You’re right. I heard we can grow workers in labs now.
Since one of my dogs got stolen (thankfully returned within the hour) they don’t stay out anymore when I leave. So no.
Funnily enough, I don’t have to put up with anything. Being an adult, with a driver’s license, I have every right to leave.
I am not a parent. I, like you, have no children but am very fond of my husband and pets, so there goes THAT point.
They are not heathens, and that’s a belittling and insulting thing to say. They are misbehaving children. There are ways to talk about them that aren’t belittling or insulting, by which you could make your point, and which people wouldn’t find so damned alienating. You bridle when people characterize you negatively, but when it’s pointed out that you do the same, you fail to retract or even recognize that you’re doing it, because of course YOUR insults and belittling are correct, and others’ are way off. You’re burying what might be valid points under all this negativity, hostility, and puffed up outrage, that even other childless people who like peace and quiet, like me, can’t side with you.
No, and I’d like just one cite that would make you ask that from anything I’ve said. Are you of the opinion that they are always demons? Sure seems like it.
You honestly believe that I am unable to recognize or acknowledge bad behavior? I even MENTIONED AN EXAMPLE in my post, but no, it’s either black or white, with you or against you. If you’re not being hyperbolic, then you’re unable to see nuance, which makes it hard to have a conversation.
I guess it depends on your definition of “oodles” - here they say that in 2007, 33% of single mothers were never married. It appears that most may be teens - “There are nearly half a million children born to teenage mothers each year.” Half a million seems like at least one oodle to me, and since that is each year it wouldn’t take too long to get to oodles plural.
And yet, I am not surprised that you put it that way. Yes, children crying is a natural thing. The issue here is whether or not it is acceptable for them to do it in public places, for more than a minute or two, without the parent/caregiver/whoever doing anything about it.
I know it is. And I’m not the only one even in this thread to say so.
I don’t know what you mean by older - older than babies? Toddlers? It doesn’t seem to have an age range, other than “old enough to run”.
What it is, is that you chose to misunderstand what I post. I give examples of what happens, I give examples of frequency and you come back with constant?
Or, it could be that parents or those who will become parents are much more likely to ignore the noise and mess and damage caused by children. There is even an ad with a mother doing it, I think for a carpet cleaner. Her 6? year old son is MOMOMOMOMOMOMOM and she completely ignores him until she actually sees that the thing he wants to tell her is the dog is rubbing his butt on the floor. That ad makes me nuts - I couldn’t imagine being able to ignore that in real life. Yet parents seem to be able to ignore much worse noise at will. “Kids will be kids” seems to be the common response to damage. The most telling thing? How the parents and parents to be overreact when these things are pointed out.
And you have no intention of ever having any children?
Oh ferchissakes. If they are acting like heathens, how is it “belittling and insulting” to call them heathens? Jesus.
No, they are not. Mere “misbehaving” children are not willfully making noise, damaging property, knocking people over. When their parents ignore them, it appears that this behavior is common for these children. So, it would appear that going by the second definition here, they are acting like heathens.
Yeah? When would that be? I’ve shown frustration, amazement, disbelief - don’t remember caring enough to be upset.
I cannot help it if you read what I write as negative, hostile or puffed up outrage.
No and you only think that because you choose to. As for the cite that makes me think you view children as always good/innocent/whathaveyou, it was the one that I responded to. I said that there were children acting like heathens and you come back with “calling a person “a little heathen run amok” is insulting and belittling”, as if children are never uncivilized!
There was no example of bad behavior by a child in the post I responded to. If it was in a post responding to another person, I probably missed it since I don’t have time to read everything in here. Particularly those that are repeating themselves.
As for nuance, that is generally lost in this medium. Clarity is a must.
What relevance does that have? I am not a parent. What stake do I have in thinking children are perfect? Is it not possible that I disagree with you, not because I’m in denial or have some idealized view of kids, but because I actually think you’re wrong?
If I think you’re acting like an asshole, does that not mean it’s belittling and insulting for me to call you that? Yes, it is. There are other, less derisive ways to describe the behavior. You choose not to use them because you want your dislike to show. I don’t know why you can’t just admit that and move on.
I don’t see why you’d append the descriptor “mere” to misbehaving. I think it’s because “misbehaving” does not convey the contempt and snideness that you wished to convey with “heathen.” A misbehaving child might do any of the things listed.
I didn’t say “upset.” I said “bridled,” and by that I mean the second definition here. You have certainly bridled at being insulted. Do unto others, and all that.
Do you think you have been positive, warm, and gracious? If you wanted to help how people perceived you, you certainly could. I cannot help it if you choose to come across as negative, hostile, and puffed up with outrage.
Children are people just like you and me. Sometimes everyone misbehaves. Sometimes, each of us acts like a right bastard. Kids, by virtue of having undeveloped brains, have less ability to control themselves. Even the best kids slip up, just as we all do. I don’t enjoy witnessing their bad behavior any more than anyone else, and I do not enjoy hearing anyone scream, ever, but I apparently witness is much more rarely than you do, and don’t arrive at the same absolutist, negative conclusions about all children based on it. I don’t view ANYONE as ALWAYS anything, because I think people who think that way are simplistic and idiotic. I don’t classify all children based on the behavior of a few bad ones, nor would I say a child who misbehaves today might not be great tomorrow. It’s not ME who’s making absolutist statements, it’s YOU.
If I call you a heathen based on your behavior in this thread, would you feel insulted by it? Would you think I was belitting you? It’s certainly not a compliment or an unbiased descriptor. How you can claim it’s not meant to be insulting boggles the mind.
I think that’s a bullshit excuse. One can be nuanced and clear at the same time. Just because that eludes you does not mean that it’s impossible.
Impossible–your generation had many miliions of people in it in America alone. No way everything was the same for everyone. There was much variation. You can talk about societal trends as you experienced them, but you cannot speak for the whole of your generation.
I’m going with possibility #2, though possibly less diplomatically worded. 
I think we have a winner here.
I think not. At least not entirely. I think it is completely incumbent upon a parent to remove their child(ren) from a situation if the impact of the childs’ behavior is such that it effects those surrounding the commotion in a more serious way. A noisy kid in a grocery store, you deal with, a noisy kid in a movie theater, the kid has to go.
If the parents in the thread and IRL are as live-and-let-live as we’re meant to believe, then I’d never have a word be said for swearing on the train (as happened recently) or never get a dirty look for a t-shirt with swear words on it. Alas.
Parents want things both ways; “hey, it’s a KID, you have to deal with it” and then “Hey! I have kids here, change your behavior!” Now which is it? Are your kids allowed to invade MY space and effect ME and I’m not allowed to invade THEIR space and effect THEM?
Both parties have just as much right to be as ability to leave. I think it falls on the offended party in general circumstances (grocery stores, train cars) to exit, but in special ones (like a movie) it falls on the parents of the offending tot to evacuate them.
The line changes places though when you start dealing with children damaging things, or harassing patrons at a store or some such. I don’t have to put up with your kid throwing things at me, or running into me or screeching at me, whatever. A child crying in line is a LOT different than a child climbing on clothes racks and breaking things. I’ve seen my share of those free-range children (REAL big with the yuppies) act like complete little shits and I have an urge to walk right over to the male (should there be one) and backhand him right across the face, followed by an order to control his little heathen. And about that, btw, sure, it’s demeaning, and perhaps belittling. So what? Sometimes such an insult is deserved because it’s true. Bad kids are products of bad parents 95 out of 100 times, so I suppose if you’re going to insult the kid, you should ALSO insult the parents.
It’s both. The thing you’re missing is that kids belong in the world, and have a right to be in the world, just as much as you do.
Parents have responsibility for them, to remove them when they’re unduly out of order. Sometimes they don’t behave and bystanders have to witness some misbehavior. Quit defining them by this. Someone upthread, Rubystreak maybe, said something along the lines of, one day a child might be acting up in a store, the next day he is a a model of good behavior. Please remember this. One meltdown does not define the child.
But make no mistake about it: children are fully human, and full participants in human society. That’s what galls so much about this thread — so many statements dehumanize them, belittle them, insult them, and otherwise marginalize their existence. They’re not “its” — they are people.
And one more thing: Fuck that ‘Cult of the Child’ bullshit! Yes, some parents are crappy people and crappy parents, yes WE KNOW some parents don’t properly supervise and control their children. But lord above, anyone who defends children’s rights isnt’ some sort of cultist! They HAVE rights and they ARE people.
It can go either way, depending on circumstances. The issue is whether the annoyance one is causing to the other is of the sort that the neutral observer would find breaks the bounds of acceptable behaviour.
What you don’t seem to get is that you are “backhanding” straw men (or straw parents if you will. :D). Example:
I mean, really. Someone gave you a mean word on a train, and suddenly every parent posting here is responsible for it? :smack:
No-one is saying that kids destroying stuff is okay, we are just saying that the actual incidence of this is much exaggerated and used to justify inappropriate stereotyping & anger directed at parents & children on this site - like the Internet tough-guy posturing about “backhanding” the “male” parent, the sad person upthread going on about how she kicked a couple of kids, or the “wee little snookums” type snark.
This alone is testimony to the passivity and lack of dynamism in Canadian culture. In contrast, American children are raised to be two things the world needs most: leaders and followers. Conflict between those roles is inevitable.
Neither of us knows if you are “in denial” or not, but if you have not ruled out the possibility of having children it is more likely that you are. As I said earlier, parents are far more likely to be able to tune out the noise, mess, damage that children make, so logically those who eventually become parents would be able to do this too. Same with those that think things like a baby with food all over its face is cute, or that a highly pregnant woman doesn’t look weird. The way you see things makes a huge difference.
Actually, no it’s not. It would be if you actually called me an asshole, but to describe my behavior that way is just that - using a descriptive term. For that to even get close to be belittling and insulting would require another couple of steps, which would be for me to agree with your assessment and for me to care.
So, because you like children and because you don’t want their baser behaviors to be discussed in words that actually describe them, I am supposed to pretend they don’t happen? Or is it that you just can’t believe that children act uncivilized in public?
I am to assume then that you don’t see any difference between a child that is misbehaving and one that is acting uncivilized?
Showing “hostility or resentment” is different from becoming upset? Okaaaay. Anyway, you did fail to show where I had any “hostility or resentment” in response to a post.
You can if you read it that way due to pre exisiting bias, which comes from leaping to the conclusion that anyone who is not positive warm and gracious about children must therefore be hostile and puffed up with outrage. There is a world of grey areas between those two.
No, they aren’t. Children are as yet undeveloped humans, who still need training and supervision. Without that, they tend to grow up completely uncivilized (there are studies on that out there if you care to look). The children that I call heathens are the ones that act uncivilized and are without supervision. For some reason, many people think that is OK, that because they are children there is no reason to expect that their parents should be doing anything to curb their “kids will be kids” behavior.
If children were people just like you and me, then either every baby that screamed in a store would be booted immediately, or they would quit calling the cops when an adult did it. Since children are not just like you and me, it is up to their parents to be responsible for their behavior, to teach them about indoor voices and manners and to address any misbehavior quickly.
Neither do I, and if you were not so sensitive to me using any but the mildest terms to describe children and their behavior, you would notice that I am talking about that subset of children that are allowed to act uncivilized in public.
Well you just did, so…
You don’t understand the difference between calling someone that to their face and using it to describe a general section of society?
I do the best I can to be clear, yet you keep misunderstanding what I post. I won’t even try nuance.
Do you think I do?
Sure, they’re people. But they are NOT full participants in human society. We don’t allow them to drive, or serve on juries, or do any number of things that adults are allowed to do. We allow adults to participate in society as long as they’re not really disruptive, but we cut children more slack. Can you imagine, for instance, that we would have allowed an adult to remain in our store if he’d been using the clothes racks as a jungle gym?
I think that most of us who are defined as child-haters are saying that these kids are not socialized/civilized enough to be taken out in public yet. Sure, the meltdown might be a once a year thing. But if it happens that rarely, then the parents shouldn’t force the public to put up with it. And if it happens frequently, then the parents should be very careful about teaching their child better, and not putting him in stressful situations, and possibly even getting a babysitter or swap babysitting services with someone else.
There are times and places when children should feel free to run around and holler. For the most part, these times and places are NOT inside.
You know, I wouldn’t get so worked up about this if I saw more parents correcting their children in public, when the offense occurs. What I see, instead, are parents who will keep on shopping or eating without so much as a glance at the child who is blissfully disrupting everyone else’s enjoyment. There are people who’ve posted, like you, that the child has rights, but expect adults to have their rights trampled upon. The child has a right to be in a situation only to the extent that he can act appropriately in that time and place. NO child has the right to annoy strangers, asking for candy, or bumping into people, or suchlike. I don’t care if the child is only acting naturally. It’s the parents’ job to teach the child to act APPROPRIATELY, not naturally, because acting civilized isn’t natural.
Parents who don’t teach their children to behave properly shouldn’t be allowed to take their kids anywhere. If more places enforced a “No unruly kids” policy, maybe the parents would have to make better choices.
I’m reminded of what used to be a constant occurance on the “Dennis the Menace” comic. Mom was blushing, and writing out a check because Dennis had broken something. More parents should be held accountable for the trouble and damage their kids do. Nowadays, if a kid breaks something, it seems like the parents just shrug it off and expect the store to eat the loss. If the kid disrupts the place, the parents shrug and expect other people to just suck it up. I don’t think that the bystanders should have to pay for the misbehavior of the child, and that seems to be the expectation of many parents.
That’s your first mistake.
They will become fully human with time and proper rearing. Till then, they’re a slightly improved version of chimpanzees, but less hairy and athletic.
I strongly suspect you are “seeing” stuff that confirms your bias, and failing to see what does not.
This, too, is quite natural and human - most people do this to some extent; it is why we, as a society, do not allow the particularly sensitive and grumpy to have their way in setting social policy or law - otherwise all activities would be greatly inconvenienced by the particular, idiosyncratic sensitivities of those prone to take offense.
It matters not one whit if it is one meltdown or if the kid does it all the time - that meltdown doesn’t belong in a store or restaurant and as soon as it starts the parent has the responsibility to make it stop (if the kid is old enough) or to get the heck out if it can’t be stopped.
The parent made the choice to have the child, I didn’t. Why is it that the parent has more right to disturb the peace than I do? And if it is OK with you for the parent to continue to shop while their baby screams, at what point in that child’s life is it not OK to you that it scream the whole time she shops?
Oh please. Babies are barely participants in anything, and anything older is certainly not a full participant. They don’t work, vote, drive, drink, pay taxes, etc etc. They also do not need to be at the store for Mom to buy groceries, nor do they need to be at a sit down restaurant in order to be fed. These days yuppie moms like to drag their kid around like a purse dog, particularly babies, but that doesn’t mean the baby is participating in society.
They are “its” when I don’t know which sex they are.
It wasn’t me that coined Cult of the Child - go have a Google.
What bias is that? The anti-kid bias? You do know that Lynn is a parent, right?