Now, I don’t have children so don’t have a sense of entitlement over my own imaginary offspring, but I have never held with the idea that the ability to have sex grants you absolute moral authority over raising the issue of your liaisons. I look upon parents as the most convenient caretakers - hopefully the people most easily on hand to provide a loving, life-long stable atmosphere in which to raise children, but when that system breaks down, they don’t have the ‘god given right’ to raise their kids to be miserable or be pests to society.
For example, if children are abusing people on neighbouring tables in a restaurant, I would have no qualms about telling the children to stop it and telling the parents to instill some manners in their offspring.
What say you? Where do you draw the line (on the basis that I’m assuming we all have a line somewhere and see the need for society to step in in extreme/abusive situations)?
I think you have a right to comment on how someone is raising their child just as you would comment on anything else they are doing. There’s nothing so special about raising children that people aren’t allowed to comment on it or give you advice or criticism. That doesn’t mean you follow people around the supermarket lecturing them, but there’s nothing wrong with bringing it up in conversation the way you would anything else.
If anything holding it as something you should never comment on is potentially abusive or irresponsible - what if you know something they don’t? What if other people who don’t hold to your non-interference principle are giving the parents bad advice? To use a simple example, if someone has been taken in by the anti-vaccination people it’s hardly responsible to just stand by and let them endanger their kids and others just out of some “principle” that you shouldn’t so much as talk to them. Saying nothing just means that the people who aren’t so reticent have a free hand.
We need to differentiate between society and law-enforcement. Even if people have a right to do something, society has a right to tell them they’re wrong (ie, you telling off kids and parents at the next table). It’s when people don’t have a **right **to do something that the law steps in.
I’ll throw in the first two cents: I think that children should have a right to be taken care of to a certain medicalized standard: adequate nutrition, adequate shelter, adequate health care, adequate education. All of these things should be basic rights, since it’s easy to define and legislate a standard for everyone.
In terms of emotional nurturing, manners, enriching experiences, and “reasonable” viewpoints, all that stuff is just hard to define and hard to legislate and no, there can’t and shouldn’t be laws about it. Whatever would be protected under our free speech, freedom of the press, right to the pursuit of happiness and etc. laws–must be protected in the context of parents raising children.
Not that I think neighbors don’t have the right to express their opinions, both to the parents and the kids.
I think sometimes people have a duty to talk to parents about how said parents are raising their children: if someone makes me their kid’s godparent, hires me to babysit, or if I’m a teacher or doctor to those kids, I have a duty to their well-being. This duty does not allow me to be snotty to the parents, but it will occasionally mean giving an opinion.
People who ask me for my opinion but who don’t want it ought’a know better: if you ask for my opinion, you’ll get my opinion, not necessarily my agreement.
It is a difficult question that - in my opinion - should mainly revolve around what is best for the child. I don’t acre much about relatively trivial examples like kids being obnoxious in public, but i have some doubts about letting kids grow up in environments that severly limit their later options in life.
For example is it fair (or just) to let kids get raised by groups like the Amish (I believe they can be taken out of school at 12 or 13). When these kids grow up they have the choice to stay or go into the modern world, but what does life have in store gor you when you only went to school till 12? I honestly don’t whether this should be allowed, it sort of seems like the freedom and options of the kids are sacrficed for the rights of the parents to raise their kids the way they want to.
I’m fairly libertarian, but children are not adults and do not have the ability to speak or defend themselves from mistreatment. So there must be a system of checks and balance in place.
Situations in which someone must intervene/there should be laws:
Vaccines. Unless you have a serious medical condition barring you from it, vaccines. Being an anti-vaxxer does not qualify.
Religions that prohibit medication. You shouldn’t be allowed to have kids if that’s how you feel. This is why little Bobby has partial hearing loss in his right ear - because you don’t believe in antibiotics.
Mental or physical abuse. Right now you can’t get kids taken away from their parents, even if neighbors and teachers attest the child is being screamed at repeatedly. Frankly, a swat on the butt does a lot less damage than persistent belittling.
Now if we’re talking about horrible little shits in a restaurant, you can say something if you think it’ll help. I obviously don’t expect this at a Target on a weekend or Macy’s or Talbots or the like. The more expensive the restaurant, the greater the right. I saw people bring an infant to a $25/plate restaurant. The restaurant said “we don’t have any place to put it” and they still propped it against the table. Thankfully it mostly slept. I have gotten dirty looks for swearing in front of children. If the looks persist, I simply reply “If you didn’t want the outside world to affect your special snowflake, you should have stayed at home.” I don’t know WHEN people stopped getting babysitters and started toting their child with them everywhere.
I would never say “you’re not raising your child properly” because it’s antagonistic and doesn’t accomplish what I want - which is peace and quiet. I don’t give a shit if they grow up to be miscreants; the world is already full of them.
ETA: Every restaurant I’ve ever been to (outside of a cheap place under $8/plate or family places, like Applebees or Olive Garden) attempts to get the whining baby out of the place. A whining baby is a nuisance, and one that pisses off other diners. Some of whom actually did get a babysitter.
Yup, you got it in on the first try. People give each other feedback on everything else in life - obnoxiously or otherwise - so why should this be any different? Frankly, I coulda used more outside “interference” in my own childhood. (Someone could have mentioned to my mother that the appropriate way to punish a 15-year-old is not to drop her cat off at the pound, for instance.)
How do you prop up a baby against a table? Do you mean they put the baby on the table?
I’m also pretty surprised the restaurant didn’t offer any accommodations. Twenty five dollars a plate isn’t hugely expensive, and I’d be surprised if even the really upscale ones offered no accommodations for infants.
Eh, in Pittsburgh it’s top tier. The only place I can think that more dishes would be pricier would be at a steakhouse of sorts. If you’re spending that much, wouldn’t you just get a babysitter for $8/hour? There’s a glut of college students, may certified in CPR and first aid, who wouldn’t mind $20 for a few hours of work.
They turned a chair upside down and put the carseat in it and propped the whole thing up next to the table. It seemed…okay. If I were the kid’s parent, I wouldn’t be thrilled, but again, the weren’t the sharpest tacks.