dantheman, I think part of the problem is my too-casual use of “calling horseshit” – in person, it wouldn’t have come across as confrontational as it did on the screen. I apologize for that.
In any event, your extenuating circumstances are pretty much the case – on the restauranty side of bar & grill. But then, those are the sort of places I tend to patronize without The Boy, too. There are certainly bars and clubs that I wouldn’t bring a child to – and I’m sure the proprietors wouldn’t let me if I wanted to anyway. As a benefit, he learns that too much beer makes frequently makes one act like a moron.
Kindly try harder to control your “little fuckers” and keep them out of my way, and if they throw a tantrum in a public place, take them home (or at least out of earshot).
WTF?!?!?! So, because when I go out for a nice dinner with my family, I don’t want to deal with YOUR* rotten little kids tearing around the place, acting like shits, that means I’m going to confine my future, as of yet unborn, child to a car seat and beat the crap out of him/her??!?! I don’t think so.
I like children just fine, but some of the asshole parents, that don’t control them, need to be swatted up side the head with a soft-soled bunny slipper, if you ask me.
*“Your” of course referring to the collective “your” - parents that don’t control their children, as opposed to “Your” as in YOUR children, because I have no idea if you control them or not. Assuming you do - great. If not, please see the bunny slipper comment.
Thanks for qualifiying your objections to kids not belonging in bars, dan. Not all bars are the same. There are still neighborhood taverns where guys can take their sons and watch a ballgame with their buddies. The dad can show off his kid, the kid learns how to be a man, and mom gets the two idiots out of the house for a while.
Since my dad owned a place like that, I practically grew up in a bar, but I was NEVER there after 6PM, unless it was to make an emergency delivery of my mom’s pickled eggs.
I wonder if you have the same attitude about poorly-behaving adults.
Look, kids do not learn how to function in public among adults without being given the chance. The truth is, most kids do just fine in public situations, but they pass under your radar. I’m not going to confine my child to school, home and Chuck E motherfucking Cheese because some yahoo’s kid screamed in your ear once. My son is part of society too, and if he has to deal with some jerk sitting behind us at a ballgame screaming about how he’d like to fuck the shit out of that blonde, well, then you have to deal with his occasional misbehavior at the grocery store. How the hell else is he going to learn?
Reminds me of a story… new year’s 2000, visiting then-boyfriend’s extended family in a tiny rural Quebec village. Come Jan 1, everyone’s kinda recovering. I’m hanging out with bf’s little cousin. Fun little 10-year-old kid. We’re watching Pokémon.
So the kid’s uncle comes into the room, flips out, and yells at the kid to leave me alone, and yells at me, “I don’t want you giving my son any ‘tendencies’!”
And then escorts the kid into the kitchen, which is so dense with smoke that it is obscuring vision. There’s a ceiling of one foot over the floor. I’m serious, it’s like a blue-grey fog of nicotine, formaldehyde, tar, and cyanhydric acid in there. Which is of course much safer for the kid than my Evil Homosexual Presence. sigh
First, thumbs up to the parents who all agree. I specially feel bad for those of you that are courteous enough to get a babysitter, just want to get away for the little munchkins for one night, just to have it ruined by the Waltons at the next table.
Let me clarify the bars rule, since that seems to be generating the most debate.
Taking little junior out to the sports bar at 2 pm to watch the football team on the big screen, ok, I THINK. (Of course, for the amount you spend there every week, per month, wouldn’t it be about the same to just get a dish?).
-Letting your brats run around the bar at 9pm at night, NOT OK.
-Bringing a newborn baby and smoking in its face, anytime, and really anywhere NOT OK.
Oh, and BTW, just because you spend more money on groceries than I do does not give your little loved ones the right to get in my way. You have as much right to bring your litter to the grocery market as I do. Just keep them OFF THE FLOOR, AND/OR UNDER CONTROL.
Somehow I’m sure I spend more at Home Depot and Staples in one year than you; if we run into each other, may I crosscheck you into an endcap?
The whole bar portion of the debate reminded me of the promos that are circulating for Sweet Home Alabama, in which Reese Witherspoon goes back home to Alabama to get a divorce. She’s in a bar and runs into an old friend who says, “Look at you!” To which Reese replies, “Look at you! You have a child! … in a bar!”
Absolutely. I try to avoid places where there are small children present, and I see bad adult behavior more often, and it’s equally (more even) deplorable.
But I can say something to an adult who is acting like a jerk. I’m not going to scold some snot-nose brat who’s running amuck screaming and bumping into everybody. That’s their parent’s job.
And yes, most children do pass under my radar. But what get’s me is when parents do nothing to correct their children who are obviously behaving badly and annoying the piss out of everybody in earshot. The smug attitude of “They’re just children, deal with it” doesn’t fly.
So that’s the secret! You learn to be a man by watching sports in a bar.
Vinny, I’m with you on 1-3, but gotta differ on number four. Wegmen’s parking lot is theirs to assign parking as they see fit.
They obviously must cater to parents with small children based on the parking spaces you mentioned and the tiny carts. Ranting about small children being present at an establishment that goes out of its way to cater to them and their parents is like complaining about kids being at one of those kiddie pizza places (which I assume Chucky Cheese is, though I’m unfamiliar with that particular store).
I’ve never had much interaction with small children, once I was aged past being a small child myself–hazards of a nuclear-fission family, where all the aunts and uncles and cousins and whatnot are scattered across umpty states. When sets of good friends of mine recently started spawning (they’ve all seem to have started up this past year or two ), I find I just plain notice kids more often. And the vast majority of them are relatively quiet and behave just fine.
Parents who bring infants into movie theaters are still morons, though, don’t get me wrong.
Point one: don’t count on it, Homey. I live in an older house, and run a home office. Point two, as you are (supposedly) an adult, I would expect you to act better than a five year-old, rather than “crosscheck” me. I expect better from an adult. Then again, by your standards, adults and children should have the same level of behavior. The question is…no, there’s no question. Your standard says that you can “run the little fuck over.”
I think someone here needs to grow up and join society as a whole, and I don’t think it’s the “little fuck” who hasn’t yet learned to steer a 16-ounce plastic shopping cart past your delicate tootsie.
Little old ladies who can’t steer their carts properly are always getting in my way or bumping into me at the grocery store. I usually manage to control myself and refrain from running them over. I’ll usually even try to smile at them and say, “Excuse me.”
So I’m in full agreement with Points 1-3, but I disagree with Point 4.
