# What are things that non-parents cannot understand? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 23, 2021, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-things-that-non-parents-cannot-understand/942756 "2021-05-23T20:29:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2021, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-things-that-non-parents-cannot-understand/942756/143 "2021-05-30T21:39:25Z")
@DiogenesTheCynic Speaking of true elder statesposter…are you our old Dio? ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2021, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-things-that-non-parents-cannot-understand/942756/145 "2021-05-30T23:09:57Z")
> [@Dung\_Beetle](#): > > Speaking of true elder statesposter…are you our old Dio? The mods seem to have cornfielded him (including that post), so apparently yes ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2021, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-things-that-non-parents-cannot-understand/942756/146 "2021-05-30T23:15:48Z")
Rats. 🐀 However, I did think he’d left voluntarily. ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2021, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-things-that-non-parents-cannot-understand/942756/147 "2021-05-30T23:19:12Z")
He was banned in 2011, so probably not. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2021, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-things-that-non-parents-cannot-understand/942756/148 "2021-05-30T23:59:30Z")
I just returned from my cousin’s house. She has three children under three including two 10-month twin girls. We brought our 14 month old son to meet his cousins. The eldest… A 2.5 year old girl. Whew. Seemed like every second she was doing a new thing that wasn’t allowed. Running, coloring on the TV, hitting, dragging chairs to get to objects on tables. Mom handled it well, in fact she told us explicitly that we were welcome to discipline her children. The twins and my son, totally chill. Like the three babies = less stress than that one wild child. Like you need any further demonstration that it’s all a crap shoot. Kids parented in the same house with radically different personalities, and then my unicorn child who wandered around calmly playing for five straight hours and only fussed when it was time for bed. I don’t know how we got so lucky but we’re not hitting that lottery again. My cousin said she wanted one more, and that people thought she was crazy. “It’s already crazy here,” she said, “What’s one more?” Given the absolute insanity, it was hard to argue with that. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2021, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-things-that-non-parents-cannot-understand/942756/149 "2021-05-31T10:44:55Z")
why you dont drown or eat the little monsters some day no matter how much you and the universe wants to …i don’t have kids of my own but as someone whos been pressed into service in helping with so many … ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2021, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-things-that-non-parents-cannot-understand/942756/150 "2021-05-31T12:05:45Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > Like the three babies = less stress than that one wild child. I’m now teaching English in a kindergarten and many classes will have one student who is more stress than the other 19 combined. Some teachers are better than others and some teachers can handle certain children better but it’s still a crap shoot. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2021, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-things-that-non-parents-cannot-understand/942756/151 "2021-05-31T12:33:28Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Non-parents don’t understand that gray hair is inherited from your kids. > > Almost all new parents make the same mistake, they forget to get a receipt from the hopital and don’t realize you can’t return the kid without one. Not true. In NJ you have up to 90 days to leave a newborn at any fire station, police station or hospital. No questions asked. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2021, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-things-that-non-parents-cannot-understand/942756/152 "2021-05-31T12:46:06Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > … We brought our 14 month old son to meet his cousins. > > The eldest… A 2.5 year old girl. Whew. Seemed like every second she was doing a new thing that wasn’t allowed. > … > and then my unicorn child who wandered around calmly playing for five straight hours and only fussed when it was time for bed. I wish you every success with your youngun. OTOH the “terrible twos” are called that for a reason. Your son’s early returns are certainly favorable, but as they say on ads for investments: > Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Good luck. It’ll be fun for all of us to follow along your (and his) next decade or two. Cheers! ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2021, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-things-that-non-parents-cannot-understand/942756/153 "2021-05-31T13:24:32Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Not true. In NJ you have up to 90 days to leave a newborn at any fire station, police station or hospital. No questions asked. You don’t get your money back when you do that. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2021, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-things-that-non-parents-cannot-understand/942756/154 "2021-05-31T13:29:07Z")
My youngest had a girl in their kindergarten class where at least three times they would have to clear all the other children from the room - usually she’d throw chairs. And yes, she got “better” but she was still a problem in high school. Now, I do think parenting was part of the issue there, namely that mom had done drugs while pregnant, then left, came back, left, came back all through elementary school. And Mom (according to the neighbor who was a teacher there) and daughter both had fairly significant mental health issues. And Dad wasn’t the best parent either. ---
**Author:** ![DorkVader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/73ab20/32.png) [@DorkVader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DorkVader)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2021, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-things-that-non-parents-cannot-understand/942756/155 "2021-05-31T13:38:31Z")
As a Dad to a Non-Dad, it is my opinion that you are justified and possibly correct in this. There is “failure to launch” and “willful failure to launch” and the situation you describe sounds much more like the latter to me. As you describe it. Usual disclaimers apply ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2021, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-things-that-non-parents-cannot-understand/942756/156 "2021-05-31T14:52:27Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > But kids dashing around in a non-kid-centric restaurant are doing that with the implicit (or worse yet explicit) indulgence of the parents who totally have the wherewithal to end the imposition on everyone else. Yet somehow elect not to. > > IMO parents have an obligation insofar as practical (not insofar as selfishly convenient) to prevent feral kid behavior when in adult-centric public. I think there can be a lot of disagreement about what counts as “adult centric” and “feral”. For example, if a restaurant has a kids menu/coloring paper wrapped around a 4 crayons, high chairs they can bring out, and it’s 6 PM on a Saturday, well, I’d consider that at least “family centric”. I wouldn’t let my kid roam around poking people at tables, but if the baby got fussy and I had to put him on my lap and do the jiggle-giggle routine until he calmed down, I wouldn’t feel like an asshole. If two preschoolers were poking each other and laughing, I would try to keep the noise down, but I wouldn’t feel like this was an “emergency evacuate” situation when they started to get noisy. But I think there are quite a few people that believe that anywhere that isn’t literally Chuck E. Cheez is somewhere kids really shouldn’t be, and they need to behave such as to be virtually unnoticeable by other adults. They get pretty angry if they can’t go to Applebee’s or the local mom-and-pop and there’s a “noisy family” there, where noise is defined as “anything louder than a table of all adults quietly talking”. At the end of the day, it’s a judgement call, and it’s not an easy one to make: is the kid being sorta “low-key whiney and unpleasant but not loud-loud” reason enough to abandon the first dinner you’ve had out in a couple months? It’s a different call at a McDonalds vs Cracker Barrel vs. a place with real tablecloths, and also based on time of day and relative crowded-ness. Reasonable people can make the call at different places. And memories of your own childhood are not reliable: you remember the time you crossed the line and your parents hauled you out, but you don’t remember the times you approached the line and they gambled you’d calm down and you did, or they really should have been hauled out but they “missed” that because they were tired and desensitized. Just because your parents hauled you out whenever you crossed the line they set doesn’t mean their wasn’t someone else sitting their stewing that they didn’t make any effort to stop behavior that that stranger found unacceptably feral. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2021, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-things-that-non-parents-cannot-understand/942756/157 "2021-05-31T15:05:22Z")
Agree with every word you’ve said. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2021, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-things-that-non-parents-cannot-understand/942756/158 "2021-05-31T15:19:49Z")
So do I - with one exception. I am absolutely certain there are people who believe that kids should be unnoticeable even at Chuck E. Cheez. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2021, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-things-that-non-parents-cannot-understand/942756/159 "2021-05-31T15:47:03Z")
You’re certainly right about that. As a famous comic once said about people such as that: > You can’t fix stupid. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2021, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-things-that-non-parents-cannot-understand/942756/160 "2021-05-31T16:42:42Z")
FWIW we’ve been taking our two kids to restaurants since they were born. Usually they are very well behaved. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2021, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-things-that-non-parents-cannot-understand/942756/161 "2021-05-31T16:55:43Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > I’m now teaching English in a kindergarten and many classes will have one student who is more stress than the other 19 combined. IMHO, this is about the “80-20” principle: That 80 percent of things are caused by 20 percent of people. 20 percent of students caused 80 percent of trouble. Etc. ---
**Author:** ![echoreply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/echoreply/32/3641_2.png) [@echoreply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/echoreply)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2021, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-things-that-non-parents-cannot-understand/942756/162 "2021-05-31T18:36:48Z")
The restaurant thing brings to mind another aspect that non-parents probably could understand, but in my experience frequently don’t respect. That is the concept of “child time”, which is very important with small children, and a less so as the get older. The baby naps at 10, 1, and 4. The toddler naps at 2. We have to start dinner at 5, in order to hit bedtime at 7:30. All of these are there to keep the kid on schedule, which reduces the chaos in the parents’ lives. Where this relates to restaurants: For me it was often a judgement call as to the mood of the child as to whether a restaurant visit was a good idea. The kid must be hungry, not hangry. A cranky and unpleasant child will refuse to eat, which results in tantrums, etc. So the non-parents of a small child say, “let’s go out to eat.” I respond, “great, we should go now, Kid is getting hungry.” See the [Why are you always late?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-always-late/942631) thread for an explanation of what happens over the next hour. “We are finally ready to go!” which results in me saying, “I can’t go, the Kid has waited too long, she’ll be completely disruptive in the restaurant, and you may not care, but I’m the one who will be oscillating between trying to get her to eat _something_ so she settles down, and taking her outside so she doesn’t ruin it for everybody else. I need to just stay at home, because at least the tantrums and meltdown will only disrupt my dinner.” Next time non-parental types say, “we’re going to fart around for an hour, why don’t you feed the kid so she doesn’t get cranky.” To which I have to respond, “I can do that, but then she’ll be bored at the restaurant because she’s not hungry anymore, so she may not go into a hunger tantrum, but will be bothering everybody due to boredom.” Anyway, from about 1.5 to 4 I was very resistant to eating out. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2021, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-things-that-non-parents-cannot-understand/942756/163 "2021-06-01T00:01:50Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Good luck. It’ll be fun for all of us to follow along your (and his) next decade or two. Cheers! He was less magical today when we went to Papa’s for the first time. He had a meltdown when we took him to play in the grassy backyard and he was confounded by the concept of a hill. He’s a new walker and he was utterly defeated by the slight gradient. He couldn’t make any progress uphill so he turned to walk back down and fell flat on his face. Calamity. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-things-that-non-parents-cannot-understand/942756.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-things-that-non-parents-cannot-understand/942756.md?page=9)