You know, I read the OP and found myself impressed with her level-headedness and compassionate approach to what could be an ugly subject. She acquitted herself well for about a page. Then, although she wrote this piece to school others about her choices and why they should be acceptable, she begins insulting almost every poster in this thread who disagrees. The disconnect is startling between how she says she raises her children (to be respectful and courteous and considerate) and how she’s treating others now. It’s all very interesting to say the least.
I also like how we are constantly reminded how much worse every other nuisance is. The elderly, cell phone users, visiting friends that congregate, you name it. So no matter how much you think the things she is explaining away sucks, someone else is much worse!
Not worse, equal to other nuisances. But some people expect children to behave as though they are programmed or under threat of violence to tow the line. I have one very quiet, shy child who has never made a peep in public. I have two chatterboxes, and one laugher/squealer. None will be smacked, spanked, or threatened with any sort of violence for making noise or acting on a harmless impulse. They will be corrected and lose a privilege, might remove them from the store or restaurant, but I will not expect them to be seen and not heard. That’s so 1800’s. I respect kids, mine and others, and I’m not so old that I’ve forgotten that learning how to people takes years and years.
So, again, your “respect” consists of not giving a shit about the impact on others. Good show.
Yes, we expect you to teach/train your kids not to be annoyances to others. Clearly you are not prepared to do that, since you’re not prepared to stop being a loud annoyance yourself.
What impact exactly does the presence of a family or laughter have on others in stores? Do they give you the vapors or trigger your epilepsy? Who, really, is so very delicate and precious they feel they deserve an adults only trip to Walmart? Have you seen the adults at Walmart? It’s no trip to the park for anyone at any hour.
As far as my being loud, I’m not the talker in the family, but I will laugh at damn near anything funny as will two of the kids and I’ll try to make any mundane trip enjoyable. If you don’t enjoy yourself and spend your errands as humorless and rigid as your posts, that’s not my problem.
Back to beating on that straw man, eh?
Why do you keep indignantly bringing up that you will not spank? Who is asking you to?
Why do you keep pretending that people want your children to refrain from normal speech at moderate volume? The thread title refers to your NOISY kids, so by your report alone, they are. Perhaps in reality they never speak above a whisper or don’t exist at all, but we have taken you at your word.
And again, the problem is NOT the kids. Even baby Hitler was blameless. It’s the parent that doesn’t take the necessary steps to minimize the annoyance to others.
If as you’ve now revealed, you don’t actually give a rat’s ass about whether you’re disturbing people, quit pretending otherwise.
You keep confusing the issue here. The problem is stores is when kids (or adults) are getting in the way, or being too slow, or talking whilst blocking the aisles. The excessive laughter, shrieking, or whatever is a problem in restaurants, and, again, is a problem whether it’s kids or adults.
Of course, if you or your kids are making so much noise in a shop that it’s disturbing others, it’s still an issue. The threshold is quite a bit higher than in a restaurant though.
I still can’t actually tell if any of these complaints apply to you, though. What I can tell is that you’ve decided what should or shouldn’t be annoying or intrusive, and if someone has different standards to you, they should just accept it.
No-one thinks you shouldn’t laugh, or talk, or express excitement or happiness. What we think is you should not do those things in an obnoxious fashion that intrudes on other people. It’s not that big a deal, really, or wouldn’t be if you didn’t make such a point of respecting others yourself.
Yeah, no one has suggested this but you. JS
For the OP, I’m not sure exactly what you are trying to do here in this thread. What purpose do or did you want to accomplish? Are you trying to gain sympathy for parents of kids? Educate adults who may not have kids? Get some understanding? What? Because a number of your lines bug the hell of me, even as a parent and I’d be pretty livid if I didn’t have or like kids.
For example:
Wow. (Actually, that’s my code word for “WTF? Are you full of shit?”)
This is why I’m asking you for clarify your position, because later on you continue on
Are you here to slap people around or to educate? If it’s the former, why the education? If it’s the later, can you not see how you are sabotaging any such attempt through your attitude?
As a fellow parent, I’ll say this once [del]nicely[/del] full stop. Knock that condescending shit off. The same as your comments about “it will be your turn.” Actually, the later is more presumptuous in addition to being condescending. How do you know if a person wants or can have a child?
The person who had to dodge the ball your kid through in actual statistical probabilities will never need your child. Someone’s child, sure but not yours. It’s presumptuous to lecture people as if they will need your insights.
I’m really lost here. Are you here to fight with people? Share your version of The Truth[sup]TM[/sup]?
In my experience, the majority of people in real life are fine with crying and screaming babies and toddlers if the parents are making an effort to do something. Ironically, we found that I got more sympathetic looks from strangers when I was attempting to handle the screaming child on a bus than my wife. People assume that fathers are less competent or don’t have that magic (which mothers also lack, by the way) to keep children perfectly quiet at all times.
What are you trying to do here? Fight back at the 3% of the world who never wants to see, hear or smell! children? Educate the masses? Pad your resume for Parent of the Year?
What I don’t see happening is furthering a meaningful dialogue between the camps.
Oh, I would. I glare at loud obnoxious adults and teenagers all the time at work, like people who hang around for a long time shouting into their cell phones. Which happens a lot.
She wants to be told how noble she is and how lucky the children are to have her.
I’m not saying no one would, only that the absence of glares does not equal the absence of objectors to her behavior, so she’d really have no way of knowing that her noise wasn’t upsetting people.
Yes and most adults will deal with a child who can’t behave instead of extolling how great the experience it is.
You seem to have a problem defending your position here and have now chosen to attack me on something from another thread. Aside from being a lame-ass debate tactic you misrepresented what I said in that thread. I was quite clear they should be punished for their actions and what I thought the level of that punishment should be. But by all means go back to that thread and run your mouth some more and see where that gets you for mis-stating my opinion.
In the mean time, why don’t you stay on the topic YOU started in this thread and explain your position as to why the public should enjoy the noises generated by your children.
Snipped some of your post for brevity. I intended to respond to the folks in the other thread and this one who insist that small children should be left at home for the convenience of other shoppers. I object strenuously that any family member, whether a screaming toddler, confused elder, scooter user, cane limper, or child with special needs should be left at home for the sake of other’s convenience. It’s a grocery store, not a museum, not the opera. And anyone who makes allowances for an elderly person can make the same allowance for a child who is just learning how to society. The people who posted that the elderly deserve respect but small children don’t are incredibly full of shit. The people who will patiently make room for a handicapped scooter user can make the same room for a wobbly toddler learning to walk.
Why in the world do you work for the public? That sounds miserable for everyone involved.
I will be losing two of the kids on January 1st when they are returned to their mother and I will be utterly heartbroken and lost. I was unable to have more of my own and was really hoping to keep them. The youngest will have no memory of her time with my family, and unless some miracle occurs with the four year old’s therapy, it’s likely she won’t remember us either. This is a pretty selfish thing, wanting to keep these kids who aren’t mine. No prize at the end other than an empty bedroom.
No, I’m sticking with my assessment that you don’t have a good grasp on how the public at large feels. I’d lump you into a very small group of folks who believes that your own personal experience and opinions trump those of the masses, and your advice to be is only applicable to other people such as yourself. There aren’t enough of your kind to bother accommodating, so I’ll say again, no, I won’t leave the kids at home so you can shop with adults only. You can and should learn to cope with the fact that other people in the world, yourself included, have all sorts of handicaps and quirks that will slow you up on any given outing. Step around the kids just as you step around the elderly with walkers and the rest of the slowpokes. Avoid the aisles with the noisy kids just as you would the floor waxer. I choose to avoid clogging up the stores and restaurants during rush hours and lunch, you can choose to visit during hours when kids are asleep or in school. But I won’t be leaving anyone at home or hiring a babysitter, and anyone bothered by laughter and people enjoying themselves can invest in headphones. There are all kinds of ways to endure running errands, but demanding that others stay home so you can get things done is so ludicrous I really don’t know why I dignified that request with a response at all.
Exactly, that’s why you took this fishing trip in the first place, hoping to be bolstered along with backpats and supportive reminders that you are doing an important job and doing it well.
Your certainty that you are correct and that anyone who doesn’t see how right and good you are is the problem is not a sympathetic position. In post #50, you literally claim that when at their “best,” these kids are “superior people to most fully formed humans I know.” As a human well on my way to completion, I am not impressed by your assessment, and the “nyah nyah, my kids are better than you” line of thought is particularly unappealing.
I’m sure you are helping these kids along with kindness and care and making their lives better. You’re probably also annoying the crap out of people. These conditions are not mutually exclusive by any means.
Because I need a job and the job market sucks. It’s not miserable for everyone though, just me. Obnoxious people don’t care if they’re being glared at, if they even notice, which is rare.
In general I don’t mind working for the public more than the next person though (we all have plenty of stories about asshole or just super annoying customers, but most are fine). Not all jobs working with the public are particularly loud.
I’m going back to my first assessment of this poster, observed from dealing with her in a thread about party goers who don’t want to dance, IMS. She was intentionally rude and hostile to those who didn’t want to shore up her idea of a good time, misrepresented their good arguments, didn’t carry on the debate in good faith and came across totally clueless (like now) about how she should behave or how others perceive her behavior. So, in light of all that, there’s no point in beating your head against a (delusional) brick wall. Everyone else carry on.
And you’re misrepresenting my argument but anyone can search and read for themselves. I felt very strongly that the one poster who insisted he was doing a party giver a favor by gracing her with his mere sullen presence should just avoid social events altogether rather than sulking in a corner.
Do you actually believe that the demand that I leave my kids at home for the comfort of other shoppers is in any a reasonable request? It’s utterly indefensible. More people have kids than don’t, and with the exception of a couple in this thread I’m not sure about, nearly everyone was a kid once and they might recall the importance of learning how to interact with others and the importance of learning how to complete household tasks. And nearly anyone shopping at Walmart and similar lowbrow budget stores ought to understand that babysitters are too expensive to hire for a simple shopping outing.
I expected to hear some complaints about my noisy kid and the kid who grabbed a ball and threw it towards a customer she assumed was willing to play with her. I expected to hear some complaints about how free range kids are an unpredictable hazard in public and some complaints about how unpleasant tantrums are for outsiders. I was hoping to explain that the occasional blip in an overstimulating environment should be forgiven since the observer hasn’t seen the other 24 hours of good behavior and since the observer can’t determine if there are developmental disabilities that might affect a child’s behavior. But there’s no effing way I would have ever guessed that anyone would attempt to bar small children from stores for their comfort.
Look, my kids aren’t precocious or particularly good looking, they are average in every way yet many people stop them to compliment their behavior or goof around with them a little. Nearly every grandmother or grandfather wants to stop and say hi to them and share a story or bit of advice. Other families with kids exchange pleasantries. People with kids at home stop to chat and ask how old the little ones are. It’s practically a social event, and it’s very good for the littles to interact with strangers and I enjoy the time spent with them. I’m sure that busy, child free people have had to step around us as we move a little slower but I’m just as sure that we are no more an obstacle than any scooter or shopper engrossed in a cell phone conversation.
I got a couple-three PMs on the first page warning me that the introverts and child-haters would be out in force to attack but I had no idea that anyone would admit to feeling so entitled as to demand that families hire a babysitter to go to the grocery store so they don’t have to see or listen to kids.
Too late my karma already ran over your dogma. Two single quiet guys live on either side of me and my two shrieking babies.