Curious. He can’t call you SON, but you can call him Babe.
Nice logic, pindick.
Or can’t I call you that? :rolleyes:
OK, then we will choose a less health-damaging analogy:
Talking on a cell phone at the theater.
Rude, non?
jarbabyj, what in Stalin’s name didn’t you get? Euty disrespected me; I threw it right back.
Nothing But Net has a good point. It’s called respect for others. Apparently Euty missed out on that important life’s lesson. Respect is earned.
Yeah, I was going to point that out, but I was afraid he wouldn’t respect me. I mean, geez, if he’s going to get all bent out of shape because someone calles him something mild like “son” in the Pit maybe he shouldn’t wander in here.
Yes, rude. Because in that case there is a purposeful attepmt to intrude upon someone else’s peace and quiet. If my son has a tantrum, it pretty much not anyone else’s fault except his own metabolism. And I’m not saying that we’d let it go out of control, but ten minutes, as I said before, is not a major tantrum.
Exactly, and that’s his right. Respect is earned both ways. You said he didn’t have the right to do it, but apparently it’s a right you were born with. neat.
I can’t say what I would have done had I been the parents with those children, because I don’t know what their circumstances were.
Here’s what I probably would have done in a case similar to Podkayne’s case:
I am fairly sensitive to noise, and it would probably have upset my stomach to hear the whining, especially since it would have been my own urge to want to comfort the child myself, being the interfering busybody type that I am. Since it is socially unacceptable to ask total strangers if they would like me to hold their crying two-year-old so they could eat, I would probably have taken my pizza, left the restaurant and found someplace else to eat it.
I have three daughters who are now 18, 20, and almost 23. When the youngest was almost two, I divorced their father and raised them by myself for seven years. Some days I thought I would go nuts. I have heard that at younger ages, boys are even more difficult for parents to supervise (my dad told me girls are easier as toddlers and more difficult as teenagers and boys are the opposite).
While I wouldn’t have enjoyed the situation, I do have empathy for the parents.
Euty, my best wishes to you and your boys and the difficulties you have been going through lately.
Stalinchrist! This woman is deluded.
If a voice on the 'phone is such a big facking deal to you, imagine some kid howling away for TEN BLOODY MINUTES! You may be used to it, but the rest of the world isn’t! If you want a cell phone user to take his conversation elsewhere, you’re a bloody HYPOCRITE for not doing the same thing with your kid! A normal human voice is no big deal; a kid screaming his bloody bollocks off is quite annoying!
See what happens when you drop too much acid, kids? You give birth to special needs kids! 
should read:
Euty
my best wishes to you and your boys because of the difficulties you have been going through lately.
Sorry.
----:o/
----///\\
Actually I personally find that a screaming child is far more dangerous to my health than a lit cigarette in my vacinity. As far as I know I haven’t come down with any form of lung cancer yet, however I have suffered many stress headaches brought on by screeching children in enclosed public places (ie reestaurants & cinema’s). After 10 minutes listening to the little hellspawn the OP mentioned I would have had to leave the restaurant, meal unfinished, take some Co-Dydramol and lie down for a few hours. I doubt I’m the only person in the world who gets stress headaches. If the child in question is one of the rare ones who has a problem them I’m prepared to forgive, after all, some things can’t be helped. However in my experience (and I know because several times I’ve gone and had a word with the parents about their kids) the children are all just spoilt kids who should be taught basic societal rules (such as respect for your parents) before being brought into public places.
Do you want to tell him, or shall I?
Pay attention, kids. Can you spot where Father Pacelli crossed the line into utter assholedom? Sure, I knew you could.
Sua
Checking for testicles. Yep … still there!
I never once said that it was a “big facking deal.” I was aksed to respond to an example and I did. Hell, life is too short to get that upset over someone’s cell-phone conversation. Is it rude? yes, but if it upsets me that much, I’ll just move. Are my sons (rare) tantrums unavoidable? Sometimes not, and if they do get uncontrollable, yes, we will leave. But in this specific case mentioned it sounds very much like the parents had things under complete control. Maybe a few people we made uncomfortable for ten minutes, but the right to comfort (or of peace and quiet, as someone mentioned) are not rights garunteed to us. If they are, I’m owed.
Despite the little smilie appended to this dipshit remark, I bittery resent the idea that that the cause of my children’s problems are the result of drugs I might have done in my youth. I don’t expect an apology; hell, I really don’t expect anything of you. But I think this little remark shows what kind of base person you might really be.
[Edited by Eutychus55 on 07-08-2001 at 04:03 PM]
Hell, Euty, you popped off at him and now he’s popping off right back. Nothing to get all bent out of shape over.
It is ironic that this thread is about tantrums though… 
Cripes, I can’t complain about parents not removing a hollering children from a public place because there’s some small but non-zero chance that one (or, what both?) the kid(s) has some kind of mental or emotional problem?
Let me remind you that there were two crying children, one obviously just crying to try to get his way, and one, to my admittedly untutored ear, crying because he was upset by the first one. And the parents did not say a word to either one. What do we have then, two special needs children, neither of whom could be spoken to (gently or sharply), neither of whom could concievably been removed from the restaurant by one of the parents, instead of remaining together to feed off each other’s noise?
If there had been just one child being disruptive, I would have been much more charitable in my assumptions. If both of the children (remember, two kids?) showed any inclination to act out physically instead of sitting pefectly upright in their chairs bawling, I would not have questioned the parent’s decision to wait the tantrum out. There would be no rant. I would have grit my teeth, struggled to overcome my irritation, sympathised with the parents and wished them well in dealing with this difficult time in their lives.
Oh, but no, I’m a terrible terrible person. Suddenly these aren’t inconsiderate jerks who don’t care about their offspring irritating everyone around them, they’re saints caring selflessly for their challenging but dearly-loved children, housebound except for this one occasion when they finally sniff have the courage sniffle to venture out for a nice meal (in a carry-out pizza joint). . . I’m sorry, I have to take a moment to collect myself–this beautiful story of their love and personal bravery is making me a bit misty.
And you construct this narrative on the basis that their kids acted up in public and they didn’t lift a finger to stop it. Got news for ya: healthy kids whine too, and sometimes their decidedly unsaintly loutish parents ignore them. You are invited to figure the odds on whether one or both of those children had some condition that makes their parents’ failure to quiet either of them excusable, if you wish–but take a few minutes to read the OP, if you don’t mind, and pay attention to the details.
Yeah, ten minutes ain’t long, particularly compared to the difficulties that the parents of special-needs kids have to go through. But it’s long enough for perfectly normal but undisciplined kids to ruin lunch. I see no reason to extend the benefit of the doubt to those parents, much less construct a sob-story to excuse their behavior.
FP, shut the fuck up. I’m appalled to read something so disrespectful, hurtful, and downright ignorant.
Oh, and biggirl why don’t you infer a little less from “tone,” and spend the time and energy you waste on leaping to conclusions on actually reading what people write, 'kay? It doesn’t seem like we’re actually too far apart on this issue–from your posts, I don’t think you’d have let behave like the parents I observed, and if you’d paid close attention to what I said in the OP instead of having a kneejerk reaction, you’d probably have seen that. And leaving your kid, who’s physically acting out, to work out his tantrum on his own in in the grocery store doesn’t seem out of line to me–in the grocery store, the other customers can walk away until he’s gotten it out of his system.
Crap! That should be: biggirl and I are actually not too far apart on this issue.
If I hadn’t held my breath until I turned blue before composing my last post, I wouldn’t goofed that up. 
Euty
at least you and I know that whatever happens with our kids, they will never be nasty little pissants like Pacelli. They’re being raised with grace and love to the best of our ability. It’s a shame nobody managed to instil any empathy or intelligence into Pacelli while there was still time 
Pacelli? Before you spew any more ignorant vitriol in the direction of Euty and me, could you do a websearch on the known causes of autism and OCD? I am a bit embarassed watching you display your ignorance in the pursuit of appearing cool.
That’s a good chap. thanks .
I don’t have much time for tantrums. If they were my kids, special needs or no, they’d be out in the car. Whether the car would be a loving and fulfilling environment or an altar of Baal would depend on the kids and the circumstances. But they’d be in the car. Folks paid for a quiet pizza.
The “even negative parental attention is still attention” argument is a valid one, but in the case of my stepson (nearly four), for a long time he tested my limits when we went out because he thought I wouldn’t punish him in public. One day, he was out with his mother and he threw a tantrum during lunch. He threw the lunch of two strangers onto the floor, and spent the next few minutes thrashing about punching and kicking the ground. After making apologies to the women who had lost their lunch, his mother left him on the ground. Let me just say that the ignoring treatment didn’t work, and he was still going apeshit an hour later at home. I’d have dealt some summary justice on the spot. A week or two later, his mother and I took him to a busy restaurant. He threw a tantrum again. His mother spent a minute or two trying to calm him down, but he just seemed to feed off that attention and to enjoy it. Eventually, I slowly and deliberately got up from my chair, feeling dozens of pairs of eyes on me, walked around to the other side of the table, and leaning across his mother, I pulled the boy out of his chair, administered one fairly firm smack on the backside, put him back in his chair, then went and sat down and had my meal - in silence. OK, OK, I’m a cruel monster, but the other diners appreciated it, and it has had beneficial effects long after that night because now he knows I will punish him in public.
To the “don’t smack” people, I respect your position and have already been through that in GD, but in this case, the issue is one of punishment, not type of punishment. YMMV, but if kids are going to try to humiliate you in public (not all kids can understand this concept - but in my case, my stepson can), then doing the same to them is effective punishment.
Where? In your wife’s purse, perchance?
Flamety flamety flame. Go ahead and resent it, Bootylicious55 or whatever your nick is supposed to be. Like father like son, I always say.
Actually, it would appear that our board’s resident felcher does serve a purpose. He’s the reason why abortion is legal in the United States. It would also explain why he feels the need to stroke the little pubic hair he pisses with over and over as he exercises his mad mod powazz.
Booty boy couldn’t match wits with me on his best day even if I drove a footlong railroad spike deep into my forehead. Can’t you just feel the envy?
Somebody please put this thread out of it’s misery.
Don’t worry, beagledave, booty boy will break and close this thread soon enough.
This thread may be long, but at least it’s shorter than booty boy’s chromosome chain.
I’ll let the little felcher get in the last word–I am, after all, a gentleman and a scholar.