fessie suggested that people with children have unique challenges and needs, in much the same way that disabled people do (so does everyone, I’d add). Her argument was, essentially, that we show empathy for the disabled, that we make allowances for their unique challenges and needs, and argued that the empathetic thing to do would be to make similar allowances for the unique challenges and needs of parents.
You argued that her analogy was flawed because there are no laws analogous to the laws protecting disabled people that protect parents of children.
My reply was meant to imply - in case you’re as thick as your responses in this thread would suggest and didn’t get this - that there are reasons to show empathy toward other people quite apart from being legally compelled to do so.
That was the context.
As to this:
Man, what a cynical and depressing world you must live in.
Actually I hardly began to cite the idiocy involved in comparing badly behaved children (and their clueless parents) to the disabled.
Parents whose kids make a spectacle of themselves in public places have a choice - to practice responsible parenting or to remove their children until the bad behavior subsides. The disabled do not have a choice. To analogize their situation to that of irresponsible parents is stupid and insulting.
Comprende?
One additional piece of sappiness that should not be overlooked:
Well O.K., two pieces of sappiness in one. Overlooking the learned explanation for child abuse, we have the classically moronic parental comeback in response to criticism of bad child behavior - “You must hate chil-drun.” :rolleyes:
I feel sorry for the kids in these situations. They’ll likely be paying the price for bad parenting much of their lives.
I was sorta interested in the ‘purpose of society’ part of the debate, but the hate for those guilty of “causing inconvenience” is just sad. All the sadder for being so apparently heartfelt.
I’ve often had this sort of reaction myself on the subway - seeing some woman with a screaming child, or some guy in a wheelchair, or someone old blocking my path on the stairs - and some part of my brain did think, “I wish they’d stay at home or get the heck out of my way. Don’t they know they are causing a disturbance?”.
But I always thought that reaction unworthy and petty, and assumed everyone else did the same. I never dreamed so very many people evidently feel that reaction is the right and proper one, that they were justified in their annoyance, that the object of annoyance, and not them, were in the wrong.
You seem to have the idea that children are like little puzzle boxes, where if you can just enter the right “responsible parent” code, you’ll get predictably good behavior. It just ain’t so. Kids are tiny little humans, with all that implies. There is a period of time when they are no longer little poop machines - they are thinking, in some early way, trying to make and draw connections between things but not yet capable of rationality. There is no way, no foolproof strategy, that will allow any parent - no matter how responsible, dedicated, caring, intelligent, and creative they may be - to guarantee a child’s behavior. Your kid might go ten consecutive trips to the grocery store and never make a peep, sit quietly, and smile. On the eleventh trip, after an hour of shopping, when your cart is very nearly full, that child might get frightened by the Spider Man display, or suddenly feel sick, or just start to wonder what her own voice will sound like in this new environment. And she’ll cry.
At this point, your hypothetical responsible parent can try any number of strategies - distract the kid, give the old hairy eyeball, maybe even leave the cart for a moment and step outside. But sometimes this just doesn’t work.
Now. You seem to be suggesting that the parent’s next move should be to leave his or her full cart, having now just blown an hour of the day on nothing, leave the store, then come back later and repeat the process. You feel (s)he should do this so that you don’t have to listen to her noise.
I submit that this makes you a jerk. If I’m standing there in that store, I’m going to look at that man or that woman struggling with a balky kid and think to myself:
*Self, somewhere down the line, I’m going to be in a terrible rush to buy cold medicine, and be behind someone with a big cartfull of stuff, and they’re going to let me go in front of them. Somewhere down the line, I’m probably going to drop an armload of crap in the middle of a street and somebody, for no particular reason and even though he’s busy, is going to help me pick my shit up before it blows away. Or my own kid is going to cry on an airplane. Or I’m going to hurt my ankle and people are going to open doors for me. Or at least, I hope so. I hope they won’t be to self-absorbed too have a bit of empathy for someone stuck in a bad situation. *
So you know what? I don’t want that harried parent to abandon his or her groceries and go home and come back. Because I would rather accept the unbelievably tiny and minor inconvenience of hearing a child cry for five minutes than subject someone else to a much more significant inconvenience. I would rather this, because I hope someone will give me a beak somewhere down the line. I would rather this, because I understand where the parent is and empathize. I would rather this, because somehow I’ve managed to internalize that the world isn’t all about me and my convenience.
It’s that whole “do unto others” thing, which I suppose you’ve managed to convince yourself is sappy bullshit but which, ultimately, isn’t such a bad way to get through the day.
Your position (and that of many others, apparently) is that kids are mysterious little bundles of instinct that will just raise hell sometimes, the parent is totally helpless (or too weighed down by Care and Woe to pay attention) and we should just suck it up and stop complaining, because Tolerance serves the good of society (much like breeding in the first place). To quote you, it just ain’t so.
Supermarkets are not a venue I care much about, but if your child is throwing an uncontrollable nuclear tantrum - yeah, you should leave. If your kid kicks the back of someone else’s seat in the theater, or stands up his seat at the restaurant and pokes the person in the neighboring booth, or runs screaming through the joint because you’re conducting an endless cellphone conversation, you should be the first to notice and take corrective action. Your “tiny little human, with all that implies” can be adorable, or a brat that makes things miserable for everyone else. What you do (or don’t do) has an enormous impact on what happens.
It’s not easy being a responsible parent and postponing pleasure at times due to choices you’ve made. Lots manage, though, and their children are a pleasure to be around. The philosophy of these parents, to quote you again, seems to be:
It’s not this black and white. I tried to explain in my last post that there are some situations where kids are expected and welcomed. If they act up in a setting like that, and you don’t like it, you be tolerant or you leave. If they act up in a less welcoming setting, but only for a little while, and the parent is dealing with it, then maybe you can cope. If it’s really more of an adult-only setting, or if the kid is volcanically freaking out, then it’s incumbent on the parent to accommodate the needs of others, and not theirs/their kids, and go home. It’s a judgment call, and everyone’s judgment is different, but if you’re obviously making a lot of the other people around you uncomfortable, then you have to do the right thing.
I think one’s perspective on this is greatly altered by whether or not one has small children. It comes off like defensiveness, I have to tell you, storyteller and fessie. Most people are pretty tolerant of your kids, and if they do give you and your kid the hairy eyeball, so what? If you know you’re doing the best you can, fuck 'em. However, if you are making excuses , then that’s on you. Only you can know which it is.
I haven’t seen anyone here insisting that parents are only good parents if they can “guarantee a child’s behaviour”.
I think some of us are getting our wires crossed communications wise. I won’t speak for jackmannii, but the problem for most of us that are complaining in this thread is NOT the kids who have issues like you describe above and are with parents who are actively trying to do something when the issues become earsplitting or potentially damaging to property.
The issue is with kids who are behaving badly and whose parents do nothing, or worse, smile on in cow-eyed idiotic adoration and act shocked that everyone around isn’t as enthralled (or deaf and brain-dead) as they are.
When I was a kid, (back when dinos roamed the earth :)), and I misbehaved, or my sister misbehaved and my mom’s back was turned? You better believe that the grocery store clerk, or my aunt, or the lady behind my mom in line would step up to the plate and “Young Lady!!!” me.
In this day and age? NO one dares say anything to parents about their precious angel, even if said precious angel’s climbing you like a grand old oak tree.
THAT is the crux of the issue, no one is allowed to be annoyed at a child’s bad behaviour and speak up about it. Oh, a 4 year old just crashed your grocery cart into someone’s leg? “Awww, isn’t he cute, he’s ‘helping’, Huh??? How DARE you say my angel is misbehaving, you must hate children”.
If you and others in this thread are not these sorts of parents, then you are NOT what the rant is about.
Kids misbehaving with non-caring, non-parenting parents in tow does NOT then equal “Children must always be perfectly and adultly (is that even a word?:D) behaving in public”. Of COURSE kids are going to have all of the issues you and others have mentioned here, and all and any of the bad or annoying behaviours.
The difference is how the PARENT reacts and behaves when this happens. Yes, most of us agree that a child needs to go out into public to learn how to be in public. That’s a pretty big DUH.
Some parents think that means “turn little Johnny loose, damn the torpedoes full speed ahead, and NEVER ‘stifle’ his individuality”. (translation :sit and drink coffee, gossip with your girlfriends and don’t bat an eye while Jr. or Missy terrorize everyone in site and behave like little heathens).
And while we’re at it, allowing a baby on up to older kid to scream incessantly and do nothing about it is on that list too. Plane rides aside, if your child is in pain, or is having an out of control fit, you do NOT “need” to be browsing for books, at a concert, or inside your apartment watching soaps (former idiot neighbor woman), while your children scream as if they’re being abducted and raped with a hot fireplace poker. (these weren’t "wheee, hahaha, we’re having fun and/or fighting screams, Nope, these were earsplitting, heard through the walls of an old almost soundproofed apartment, screams).
THOSE are the parents and the behaviours being complained about by most of us here. Not normal “kid is having a bad day and mom is trying, but nothing she does is helping” parents.
And someone else mentioned something to the effect of (paraphrased), you don’t know how sad and badly in need of something/anything to just get out of the house…blah de blah, to the point that you do have to take a badly behaving child somewhere and ignore it…".
I don’t believe that BS for one minute. THAT spells very bad parenting. That woman who played pool while her little baby cried was, if not a cold-hearted bitch, behaving in a decidedly NOT good parenting manner. Doesn’t mean I think she was a bad person, but at that moment, she was a person behaving badly.
And as to the “some kids could STARVE to death if their mothers don’t shop this very moment!” nonsense. Good God! catsix’s posts are insane, and generally completely lacking in any sense whatsoever, but THAT sentiment made even her have a good point.
Way back when, I went through some times where being flat broke would have been a move UP in status, and shopping was rare and budgeted to within pennies, and I still managed to get food into my family.
If you (collective you) get to the point where anyone in your household is going to starve if you don’t make a specific single shopping outing, you’ve got more problems going on than whether or not you’re a good, bad, or even mediocre parent. If one shopping trip stands between you and danger of starvation in your household, you’re a complete and utter moron, kids or no kids.
I’m not sure that you and I actually disagree on anything at all. I agree with all of the above.
by the way - and you don’t have to believe me on this, but it’s true - but there’s no defensiveness on my part. I was blessed with a child who, since she was very, very small, is eerily and unusually well-behaved in public settings. She is the sort of child no one ever has to shush because she’s already being quiet and polite. I do not believe this has anything to do with my or my wife’s elite parenting skills, mind you. I think we won the parenting lottery. I just can understand those people with less good fortune.
OK, if everyone keeps posting stuff with which I agree, then we’re really not going to be able to call one another names for very much longer.
If I agree that the parents who look on and do nothing or “smile in doe-eyed adoration” are total and complete tools, and you agree that there are circumstances in which a parent may try his or her best and still need a bit of a break from those around him or her, then we have nothing further about which to argue.
The reason I lashed out at Jack has as much to do with previous threads as this one. We have a history. And, truthfully, he was right in our first encounter, in which he took me to school over the issue of homeopathy. I think the one valid point I made in that argument was that people who receive medical training have first-hand knowledge of disease and illness and cures; they know the stuff from experiencing it themselves, touching and smelling it, as opposed to just reading descriptions second-hand. By contrast, patients have to rely on faith when it comes to their physicians’ knowledge and the efficacy of medicine in general. And sometimes their trust is betrayed (though not intentionally). So some of them redirect their faith – because it was never true “knowledge” to begin with, only faith. Hence the interest in homeopathy.
I mention that because it’s sort of the same situation here. Only now I’m the one with first-hand experience with babies and small children. And it’s NOT like what you’d read in a book. You can have all the faith you want in a particular methodology; real life tends to contradict it. The mama-boards are full of women going “well, the book says I should be doing X, but my baby’s not doing Y as a result! now what?”
Of course children don’t belong in bars or pool halls; that’s silly. Of course parents should, you know, parent their children, wherever they are and whatever they happen to be doing. The linked article about the 4-yr-old punching somebody in the face while the parent just smiles - WTF was that?
Thing is, though, it’s like every other job - nobody does it perfectly. Everybody fucks up now and then, sometimes publicly. I’m an excellent mother with wonderful children, but I have definitely fucked up, more than once. We’re usually “Oh, you children are soooooo cute and well-behaved” (yes, people say it, OUT LOUD, FREQUENTLY), but I know we’ve also been “Those People!” to observers at least a couple of times.
Especially when my son threw a rock at the wolf in the sanctuary - ay yi yi. Little kids are fast.
But what you guys are REALLY missing is families in crisis. We went through a spell when my husband was unemployed and looking at guns at Wal*Mart; we were living in a tiny, awful apartment and running out of money. I remember sitting at the mall playland, absolutely zoned out, kinda dimly hoping my kids were behaving themselves, but not actually caring all that much. Fortunately I had moved us near my family right then, so I could lean on them lots of days. Not everyone has that, some of their families just make it worse.
I guess that until you’ve lived it yourself, there’s no way of understanding.
But I shan’t worry, karma has a way of working things out. CanvasShoes will somehow run out of coffee, toilet paper, contact lens solution AND gasoline.
Go back and read the OP. The baby cried for three minutes before mom picked him/her up and comforted him. And is described as a baby. This isn’t a pitting over a bratty toddler allowed to scream in B&N for 45 minutes.
I’ve said before (and maybe this is where I went wrong - cause my kids certainly aren’t perfect) - I think you CAN spoil little kids. I think that a child who is picked up immediately when they cry learns to cry to get attention. So I’ve always tried to let my kids self comfort or work it out - yes even in public - for at least a few minutes. I don’t want kids who learn that if they don’t want to be in the grocery store all they need to do is start whining. And yes, even if its non-essentials. Kids need to learn that their little wants and needs don’t come first every single time, and sometimes they need to sit quietly while Mom tries on shoes or picks out a book or grabs a mocha. All they learn if you pull them out when they start fussing is that they don’t have to sit quietly.
Don’t give me too much credit for “medical issues” Yes, she gets migraines. The vast majority of my daughter’s tantrums are pure “I can’t control my emotions.” The point being - I have a hard time after years telling the difference, I’m damn sure a stranger can’t. Yes, if its SAFE to remove my child when having a tantrum (for her, me, and the people around me) and the tantrum looks to be more than a few minutes, I will. But I have let her throw herself down on the floor in Target and watched her for three minutes while she realized I wasn’t giving in - since what she wanted was not toys or candy, but to leave Target.
I realize that you’re trying to be funny, but you’re missing the point. I SUCK at organization and have run out of all but the contact lens solution (don’t wear contacts). But none of the above were about to lead me to starvation or even “going hungry”.
Whomever originally posted the frantic “but you don’t know what it’s LIKE, sometimes you HAVE to shop or your family goes hungry” post (paraphrased) is the sentiment I was stating is moronic.
In fact, my sucking at being very organized actually supports my post. If I, a person who can barely make it to work on time (luckily we have a very flex schedule), or manage to do any one thing in my life consistently can manage without starving or harming one of my kids, and actually turn out a pair of pretty darned good human beings, all these Supermoms and leaders of the Revolt of the Cult of Child Worship have no excuses, and I find this “but we work our asses off and it’s SOOOOOO hard” whine to be pathetic (no one in this thread, but many excuses of that sort out IRL and on Doc Phil etc).
Have you ever listened to the Tests of the United Broadcast System? (I think that’s the right title, could be wrong). They last for about 15 or maybe it’s 30 seconds. Do you actually let it play? Or do you hit the remote, or car radio button immediately?
Take a stopwatch and a similar sharp, loud, high-pitched noise and listen to it for the entire 3 minutes. It’s one thing if you happen to be the mom listening to it and attempting to do something about it. It’s a whole 'nother story if you’re an innocent bystander being assaulted with it in a place that should be reasonably quiet (and no to head off those posts, of COURSE bookstore doesn’t equal Library).
As to the 45 minute thing, another poster had mentioned that their child (possibly you, but the memory is the first thing to go), had tantrums up to 45 minutes, I brought that up to say that I bet parents like you wouldn’t allow it to go on in a public place for that length of time, and that your type of parent isn’t the type being pitted here. I have a feeling that some (I’ve heard one specific poster mention this in other threads) DO seem to feel, at least to some extent, that kids, unless they’re actively destroying something, should be allowed to basically run wild no matter how obnoxious they’re being. And those are among the type of parent being pitted.
I agree, especially including the part about making mistakes, who doesn’t? (except hold your breath a few years, I’ll bet your kids turn OUT perfect, mine did! :D), which is why in my original post regarding this, I specifically said babies can’t be spoiled. Of course there is an age where you have to start phasing them out of that “must be picked up all of the time” thing, but for the OP it was a baby, same with the lady in the bowling alley.
One last time, I honestly don’t have a problem with someone who is having a really hard day and a bratty child on top of it, it may be annoying, but I truly understand. There’s a HUGE difference between dashing into the store under duress to get essentials and actively DEALING with a monstrous behaving child during the time you’re there, and someone strolling about looking in the linens and “goodies” sections for 20 minutes, quite oblivious to a 180 decibel screeching banshee in their cart.
An anecdotal bit of evidence to what I’m talking about. I was in Value Village (a thrift store, no essentials here, just used furniture, clothes and books) awhile back. I was getting some books to take on a trip outside and was in a line of about 15 people. The very last person in line was a lady with a very loud (the typical "but I WAAAANT IT…high-pitched screech), ill behaving child. NOT a toddler. The kid NEVER shut up, and the lady wasn’t doing anything other than (thank God for one favor) preventing the child from leaving her side.
People kept shooting her looks, which she returned with a very “so???” snotty little look on her face. Finally, after a few minutes she huffs “Haven’t any of YOU ever had to deal with a child in public who acts up”?
I didn’t even miss a beat, having indeed been in that very plight a time or ten. I said “Yup, and I took him RIGHT out of there too”. I don’t know what she did as I was next in line and she was at the end. Her essential “must have it or my family will go [???] item”? A couple of little decorative ceramic thingies.
For some reason V.V. is famous for this. I once shopped for about 20 minutes with a mom who spent the entire time pushing a young girl around in a cart who was screaming “YES mommy YES, I said YES, YES” over and over and over. You could hear the child throughout the entire store. I guess I can’t complain about her though, since the mom was technically “doing something”, she was saying “Now Angel, I told you, if you’re good we’ll XYZ, Didn’t I tell you? Now what did we talk about remember?”.
Obviously you still don’t get it, because you continue to trot out this old saw, which got demolished when you were busy trying to find excuses for anti-vaccination nutters.
A major point in both those threads (in which you behaved like a complete nimrodette) is that anecdotes, “experiences” and parental convictions do not constitute scientific evidence.
While this thread does not deal with pseudoscientific hooey, you’re back at it again, defending stupidity while piously assuring everyone that you personally are different.
Like screaming children and their clueless, self-centered parents this is annoying. But not the end of the world.
Unless you start giving lecture series on airline flights. :eek:
I had forgotten where I saw fessie’s name before: she likes to tell other people how to parent, in a stridently opinionated manner, specifically you must let you kid trick or treat or you’re an asshole and we should all teach our kids to believe in Santa Claus and just STFU. So I don’t think she’s really all that open-minded about parenting issues or other people’s belief systems when she holds her own daft ones so dear, much less the comfort of others in the bookstore when her kids are screaming.
Rubystreak, thanks!! That’s pure gold. I was just starting to miss QG, but this fulfilled by guffawing quotient for the day.
Some of the highlights:
Then the next day, you take them to a Border’s.
My kid is screaming in Border’s due to low blood sugar from the binge? It’s part of the social contract for you to hear it. Cause you’re on the listening to the screaming end of things, buddy.
Oh, my kids are screaming because they don’t want to be in the bookstore with low blood sugar? Is that what they said? I can just hear them “Oh, mummy, I’m screaming because of low blood sugar” Nah, can’t be that. . . you’re just all finicky people in a bookstore. Deal with it.
Yes, all you “stay between the lines at all times” people who try to be considerate and follow the laws, get over yourselves!
I’m not even touching that.
Yeah!
And don’t forget babies crying in bookstores and whether they should be taken out or not.
No poem for this thread? Here, I’ll help.
People run out of stuff.
Babies wail and cry in supermarkets.
Just deal and STFU.
Heffalump, your stringing together of remarks doesn’t make any sense. My example of taking my kids to Barnes & Noble (which I described in this thread) was that they WERE behaving well, and that people around them shot them evil looks just for talking. Not screaming. Not running. No meltdown involved. And it was a few months ago, not after Halloween. Had nothing to do with Halloween.
– But re: Halloween, I’d forgotten all about that one! Yeah, I like Halloween, and I grow weary of the “helicopter parenting” that’s so common nowadays. Just let the kids do it and let it go! “Helicopter parenting” is far worse than a little sugar binge - people send their kids off to college and then call their professors when problems arise. Fucking-A, let the kids grow up and use their own judgement! There’s a syndicated article in today’s paper (“Parenting in a Nutshell” by Doreen Nagle) where she talks about “life after college” for your kids. What they should do after they finish school (the kids, not the parents). Like a parent is supposed to manage their adult child’s life? I think THAT is nutters. And, IMHO, letting them make their own choices starts with simple rituals. Like, for example, HALLOWEEN!
— In my remarks about Santa Claus, I acknowledged right off the bat that it’s not “right” to wish everyone would just STFU and go along with the fat guy in the red suit. I merely stated that in my heart-of-hearts I sometimes grow weary of debating every single aspect of parenting. I had a sentimental moment; sue me.
– Re: vaccinations, Jack, darling - don’t you remember how that one went? Have you forgotten already? I came here and said “Gee, my anti-vax friends are arguing XYZ. Does it make sense?” And you said, “No, because of PDQ”. And I said “Thanks. I’ll repeat that to my friends.” It was respectful. It was lovely. It was everything a good thread ought to be. I didn’t “take up arms” on their behalf - I came here for some knowledge, which I took back to them.
During that thread you repeatedly posted debunked and undocumented theories about mercury and autism (including nonsense about how Amish don’t get autism because they don’t vaccinate, the revelation that your kid throwing a fit after getting a shot means we should take antivax claims seriously, and the suggestion that requiring hard evidence instead of anecdotes means we are disrespecting parents), plus these gems:
This is classic fessie: “Here’s a bunch of weird shit I dug up from my credulous friends and some goofball websites whose credentials I didn’t bother to verify. Gee thanks for debunking that one - how about this loony idea - of course there’s no evidence and I’m not saying I believe it but can we know for sure?!?” :rolleyes:
If that’s what you conclude from the linked thread, your thought processes are even more disordered than I’d imagined.
Interesting though - I hadn’t noticed that one of the mercury militia posters on the vaccination thread called herself Noahsmom.
You didn’t like, what, the fact that I actually read your cite and found that it didn’t talk about the same group of Amish people that I mentioned originally? How looney of me. :rolleyes: How dare I, an Ordinary Mortal, research an issue. Am I supposed to lick your balls and not ask questions because The Great MD deigned to respond?
CanvasShoes, sure, there are plenty of asshole parents out there, why wouldn’t there be? I’m not confident you (or anyone else) can tell at a glance whether you’re watching a good parent on a bad day – or, conversely, a bad parent on a good day. I knew an experienced Social Worker who told me once that one of the “red flags” of child abuse is parents who go overboard by being super-solicitous in public.
I just don’t think a brief glimpse gives you all that much information. If everyone’s offices were being spied upon all day long, don’t you imagine people who saw a 3-minute snippet would draw all kinds of inaccurate conclusions?
