go out very often and I've never been kicked by a child in any establishment. So I have to think that this is really being overblown and it's mostly bullshit.

Posts I see relate a lot of childless people suggesting how children should be raised, where they should be allowed to go, where they "belong" etc. There's no ignorance stronger than a person without a child talking about raising one/dealing with one, etc.

Posts I see talk a lot about how people just don't want to look at, hear, talk to, etc. anything that's 4 foot tall and under. Which is to me, just quite sad. I guess what I don't understand is why you'd live in a neighborhood like this and complain about children being around. It's like living in Baghdad and complaining about the bombs going off. So then it becomes some sort of strange prejudiced turf war and again, that's just sort of sad.

Then there's a lot of posts comparing children to dogs, puppies, other animals. Which is just bizarre. Also: I think it's totally wrong to have a dog in the city. I think it's the wrong environment for an animal. But people do it and that's fine. It's their business. But it seems like a lot of people think kids DON'T belong in the city yet have no problem with animals. Again, it's just a weird bias.

Well said, cbukster. And for the record, any comparison of children to dogs and cats was a response to kmom, who initially brought up the analogy.

Well, I'm in a few of the categories you site and yet in all of them, you seem to be missing my points and the points of others. You seem so damn self rightous that my guess is that you're reading only what you want to read while coming up with your next argument/sermon and frankly, I got to say, Innocent X, if this is the case, you're really not a very good mult-tasker.