You mean that sequence in Superman II was based on a true story?
featherlou, in my experience it has been the complete opposite. I don’t notice other adults feeling compelled to love children or be gentle with them. On the contrary, they seem to think it’s fine to express hostility and impatience at the mere presence of children in public. I do not see evidence that they are censured or made to feel abnormal. Rather, they are a part of a growing movement and have a lot of support.
There are cultures where children are treasured. I don’t think the United States is one of them. I say that not as someone who is ga-ga over all little rugrats. I used to be rather scornful of them myself. Then I became a parent and started to notice how many people shared that attitude (and felt free in expressing it in the presence of children). That bothers me on a lot of levels.
The Cult of the Child mentality is not about loving or being gentle with children, it’s about placing children on a pedestal (or paying lipservice to this) instead of actually giving them a healthy amount of love and care. The worshipping of the child amounts to objectification; treating a child like a prized possession or pet instead of having normal, day-to-day interactions with the parent in a dominant role.
I suspect that some people that are scornful of children may have developed that attitude from the multitude of badly behaved children we run into every day. But I will agree that expressing scorn in front of the child is not a great idea; a polite request for better behaviour is not inappropriate, I believe.
Are you one of my kids?!? 
My kids know how to behave in public. They know if they misbehave, then next time they don’t get to go. No, I don’t hit them or scream obsenities at them; I have taught them from day one how to behave in public. That means no running around in restaurants (this one always amazes me), staying with me in stores, holding my hand in the parking lot, etc.
[Bragging Mode]
As a result, I’ve had people come up to me in restaurants and comment on how well-behaved my kids are. They are usually coloring, playing with little dolls or Matchbox cars or a travel game or a puzzle book; something I’ve brought to keep them amused.
[/Bragging Mode]
I do have to agree that throwing just a straw wrapper isn’t too bad, but it’s the principle of it. No child should throw anything at someone else’s table. If Mom and Dad and the kids all blow their straw wrappers at each other, fine, but not at any one else.
I can’t stand when I see a parent trying to discipline a child with that, “Timmy, no. Timmy, stop that. Timmy, don’t do that. Timmy, stop. Timmy, cut it out,” but with no action. Get your ass over there and MAKE him stop.
Again, I have to bring up my experience as a teacher. I hate seeing these kids who have no discipline at all and no respect for rules. Throw Play-Dough around the room? Hey, that’s neat! Cut up someone else’s artwork? No problem! Pour milk on the floor at snacktime? Look at the fun puddles! Clean up time? No way, my mom doesn’t make me clean up.
You can tell from the child’s behavior that THEY rule the roost. Mom and Dad are there to serve their every little whim. And you can’t blame the kid; it’s the parent’s fault for giving in to everything. 
Random musings:
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If you bring your toddler to a restaurant, you should be fully prepared to expending your time and energy into amusing said kid. Bored kids are not fun for you and even less fun for people who have no affectionate ties to the child. If your child is walking into walls because he’s so tired or fussing on the way over, it may be a good idea to order take-out.
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Employees of the restaurant, seeing parents with young children, should enter code RED. That means: a) little ones should be supplied with crayons or pizza dough to amuse them; b) patrons should have their order taken, and food served, ASAP. Little tikes usually have about an hour before meltdown.
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If you go to a restaurant,you should expect to come into close contact with other members of the human race. This includes children who throw straw wrappers, drunk men who sprinkle their language with more swear words than you’ve uttered in your entire life, teenagers who are displaying body parts your grandmother wisely advised you to cover up, seniors who chew their food less gracefully than a cow chews his cud, and every other type of human being. If you are expecting to dine in absolute peace and quiet, then I would suggest that you either stay home or pick a restaurant that doesn’t serve straws with the drinks.
Oh, that makes sense. Thanks for the clarification.
The really sad thing is, kids crave limits and control. They need them. Parents who don’t provide these things aren’t just annoying other adults at restaurants. They’re letting their kid down and not meeting his needs.
I’d appreciate it if someone would tell me where I said that the kid should be allowed to throw straw wrappers the livelong day if he so pleases. I merely said that on the list of all the things a kid can get up to, throwing little bits of paper is pretty minor. If you use the big guns for the small offenses, what are you going to do if and when the kid tries something downright dangerous? Or put it another way, we don’t have mandatory jail sentences for speeders, folks.
If he were my kid… actually, if he were my kid he wouldn’t have gotten as far as that, because from the description in the OP the kid must have been standing on the booth bench. Standing on furniture is against the rules in Casa flodnak, and the crime is compounded if it isn’t our furniture in the first place. But when our kids talk to strangers at neighboring tables in restaurants, we watch them more closely, not less. If things go bad, then we distract (any parent who intentionally goes to a restaurant without a supply of quiet, age-appropriate toys is inviting trouble), correct, scold, and if necessary, go to a nice safe boring place (say the backseat of the car) for a little while. But I’d prefer to make the punishment suit the crime, y’know? I’ve known parents who would swat for this sort of behavior. They have to. Their kids have gotten so used to being hit that they won’t react to anything else :rolleyes:
I worked as a hostess in a hotel restaurant over the summers while I was an undergrad. We hosted a baby/young child beauty pageant for a few days, and they almost filled the hotel.
One woman became upset when I told her we could not hold her baggie full of breast milk in the cooler for health code reasons. (and no, a small fridge in her room was not good enough-- 
)
Another family, during Sunday champagne brunch, changed their child’s diaper right there on their table. I was flabbergasted, and even more amazed that they exhibited no visible embarrassment or discretion.
I also worked in room service, and while picking up used trays from the hallways, found several with used diapers on them…I gingerly picked them up and placed them back in front of the doors. Ick.
There was this woman who I used to work with. Her children were grown, but her sisters had a few small kids. She got sick and tired of her nieces and nephews running around her house, jumping on furniture, spilling things on the carpet for fun, etc. Her sisters would just laugh and laugh at how adorable their little ones were (“Oh, look at Johnny using the antique china as a frisbee!”). Finally, one day, she grabbed her unruly nephew and told him, “If you jump up on the coffee table one more time, I will spank you.” Her sister of course got very upset at the “threat” that she had made. My co-worker explained to her that, while she (the sister) apparently let her children have the run of their own home, they were expected to follow the rules in her (my co-worker’s) house. And that if their mother refused to discipline them, she, as the owner of the home, had every right to do so if they were breaking her rules.
Apparently her sisters managed to keep tabs on their little ones after that.
When I first met my new s-i-l I didn’t like her. One of the reasons was that she never disciplined her (five years old at the time) daughter. The kid would run up to my husband and kick him in the shins. Mommy thought this was hilarious and would laugh and tell her kid to do it again. Her daughter is much better behaved now (eight years old) and my s-i-l makes sure of it, especially in other people’s homes.
I do not have kids of my own, but I have never understood the mentality that children need have no respect for adults. I think I have known that since I was old enough to walk.
Again, http://www.tcs.ac
THIS is scary…
Study just out concluding that mild spanking will not have long-lasting damage on a child’s development.:rolleyes: Really?!?
Because God knows children have the emotional and mental abilities to make informed decisions for themselves.
“Looks like you’ve got a major fever, junior. Time to go to the doctor”
“Nooooooo”
“Oh. Well, if you say so. You must know best.”
Give me a fucking break.
I’ll conclude my OP rant with this story:
My late father invited his brother and sister in law, who brought over their grandchild, to his house.
The entire time they were there, the little shit kept walking around, picking up things, getting into all types of stuff, while Grandmom admonished him to little effect.
At the end of their stay, she had the balls to tell my father: “I see you didn’t child-proof your house!”
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“No,” replied my father, “you didn’t house-proof the kid!”
And none of her grandchildren were ever invited to his house again.
I don’t have much to add about the OP, but little kids drive me crazy. Even more so that their parents are often incompetent morons. I guess we can’t all be winners though…
A couple years back, when I was working at my original McDonalds, this guy came in with his small son. I was on break, my manager took his order. While he was standing there, the guy mentioned that he never ate at our store, because we were stupid or something. Out of curiousity, my manager asked why. Apparently about 6 months before, he’d been in the parking lot with our son, and the son spilt his soda in the car. The guy, exercising his parental rights, took the opportunity to spank his child, and somebody called the cops on him. Child welfare decided he was an unfit parent, and took his custody away. Because it was in our parking lot (half of which we can’t even see from the inside of the building…), it had to have been us that called the cops on him. Nevermind everyone with cell phones these days, and the pay phone right in the parking lot…this was just another example of the big, bad corporation trying to ruin the lives of innocent Americans. I can’t remember if my manager waited until he got out of the store before he started laughing or not…
It’s only a game until someone loses an eye, then it’s a sport.
People have occasionally told us how well behaved our children are in public. The reason for this is that they know that we’ll only ask them once to behave themselves before consequences are applied. That consequence is usually being removed from the store and spending some time outside or in the car.
I have no problem telling any child to behave themselves, these childrens parents aren’t usually upset with me as you would think. There have been a few exceptions but that’s life.
This concept seems to have originated (in the US, at least) in the late nineteenth century. We spent a good bit of time talking about it in a graduate history class I took. Supposedly it had a lot to do with the then-current idea that children are born innocent and moral, and that their youth is inherently praiseworthy completely apart from the children’s actions.
I had only ever heard this discussed in a historical context, but thinking about it, I see some of this attitude in some of the parents I know.
Thank you, D Marie. That’s the stuff I was talking about (and not explaining very well, I’m afraid).
I could see this being a problem. If the little room fridge couldn’t keep the breast milk safely frozen… those freezers suck. You gotta have a good place to store it.
But that’s neither here nor there. I guess I’m just saying if you ever work in the travel/hospitality industry, have some sympathy for the nursing mom on the road. Dragging that goddamn breast pump around and looking for a comfortable, safe, clean place to pump on schedule and trying to keep one’s milk safe is a huge pain in the ass. You can’t bend rules if they say “No storage of guest items in food coolers,” but do be kind about it.
You’ll probably be happy to hear that my 6 year old stepdaughter doesn’t really like to go out to eat, because she knows that in restaurants she has to be extra polite and quiet to avoid getting in trouble. Some people know how to control their kids.
[denis leary]
I dont spank my children. I find waving my gun around gets the job done instead.
[/denis leary]