The Teenagers and the Hotel

The BBQ Pit
1

so this weekend I was staying in a hotel in Knoxville, TN (where I saw the fabulous Sun-Sphere!) Saturday night I’m sleeping fine when suddenly, around midnight, there comes a huge ruckus.

Turns out there’s some school group there. About a dozen high-school kids have been swimming all night and are now returning. For the next half hour the run up and down the hall, smal doors, and shout to each other. My dad, also staying in the room, opens the door and asks them to be quiet (well, it’s my dad, so he actuall tells them to shut up, that people are trying to sleep.) This doesn’t do much. Ten minutes later, with this still going on, I call the front desk.

“Is there anyone supervising these kids?” I ask. “They’re making a lot of racket up here on the third floor.”

I’m told no, but I think the guy misunderstood me. What I was asking was if there was an adult connected with these kids, a teacher or coach or whatever in charge of them.

It all continues for about an hour, when they eventually go to sleep. By this time I’m wide awake.

Next morning, in the “continental breakfast” area it turns out there WAS an adult connected with them, but he apparently didn’t feel it was any job of his to make them settle down. Overhearing him talk to them, he wasn’t even aware when they went to bed. I didn’t find this out until after we were getting ready to leave, otherwise I might have had a word with him. Still, this means these kids were swimming at midnight in the hotel pool without anyone watching them. That seems like a poor idea for the hotel AND the school in charge of the kids.

So anyway, this is a pretty mediocre rant, but it ties into another issue. I saythese were high school kids - they may have been Junior High. Running through a hotel at midnight, making as much noise as they please.

We’ve had many threads here in the pit where people complain about misbehaving kids, and several people have said that kids are kids and we should let them be kids, and sometimes they’re rowdy and so forth.

My question is, how old does a kid have to be before he or she is expected to understand that there’s other people in the world? I was a kid once, and I was pretty sure that when I walked down a hotel hallway, that there were actual other people behind those doors, who might not want to hear me yelling to my friend. I can understand a young child who doesn’t know why he has to keep his voice down, but a teenager?

I mention the relative age of these kids just as a point of discussion. I personally think that anyone doing the above, regardless of age, gender, race, religion, etc, would be considered part of that all-inclusive, open-to-everyone, always enrolling group: rude assholes. But the recent DC Metro Train thread makes me think some folks might feel otherwise. So, like I said, if this behavior was okay, was something that shouldn’t necessarily be condemned, what would have to change before it was condemnable?

2

This is exactly the reason it pisses me off every time parents reply to a thread ranting about the inappropriate behavior of children in public, and tell us that we have to put up with it because “kids will be kids”.

As far back as I can remember, my parents always came down on us HARD when we misbehaved in public. It was not tolerated, period. When we went to restaurants, we either sat up straight and used appropriate table manners, or we sat in the car while everyone else ate. If we were loud in public, we were immediately shushed. If we interrupted adults, we were immediately corrected. If we couldn’t behave, we were taken home.

I remember people always complimenting my parents on how well-behaved we were. I never understood that, until I grew up and realized that most children are permitted by their parents to run wild. My parents had four kids within five-and-a-half years of each other. I think most spectators thought our good manners were nothing short of miraculous. But this is because most parents would have allowed us to run around screeching like banshees.

I think the reason most parents don’t do this is that they feel it ruins their fun time out and about on the town. My parents had a different philosophy. First, they figured their fun would be wrecked if we misbehaved. Second, they realized that they had no right to spoil the good time of the people around us.

I don’t think most parents are having a good time when their kids misbehave. I just think most of them are too goddamned lazy to bother disciplining the little angels. To them, misbehaving kids are a drag, but so is discipline. So they choose the path of least resistance–the course of action that requires them to do the least amount of work. “Pathetic” is the only word I have to describe this attitude.

I don’t claim that all small children can be perfect. They can’t. But parents can take immediate action against their inappropriate public behavior. All of you who choose not to should be ashamed of yourselves, because you’re raising children who will be just as self-absorbed and obnoxious as these teenagers.

Congratulations on your accomplishment. You’ve taught them entitlement, not responsibility and concern for themselves at the expense of others. I’m sure you’re very proud.

3

Yep, come to Knoxville and don’t let any of us know. I see how it goes.
Seriously, I’ve had great experiences and horrible experiences with kids and hotels - the best one I ever had was in Baton Rouge, where I was placed in a room surrounded by other rooms filled with high school students.

I didn’t hear a thing out of them all night. I only knew they were there because I saw them as I came back from dinner. When I checked out early the next morning (around 6AM), I asked the desk clerk to give my compliments to the chaperones with the group, because I was very apprehensive when I knew what was going on.

The worst involved kids screaming as they ran through the hallways. I don’t want to remember it.

4

Sorry, Legomancer, as I read that reply, it looks suspiciously like a hijack to me.

My point is (and to answer your question): They’re never too young. You just have to make the lessons about public behavior age-appropriate. And if you do your job as a parent, by the time they’re teenagers, they should be able to use appropriate behavior in public without being prompted.

5

Bravo, Q.N. Jones!

6

A major SF convention, Boskone, was forced out of Boston in 1987 after hundreds of teenage hangers-on (who mostly didn’t care about SF but were just there for the parties) pissed off hotel guests by making a ruckus in the hallways all night.

7

I think you’re refering to my posts in the Great Train Wreck.

There is no ambiguity here–everybody needs sleep!

After lights out, snoozing is the rule.

You should have called hotel security. You paid for the use of that room. Said use being: to sleep in it. The noise deprived you of said use.

Unlike the train–which is something to travel in. And noise does not deprive you of the use of the train.

I remain supportive of kids being kids. But being noisy at night deprives you of the use of a service you have paid for.

8

I would say that at the age of maybe 10, they should respect the poeple around them.

9

I am SO reminded of a similar night we spent in a hotel in Duluth. We could hear the “chaperone” telling the kids to quiet down a few times, rather ineffectively. The noise continued until about 1 a.m., if memory serves. Eventually we gathered that there was a system for making sure that the kids stayed in their rooms once they settled down: the adults went down the hall and put masking tape on the outside of the doors, across the frame. Anyone whose tape was not intact in the morning would be in serious trouble.

Oh, how tempted we were to pop a few of those tape cherries. But we refrained from doing so and contented ourselves with imagining the results had we done so. “We didn’t leave the room, honest!!”

10

I have the dubious honor of working as a security guard in a big chain motel on weekends, and it has been my experience that, while the teenagers can be noisy and rowdy, they generally quiet down when I order them to. My biggest problems are with the 20-40 year olds, who come back from the bars at 2 AM all snoggered, and proceed to have long, loud, hilariously funny discussions in their rooms that wake up everyone around them. They are the ones who demand their 1st Amendment right of free speech, even if it is 2 AM and waking up everyone in the motel. I have had to threaten them with the police on several occasions (disturbing the peace).

11

And I would say that if you wait until your kids are 10 before you insist that they respect other people, it’s probably already too late. They need to start learning that as soon as they start to walk and talk.

12

Heh. What do ya all say we have a national straightdope fest in “a certain West TX town” sometime soon.

13

It’s not just kids.

I stayed at a hotel on Vancouver Island a couple of months ago, and there were a bunch of drunken idiots running around, yelling, thumping, seemingly going out of their way to make as much noise as possible.

At first I just wadded tissue into my ears, but that didn’t help so at about nine I confronted one of the guys and and informed him that people were trying to sleep.

Pinhead says “The law says we don’t have to be quiet until 11:00!” Never mind that you’re in a place which is specifically intended for people to rest while they’re travelling. Luckily, he was drunk enough to make threatening remarks which was enough to have the cops come by. I imagine he spent the night in the drunk-tank with some other like-minded individuals. At any rate, things quieted down.

As for kids, I wish there was some provision within the law that would allow you to use tranquilizing darts when they get out of hand in public.

Support Bill C23 - “The sleep act”

14

Wrong. Children should always be expected to respect those around them. If you wait until they hit ten, it is too late. I, for one, was never allowed to misbehave in public.

Please tell me this is a parody of yourself and that you are not this blind to your own hypocrisy.

15

There is no hypocrisy here.

Hypocrisy is a deliberate act of insincerity. So hypocricy, as I understand the term to be defined, cannot be something one is “blind” to.

Children being loud do not deprive anybody of the use of a train. Noisy children can & do deprive you of sleep.

Where is the conflict.

16

Hypocrisy.

I was trying to convey that your two positions are prima facie incompatible. That is, a reasonable person can not honestly believe both the positions you have taken in this thread at the same time. Further, such incompatibility is so patently obvious that the only conclusions that one can draw from your post are that you are either trying to produce a parody of yourself, or you are a total idiot. I was trying to give you the benefit of the doubt, but now I see that it is the later conclusion that is true. Thus, you are ‘blind,’ or unable to appreciate, that your two positions can not be supported by the same convictions, and therefore one position, or the other, must be hypocritically held.

How can it be ok to deprive people of their pleasant train ride that they have paid for, but not ok to deprive people of a pleasant stay in a hotel room that they have paid for?

Under the Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor analysis I would be within my rights to get on a train with a portable stereo and blast my music as loudly as I want to do so, simply because no one has any expectation to reasonable peace and quiet on a train. After all, what we purchase when we travel by train is mere transportation from point A to B. We have no further say in the quality of such transport.

And yet, in a hotel I am prohibited from blasting the same music because it would deny my fellow guests their deserved peace and quiet. But, after all, what we purchase when we stay in a hotel is a mere space with a bed for the night. Under your theory as applied to train travel we ought to have no further say in the quality of the hotel room, and yet you think that we do. There is the conflict. How do you resolve it?

17

Well, adults can be just as obnoxious as teenagers. So can college people - I live on a floor with many sorority suites, and though they try to be considerate, I really don’t appreciate it when they run through the halls, cheering and screaming, particularly late at night. Sure, they’re college girls having fun, but I like peace and quiet too.

It also depends on the person - some kids are naturally quiet and respectful, while others are loud and think they’re the only people in the world with feelings. My sister is nearly 13 and loud and obnoxious, while I’m the opposite.

Hotels are terrible because people think they’re the only ones staying there. People are loud, especially in groups.

18

Guys, I don’t think magic8ball was advocating that parents wait until their kids are ten before starting to teach discipline, but rather that proper conditioning should fully ingrain good behavior by the time a kid is ten. Whereas, a child under a certain age should be allowed an occasional misstep because they’re still being conditioned. Of course, even then, bad habits should be discouraged, but an eight-year-old who acts up is presumably not going to do that too many more times before he learns better.

FTR: I didn’t run around, get loud, or anything like that. But when I was nine, I was punished by a chaperone for reading the titles of books on a shelf. Not touching the books, or touching anything, just looking at the titles. And no, I wasn’t supposed to be doing something else at the time; we were just standing around waiting for the tour guide to show up. For looking at book titles, I was taken by the hand and informed that “They’re not yours to look at and if you give me any more trouble you’re going back to the bus.” Fuck you, Mrs. Weaver. Fuck you.

19

Guys, of course parents should teach children to behave in public–that isn’t even worth argueing about. I was certainly expected to behavoir in public, as were my five siblings. And mom and dad managed us just fine.

The issue is what to do with children who didn’t have that advantage, who didn’t have the smart, foresighted parents that we all enjoyed. People here are saying it’s “too late” to do anything after the age of ten. Becasue they are here. They are wandering around the world right now, and noo amount of “they shouldn’t exisit!” is going to fix them. What the hell am I, a teacher, supposed to do with these kids? If we are going to rule out putting them to sleep or chaining them to their factory stations, then we have to let them out of their home envireoment, because their home enviroment is obviously not the sort of place where they are ever going to learn respect for others–if it was, they would have already.

That said, I would never take a group of kids on an overnight fieldtrip unless I was 100% sure that they were all kids who could behave in public and who had enough–for want of a better word, let’s call it decency–to obey me. Because frankly, once they are over about 10, you can’t make them do anything, and 1. you can’t keep a child safe if they won’t mind and 2. You can’t ask other people to put up with kids like that for extended periods of time.

20

No. We have reduced control, because it is a public place. You do not have the same expectations of quiet & isolation in a mass transit vehicle of any kind as you would in your apartment, or even in a library or place of business. They are crowded, bustling stations & vehicles, not meant for quiet reflection.

There is no conflict. The rental of a hotel room is for the express purpose of a tempoary living quarters for yourself, and your rights to peace & quiet are very similar to the rights you have in your apartment. It is a semi-private place. Not as quiet as a cottage in the country, but you came there to sleep, paid for the privilege, and you are entitled to what you paid for.

If you want quiet & tranquility on your commute, pay for a more private means of transport. You aren’t going to get it on public transportation.