Sadly, I’ve known Holier-Than-Thou parents who would totally go apeshit that you dared to take something away from their Little Angel and are interfering with their parenting.
PM me when this kid is of the appropriate age and I will pay his SDMB subscription. This young person must not be discouraged.
I give kids the same respect I give other humans; some parents seem to think their offspring somehow magically deserve more, though (and that it’s a one way street).
The problem I see is that saying that the world doesn’t care about any individual humans appears a trifle cold, too.
Again, it is not inaccurate from a certain point of view, but few people like to hear such a philosophy applied to them. Almost everyone secretly believes that they matter, and to get along with people, it is well I think to act in such a way as to at least plausably pretend that others matter when interacting with them, even if you don’t really believe it.
Now, it is a characteristic of the human animal to care for its young; most mammals share this peculiarity, unlike (say) reptiles, who mostly lay eggs and then forget about them. We all know that the world doesn’t care about a baby human any more than it does about a baby snake, but living as we do in a society filled with humans rather than snakes, it behooves us I think, if we wish to get along with these other humans, to pander to this well-known and common prejudice, however odd, unfair and even illogical it may appear.
Well, I’m nice to people in my monkeysphere. 
We do pander to the odd prejudice (your words!) of people caring for their own children.
We do not need to pander to the bizarre prejudice of people with the expectation that others care for their children. That’s the point of bitching about “inattentive parents”. Its not that we mind catering to their need to care for their own children, but it doesn’t mean that it should involve others against their wishes.
I had to look it up. Great term!
To put it in context of that theory, I think civilized manners mostly consists of pretending, as a social fiction, that people outside your monkeysphere are really inside it.
This is of course a pretense, because generally speaking only saints and the like actually care about people in numbers greater than Dunbar’s number. But without that pretense, life would be difficult, given that we no longer actually live in neolithic villages.
Put in terms of the theory, seems the real nub of the protest is that people outside your “monkeysphere” are acting as if you are inside it, which is an imposition.
I agree - but I note that such impositions are inevitable, even necessary to an extent, due to the nature of our species.
Naturally, such impositions can go too far - after all, everywhere there exist “free riders” who use the unspoken rules of civility to gain advantages for themselves at the expense of others (such as parents who would rather be partying than baby-sitting, and so hand responsibilities off onto others so they can enjoy themselves). I have no objection to pitting such folk.
What I found slightly odd, though, was the notion that we should not care for the children of others because the universe doesn’t care. The ‘monkeysphere’ theory illuminates this point. My counter-point is that, while it is true that in general we don’t care about the children of strangers, we should to an extent act as if we do: if everyone acted all the time on their real feelings of almost total indifference to strangers, life in modern society would be difficult indeed.
I really enjoyed reading this thread
You guys might enjoy (and feel vindicated by) Dr. Kevin Leman’s book “Have a New Kid by Friday” in which he argues that YES, parents these days DO have a hard time saying “No” to their children and setting effective boundaries and limits. It is definitely a serious problem. Absolutely. And it has serious ramifications for kids’ futures.
At the same time, he advocates on behalf of kids’ need to make mistakes. Even in public. They have to learn, and it’s not always pleasant to be around.
And when you see a mom who’s not controlling her child right then, you have no way of knowing how many battles she fought earlier that day (or how many more she’ll struggle through later). Good kids *still *have bad spells; good moms have rotten days now and then.
Geez, I remember when my kids were 2.5 and they went bonkers at a Chinese buffet restaurant. We’d eaten out with them many times. They knew the drill. In fact, they often received compliments from strangers for excellent deportment. Didn’t matter - on that occasion, they couldn’t behave themselves. We didn’t stay long, but anyone who saw us during the 20 minutes we were there probably concluded we were always inept parents.
When it comes to your relatives, yeah, that’s tough. Just remember, it’s a LOT easier to criticize from the sidelines. One of these days you may have some yourself, and then you’ll see it differently. Because parenting isn’t a sprint, it’s a combination obstacle course/marathon; if they don’t get you in the mud pit, they’ll wear your ass out over distance.
And ------ we HAVE to think our kids are a Special Gift From Above. Otherwise we’d kill 'em.
oh — and Dr. Leman argues strongly in favor of “Natural Consequences”. Not so much for toddlers (yes, 2-yr-olds HAVE to be supervised, and I thought stickers were a hilarious idea), but shortly thereafter. And with consequences that are age-appropriate. Kids really need to learn from their own experiences.
Here you go being reasonable again. I swear, some people’s children! :rolleyes: 
Thank you, I was beginning to think I’d coded that part in invisible pixels or something!
That wasn’t really what I was saying, though; I was saying that parents should realize that no one cares for their children like they do, and to expect otherwise would be foolish. That means not expecting other people to look after your children with the same level of care and attention you give them (people might, but you can’t expect it), and not expecting other people to be as tolerant of your children as you are - you can tolerate a lot from your children because you love them. Other people are just tolerating them because it’s illegal to shoot them.
If you stayed there for a whole meal through your children screaming, I’d have concluded you were an inept parent. Since you instead packed up and left, though, that for me puts you firmly in the category of “people who know what the fuck they’re doing.” You can’t control your kids 100% of the time (they are, after all, individual people); what you *can *control is how you react to them.
For now.
If you are running for office on this platform - I’d vote for you!
I give you President for Life: Shot from Guns!
This year my youngest (of 3) went off to college. I could not have imagined the freedom that resulted from not being an on-site parent 24/7. Other than hired babysitters, I’m not sure I ever expected anyone other than my wife or me to be responsible for our kids’ behavior and safety.
WRT injuries, IMO&E kids are pretty tough. I’ve been criticized around here for being too - uh - controlling WRT my kids. But before they each turned 5 that didn’t stop the oldest from breaking her nose twice and getting a concussion, the middle one from knocking out his 2 top front teeth, or the youngest from getting stitches in her knee and knocking out her 4 front teeth.
But to me that is entirely different from disturbing others in public. I couldn’t begin to count the number of times we left a store or some other public place when a kid acted up, instead of subjecting others to such behavior. For years we pretty much simply didn’t go many places other than parks, pools, and such.
I’m sorry, I wasn’t paying attention. Have you seen my kid? Im sure she’s around here someplace.
Add to this occasional forays into more polite restaurants and such so that they would be exposed to such places, and this is exactly what we did. But even at the pool or the park, manners matter. When I think of the days at the beach (or pool) where all I did was count to 3 (not leaving it completely up to the lifeguard who had 200+ kids to keep track of)… until they could all swim well, poolside was not the time to read my book. Lake/oceanside, never, until they were much older. I thought one of the reasons to go to the pool or park was so that all could enjoy the experience together. I don’t understand parents who think monkey bars are some kind of baby sitter (this obviously applies to small kids).
On the topic of bothering others, I don’t care if it was in a park, at the pool, or in my backyard, I remember telling my kids that if I heard them shriek again they’d better be bleeding.
My youngest is graduating from college next month. I trust you weren’t totally hands-on parents when they started to drive, right? I mean, you know more or less where they are and what they are doing, but some of my daughter’s friends were so controlled that going off to college was a tremendous shock.
I actually got more upset at out of control kids after I had my own. Once you know that it is possible to control them or take them away, you realize there is no excuse for letting kids disturb other people.
We trained our kids at a Sunday brunch buffet, with grandparents and grand aunts who could help take them to the lobby of the hotel if needed. It was seldom needed, and they were both experts in how to behave in public long before they were 5. I bet they do the same with their kids when they have them.
I live within earshot of a public school, and I love kids. I think that the laughter of children is like birdsong, a thing of beauty.
A few houses up, on my block, are people who have a pool and some small children. And I understand that children get excited, holler and shout, raise their voices, I’m pretty understanding. But when I hear them shrieking, again and again and for a long duration, I wonder what kind of parents are these? I am longing to hear them, just once, saying; “Now listen, I don’t expect you to be whisper quiet but there is no call for shrieking. Knock it off, we do have neighbours and they don’t need to listen to that!”
How is it people don’t realize that all neighbourhoods are the same. In one of these houses, there is someone who just coaxed a colicky infant to sleep, someone just lay down with a migraine, someone is sick or dying. No one expects silence but a little deference to not living in a vacuum would be nice. And maybe teach a little respect for others to your children.