# I pit crying babies in public places **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 25, 2010, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-crying-babies-in-public-places/526368 "2010-01-25T15:52:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![tacoloco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@tacoloco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tacoloco)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-crying-babies-in-public-places/526368/141 "2010-01-26T12:46:02Z")
> [@Fuji](#): > > Ha. That’s a fucking laugh. You’d never even hear them, as you’ve made perfectly clear that your world ends at the edge of your tablecloth. > > I can only imagine the pleasure of sharing an 8-hour flight with you and your brood. Did you actually read what KF wrote about doing everything they could to keep the baby quiet, including taking the kid out of the restaurant? No? Ok then. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-crying-babies-in-public-places/526368/142 "2010-01-26T12:59:41Z")
> [@Alice\_The\_Goon](#): > > The last time I was in this situation, I was with a male friend, and we were at Red Lobster. I realize that RL’s not exactly gourmet, but you can easily rack up a $100 tab for two, so I do find it more annoying than if we were at, say, Applebee’s. My friend’s way of handling the screaming newborn-having parents behind us was to look directly at them periodically and say to me, “I wish someone would shut that fucking baby up.” Not exactly Miss Manners, but it did work. After about 10 minutes and hearing him say it 3 times, they did ask for boxes, and they did leave. Not without giving him a very mean look though! It worked for me. So overhearing obscenities is superior to a crying baby? Who’da thunk? I would have preferred to hear the little brat scream his head off than hear an adult that should know better say fuck in public. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-crying-babies-in-public-places/526368/143 "2010-01-26T13:02:00Z")
> [@Marienee](#): > > Well, an angry crying baby can easily reach 115 decibels at peak scream. Normal conversation is about 60 decibels or less. Possibly the practice of keeping voices down during conversation is what avoids the need to censor conversation topics. I sit in a lot of restaurants where the tables are close together. You can easily overhear the dinner conversation in a booth behind you or a table next to you. I’ve learned the most fascinating things - including a long conversation between a man and a woman where he was bemoaning the state between him and some girl (she was obviously just a female friend), that almost had me just walk up to him and say “honey, she just ain’t into you.” But that would have been rude, so I just stuck to my book. ---
**Author:** ![Rune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e68b1a/32.png) [@Rune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rune)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-crying-babies-in-public-places/526368/144 "2010-01-26T13:24:48Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > No, actually, I don’t. I pit the parents who won’t shut the kids up. > > If you’re going to bring a baby with you into a public place (ie, a restaurant like the one we tried to eat dinner at last night) and the baby starts howling, it is your responsibility to shut it up. Either shove a bottle in its mouth or take it out of the room. Period. There’s an alternative. They could kick you in your idiot ears. That way the parents could stay and you wouldn’t be bothered by the noise. Everyone happy. On a side note, why is it I read all these evil-parents-and-miserable-baby stories from the US? I can’t recall ever having been more than marginally discomforted by any baby in any public place. Either you have moron parents, evil babies or a general fucked up idiot public with extremely delicate sensibilities and an overrated sense of the importance of their own feelings. My guess is all three. ---
**Author:** ![Fuji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a9a28c/32.png) [@Fuji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuji)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-crying-babies-in-public-places/526368/145 "2010-01-26T13:25:44Z")
> [@tacoloco](#): > > Did you actually read what KF wrote about doing everything they could to keep the baby quiet, including taking the kid out of the restaurant? I sure did, chief. I also caught this lovely narcissistic sentiment: > [@](#): > > Originally Posted by **kidneyfailure** > However, I’d do that because my baby needed my attention, not because some stranger might be inconvenienced. Oh, how awful, you’re not mature or capable enough to enjoy your dinner while a kid acts like a kid. Big deal. Furthermore, the vitriol expressed here: > [@](#): > > Originally Posted by **kidneyfailure** > And woe unto anyone with the gall to tell me to “shut that fucking kid up.” He’d be wearing his dinner home. was presumably in response to **Alice The Goon** ’s [Post 119](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12038434&postcount=119) in this thread. A careful reading of that post would find that **Alice** ’s friend did _not_ direct invective at the obnoxious parent in question. To wit: > [@](#): > > Originally Posted by **Alice The Goon** > My friend’s way of handling the screaming newborn-having parents behind us was to look directly at them periodically and say **to me** , “I wish someone would shut that fucking baby up.” Go shove your “reading comprehension lessons” up your ass. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-crying-babies-in-public-places/526368/146 "2010-01-26T13:27:28Z")
I don’t have time to educate parents on how to handle screaming infants. I’m too busy with the heavy responsibility of keeping public transit workers conscious. That’s it - put a baby in every subway kiosk! The workers won’t be able to nod off, and the wailing will be muffled inside the enclosure. Win-win. ---
**Author:** ![Fuji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a9a28c/32.png) [@Fuji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuji)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-crying-babies-in-public-places/526368/147 "2010-01-26T13:33:27Z")
> [@Rune](#): > > On a side note, why is it I read all these evil-parents-and-miserable-baby stories from the US? I can’t recall ever having been more than marginally discomforted by any baby in any public place. Maybe it has something to do with you hailing from a place where [“the common Danish practice of leaving children unattended outside restaurants and shops”](http://www.nytimes.com/1997/05/14/nyregion/toddler-left-outside-restaurant-is-returned-to-her-mother.html) is apparently the norm? ---
**Author:** ![Rune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e68b1a/32.png) [@Rune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rune)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-crying-babies-in-public-places/526368/148 "2010-01-26T14:18:14Z")
> [@Fuji](#): > > Maybe it has something to do with you hailing from a place where [“the common Danish practice of leaving children unattended outside restaurants and shops”](http://www.nytimes.com/1997/05/14/nyregion/toddler-left-outside-restaurant-is-returned-to-her-mother.html) is apparently the norm? I remember that story. I knew the girl peripherally (everybody knows everybody peripherally here). Denmark almost declared war on your miserable ass on account of this. Consider yourself lucky. We would have pillaged and laid waste to New York. But that’s right. Babies are left to sleep in the baby carriage (summer & winter), when you notice a child crying in a carriage you are supposed to notify the parents at which time it is considered very bad form for the parents not to take up the baby. But that apparently is too dangerous in New York so she was probably silly to do it there. But good idea. If you want rid of babies crying in public places because they are tired, make the city safer so the parents can leave the baby outside. ---
**Author:** ![tacoloco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@tacoloco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tacoloco)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-crying-babies-in-public-places/526368/149 "2010-01-26T14:20:14Z")
[QUOTE=Fuji;12039540 A careful reading of that post would find that **Alice** ’s friend did _not_ direct invective at the obnoxious parent in question.[/QUOTE] This is what **Alice The Goon** posted: "My friend’s way of handling the screaming newborn-having parents behind us was to look directly at them periodically and say to me, “I wish someone would shut that fucking baby up.” The invective was definitely directed at the parents, in a passive fashion. Why? Probably because they didn’t have the balls to say something directly. In short, the “friend” was a complete asshole. And if someone had “not directed” this kind of shit at me or my wife, the asshole and I would have been exchanging some “directed” words. ---
**Author:** ![Fuji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a9a28c/32.png) [@Fuji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuji)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-crying-babies-in-public-places/526368/150 "2010-01-26T14:37:41Z")
> [@tacoloco](#): > > This is what **Alice The Goon** posted: > > "My friend’s way of handling the screaming newborn-having parents behind us was to look directly at them periodically and say to me, “I wish someone would shut that fucking baby up.” > > The invective was definitely directed at the parents, in a passive fashion. Why? No, you gibbering cretin. If the friend (scare quotes not necessary, shithead) had directed invective at the parent, that would have involved actually speaking _to them_. But this is irrelevant - from the context of **Alice** ’s story, it is quite clear that the parent did hear the friend’s comment. And they had a chance to speak directly to the friend, but passed on that option. Just as passively as the friend making his initial commentary. But only the friend “lacked the balls”? Sure. > [@](#): > > In short, the “friend” was a complete asshole. And if someone had “not directed” this kind of shit at me or my wife, the asshole and I would have been exchanging some “directed” > words. What those words might have been, pray tell? “Stop talking amongst yourselves about what inconsiderate assbags my wife and I are being! Say it to our smug, self-righteous faces, you child-hating bastard!” ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-crying-babies-in-public-places/526368/151 "2010-01-26T15:15:37Z")
> [@tacoloco](#): > > The flip side is true too. > > If you don’t want to be subjected to kids, don’t go places that people with kids go. Well, yeah, of course the flip side is true. I don’t go to Moe’s Family Feed Bag because I don’t want to be seated across from a table of kids who just got out of soccer practice. > [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > At least, I’m honest enough to admitt I would do whatever was necessary to survive. I wonder, Freudian Slit, what you’re reactions would be in a life or death situation? At least, I don’t advocate cannibalizing them. This is hilarious. When would you ever need to take action against a child in order to ensure your survival? What kinds of children do you know? Are these the little kids from “Children of God”? > [@kidneyfailure](#): > > Don’t bring my kid to a restaurant? Ok, fine, if it was one of those “adult restaurants” where people go to eat foie gras and sample red wine then, yeah, of course. Leave the tykes at home. I thought that’s what we were talking about. But even if we were eating at TGIFriday’s, you should still stop your kid from being an asshole to everyone else in the room. Take it outside. ---
**Author:** ![tacoloco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@tacoloco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tacoloco)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-crying-babies-in-public-places/526368/152 "2010-01-26T15:18:45Z")
> [@Fuji](#): > > No, you gibbering cretin. If the friend (scare quotes not necessary, shithead) had directed invective at the parent, that would have involved actually speaking _to them_. But this is irrelevant - from the context of **Alice** ’s story, it is quite clear that the parent did hear the friend’s comment. And they had a chance to speak directly to the friend, but passed on that option. Just as passively as the friend making his initial commentary. But only the friend “lacked the balls”? Sure. Please try to focus. The asshole looked right at the parents and made comments that were clearly intended for the parents to hear. It is utterly irrelevant whether the friend addressed the parents directly. But keep splitting hairs, jackass. It is also irrelevant what the parents chose to say or not say. We’re talking about the friend. I realize focusing is difficult for you, but please do try. > [@](#): > > What those words might have been, pray tell? “Stop talking amongst yourselves about what inconsiderate assbags my wife and I are being! Say it to our smug, self-righteous faces, you child-hating bastard!” I don’t know what I’d say. But I wouldn’t let it pass. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-crying-babies-in-public-places/526368/153 "2010-01-26T15:22:04Z")
> [@tacoloco](#): > > If you don’t want to be subjected to kids, don’t go places that people with kids go. So, it’s okay to be rude to other families with kids, just not people who don’t have kids, or people who didn’t bring their kids out that night? > [@Muffin](#): > > Is surreptitiously tripping them as they run by your table acceptable? \*\*Absolutely \*\*not. Everyone knows that the \*proper \*response is to grab them by an ear each, twist, march them back to their table, and deposit them in their chairs, after which you kick the adult(s) presumably “responsible” for them in the fucking teeth. > [@Malthus](#): > > The issue is of course what “old enough” means. Do you see anywhere that I suggested a magic age? No. And you won’t. Because each parent should be engaged enough with their child that they can get some inkling of how they will behave in public from how they behave at home. You apparently have some retarded notion that the only way you can train your kids how to behave in public is to constantly drag them out there, whether or not they’re ready for it, and subject the rest of the public to their bad manners. Even if it means letting them scream and run around in a restaurant for two hours. > [@Muffin](#): > > A giant slingshot would probably be a good self-regulating child removal tool. Upgrade to a trebuchet, and I’m sold. > [@elbows](#): > > Having worked many years in restaurants I can appreciate how helpless the managers are in this situation. If their bosses are idiots, maybe. They’re only “helpless” if they don’t have the power to ask patrons who’re causing a disturbance to leave. You wouldn’t let an adult sit at a table and scream; you’d ask them to quiet down or remove themselves. So when the person screaming is a child, too young to be responsible for their own behavior, it behooves the parent to either quiet the child or remove them. And it’s the job of the management of the establishment to ensure that one of those two things happens. > [@aruvqan](#): > > So my next question to you … if a kid is homeschooled, and therefore freed from the traditional ‘school hours’, is it abuse if the family decides to have their awake hours from 8 at night to 8 in the morning, instead of 8 in the morning til 8 at night? It is all in perspective, the kid can get perfectly adequate food and sleep when it is dark out, it does not require the sun to be in the sky though that is the ‘norm’ for the rest of society. Humans don’t generally keep daylight waking hours just because of cultural norms. It’s built into our biology. Now, that doesn’t necessarily make it \*\*abuse \*\*to shift your entire family’s waking schedule 180 degrees from almost everyone else around you, but that doesn’t mean it would have absolutely no negative impact whatsoever on the kid. ---
**Author:** ![tacoloco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@tacoloco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tacoloco)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-crying-babies-in-public-places/526368/154 "2010-01-26T15:28:15Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > So, it’s okay to be rude to other families with kids, just not people who don’t have kids, or people who didn’t bring their kids out that night? Where did I write that it was ok to be rude? I think there are people in this thread who are so sensitive that they’d complain if every kid in the joint wasn’t almost completely silent. Kids will be kids, even well behaved ones. If someone is so offended by kids being kids, then they should avoid kids. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-crying-babies-in-public-places/526368/155 "2010-01-26T15:34:31Z")
> [@Rune](#): > > On a side note, why is it I read all these evil-parents-and-miserable-baby stories from the US? I can’t recall ever having been more than marginally discomforted by any baby in any public place. Either you have moron parents, evil babies or a general fucked up idiot public with extremely delicate sensibilities and an overrated sense of the importance of their own feelings. My guess is all three. I often think the same thing. In my more that 40 years walking the planet, I’ve only on the rarest of occasions been incommoded by noisy children. Reading these threads, you’d think some folks were afraid to go out in public, for fear of being assaulted by them. I vote: too sensitive. ---
**Author:** ![Fuji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a9a28c/32.png) [@Fuji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuji)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-crying-babies-in-public-places/526368/156 "2010-01-26T15:37:22Z")
> [@tacoloco](#): > > Please try to focus. > > The asshole looked right at the parents and made comments that were clearly intended for the parents to hear. It is utterly irrelevant whether the friend addressed the parents directly. But keep splitting hairs, jackass. > > It is also irrelevant what the parents chose to say or not say. We’re talking about the friend. I realize focusing is difficult for you, but please do try. It’s irrelevant _to you_. But that’s understandable, given your overweening bias in assessing the situation. I was making a comparison between the behaviors of the two actors in this little drama, and noting that although both acted in a “passive” (“indirect” would probably be a better choice of words there) fashion, you only singled out one party for not “having balls”. > [@](#): > > I don’t know what I’d say. But I wouldn’t let it pass. Ha. Bullshit. You’d let it pass and then come here and cry about it the next day. But since I’ve relieved you of the burden of spontaneity, please feel free to indulge your wildest, Bronson-esque fantasises. Pretend that I’m the one in question who dared to mention such an unspeakable aspersion against you and your little pwecious snookums. What would you say to me again? ---
**Author:** ![otternell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecc23a/32.png) [@otternell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/otternell)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-crying-babies-in-public-places/526368/157 "2010-01-26T15:39:51Z")
> [@tacoloco](#): > > \If someone is so offended by kids being kids, then they should avoid kids. We try to avoid them, but since the parents’ are always taking them out in public, there’s nowhere for us to go! 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-crying-babies-in-public-places/526368/158 "2010-01-26T15:42:50Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > Do you see anywhere that I suggested a magic age? No. And you won’t. Because each parent should be engaged enough with their child that they can get some inkling of how they will behave in public from how they behave at home. You apparently have some retarded notion that the only way you can train your kids how to behave in public is to constantly drag them out there, whether or not they’re ready for it, and subject the rest of the public to their bad manners. Even if it means letting them scream and run around in a restaurant for two hours. You miss the point, and add some details you just plain invented. If you want to beat the shit out of that straw-man you’ve made for yourself, be your guest. 😛 You may have missed my posts in which I state that parents and non-parents alike have a duty to reasonably accomodate each other. Parents: that means judging whether the venue is really child-appropriate for children of that age and taking reasonable measures to disciple, pacify or if necessary remove unruly children; Non-parents: that means being polite in turn to the well-intentioned parents who are behaving as above and realizing that your tender and delicate sensibilities may be upset by the sight of children in public. You absolute exclusionary rule is not reasonable; it is excessive and counter-productive. You _cannot_ merely hide children away until you are certain they will behave. If you do, they will never learn to behave in public. If you are such a delicate hothouse flower that the sight or sound of a child ruins your day, that’s unfortunate but it should not be the basis of public policy. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-crying-babies-in-public-places/526368/159 "2010-01-26T15:45:28Z")
> [@MeanOldLady](#): > > I thought that’s what we were talking about. But even if we were eating at TGIFriday’s, you should still stop your kid from being an asshole to everyone else in the room. Take it outside. It isn’t. So far, there is a pretty general consensus of that one. If that was the issue, the thread would be pretty short. ---
**Author:** ![Fuji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a9a28c/32.png) [@Fuji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuji)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-crying-babies-in-public-places/526368/160 "2010-01-26T15:47:09Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > I often think the same thing. In my more that 40 years walking the planet, I’ve only on the rarest of occasions been incommoded by noisy children. Reading these threads, you’d think some folks were afraid to go out in public, for fear of being assaulted by them. > > I vote: too sensitive. Actually, despite my hectoring of **kidneyfailure** and **tacoloco** , I don’t encounter the phenomenon that often, either. The place I most frequently recall dealing with excessively noisy kids is on airplanes, but in that situation I cut the parents a hell of a lot more slack. However, given some of the situations as described by **Clothahump** and **Alice The Goon** , I would definitely find myself on the side of the “child-haters”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-crying-babies-in-public-places/526368.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-crying-babies-in-public-places/526368.md?page=9)