Any generation, from now back to Adam – there were never any halcyon days when all kids were hidden away at all times from polite society.
Finally – a realization that your experience wasn’t the common experience of your “generation”.
I know, I know … you never said that.
Well, MADONNA says it’s true, so it MUST be true. 
My purpose was not to attack people’s lifestyles, which I doubt they chose. My point was to debate your contention that you never went to the store because you were poor. That hasn’t been my experience, and it doesn’t even make sense. I would think poor people would have fewer choices about what to do with the kids, and would be more likely to be working during the day and forced to bring the kids shopping. Your neighbors must have been saints to take on other people’s children, considering that you’re saying what a horror show kids are before they’re 9, or 12, or whatever. Not everyone has neighbors they can dump their kids on. That’s not a lifestyle choice, that’s just the way it is.
I wouldn’t be able to get up enough energy to hate an entire class of people because of a minute of screaming a couple of times a year. In order for me to hate someone, they really have to fuck me over in a lasting, meaningful way. Sure, plenty of people irritate me, but hate? All of them? The frequency would have to be invasive. IME, it’s not. And I see plenty of kids out and about. If I were plagued by screaming, tantrum-throwing children on a daily basis, maybe I could understand it, but I’m just not seeing it.
Where the hell are you shopping? Seriously, I almost never hear kids screaming in the store, the mall, or restaurants. It’s rather rare. Are you saying that kids are better behaved in upstate NY than they are in CA? :dubious:
It’s almost certainly a matter of personal thresholds and tolerance.
I bet if we took curlcoat, starwarsfreek, and a bunch of other random adults – balanced numerically by age, parent/non-parent, socio-economic status, region, etc. – and paraded them around several Wal-Marts, grocery stores, and shopping malls scattered nation-wide, curlcoat and starwarsfreek be hearing and picking up on the activities of children that would be subliminal to practically every other person in the study.
Same might go for Lynn Bodoni and tdn as well, despite their apparent status as non-“child-haters”.
If I had a dollar for every child I’ve heard screaming in a restaurant, I wouldn’t be able to afford to go to restaurants.
The offenses being railed against here are nothing more than whines of children who happened to be over the age of majority.
I agree. The issue seems to be, first, what level of “annoyance” people should be required to tolerate and to, in effect, suck up.
To my mind the common law has this right: under the laws of nuisance, the level of noise and other annoyances a person is obliged to tollerate is that found tollerable by the average person - not those particularly or especially sensitive. The reason is pretty clear - otherwise society would be held hostage to the comfort of the most sensitive individual, and you end up with Curlcoat’s ‘children should not be allowed in public at all’ policy made law.
The second issue is whether those of particular sensitivity are justified in “hating” the persons they are especially sensitive to. I say that’s a bizzare position and not supportable. If I was allergic to dogs I would not “hate” them - I’d hate the allergy. Even more so if the object I was sensitive to was a person.
I know, it’s so difficult to deal with someone that won’t believe in every little thing you find important, isn’t it? More so when you insult and belittle them and they still won’t change or go away!
Poor thing.
Well, you’ve insulted and belittled children in this thread, and they aren’t going to change or go away either, no matter how much you fume and rail about them. Isn’t it funny about that?
Poor thing.
I’d have some nice extra cash in that situation. Screaming, crying, throwing things, running around…all are regular occurances. Last week we went out and there was a kid leaning over the booth and spitting water on the floor. I’d say somethig like this happens nearly 50% of times we go out.
I just do not understand the discrepancy between my experiences and yours. I have not had my meal in a restaurant disturbed at any time in recent memory, and I have thought about it. As I said earlier, I hear a kid misbehaving in a store a few times a year. How is it that you’re seeing it every second time you go out?
Then you need to move out of whatever psycho-child neighborhood you live in.
I go to restaurants and store all the freaking time, and I can’t even remember the last time I saw some kid flipping out. Oh I’ve seen them laughing, I’ve seen them being energetic, I’ve even seen them crying, as children are wont to do … but you see a kid doing something like spitting water on the floor (with no parental reprimand, I’m assuming) 50% of the time you go out?
You are either the most hyper-sensitive boor on the planet, or the unluckiest son-of-a-bitch I’ve ever heard of.
Likely. I just got back from the grocery store. Saw lots of kids, all behaving. One was a little tyke about two and a half years old, cute as heck, just following along behind the cart. A perfectly well behaved child. I imagine curlcoat would say her jacket was too pink and it hurt her eyes.
Are you 49? Kids of your generation were shitty as all hell.
Are you 44? Kids of your generation were shitty as all hell.
You claim to be younger than 53. There was nothing special about your generation if you’re younger than 53; either you grew up in the 60s, when kids had a reputation for being shitty, or the 70s, when they had the same reputation, or, if you’re as young as me (37) the late 70s/early 80s, when kids had the same reputation. Every single generation of children that has ever existed since the dawn of recorded history has been claimed to be ill-mannered. The current crop is just as good as any previous crop.
If you have objective evidence to the contrary, provide it. But you’re not good with evidence; you are, after all, the one who implied young people were getting married YOUNGER than they used to, and having more kids than they used to, (cite), in contravention of both the facts and what I assumed every adult with an IQ over 80 knew to be the case.
Suck up to? Wha? Who on earth is asking children to suck up to adults? You made a point to let us know that you felt children should not have to show respect to people they don’t look up to. That type of thinking and parenting is what contributes to spoiled and entitled children.
Treating other human beings with decency and respect is a part of being in a society. Teaching children otherwise is to hinder their ability to fit into society as children and later as adults.
I’m sure you think you’re being horribly clever, but your exaggerations are every bit as ridiculous as her’s.
So they bark all day while you’re away?
I SAID I did not use the right expression. I CORRECTED it. I think we should move on. I do.
Running around and making noise is NOT equal to not showing respect.
You SAID you didn’t use the right expression and then you CORRECTED it with something even more foolish. I don’t blame you for wanting to move on, though. If I said something that ignorant, I’d want everyone to forget all about it too.
Perhaps you could point out where I said they ARE equal?
That’s right. You DO have to put up with it. A parent can try to calm the child down, but if they can’t, oh well. Tough shit. You have a few minutes of out-of-bubble unpleasantness.
:dubious:
Humans?
Fascinating.
/spock
(even the little ones)