War on Brats

As a budding school psychologist I found this article an interesting future conversation piece-- should we berate parents for not being able to keep their babies and toddlers from not screaming in public places? I cringe to think that I was once one of those people; I would sit in a restaurant and glare at the mothers whose kids were screaming and yelling. I would always think, "Why can't they control their kids? They must be bad mothers." Wow, could I not have been anymore wrong.

I'll never forget when at age 18 months, my nephew Matthew discovered his yelling voice. His favorite thing was to get inside a mall with really high ceilings (and therefore the perfect acoutics) before yelling as loud as he could. I would then clap my hand over his mouth, he would bite it, I would scream, take my hand off, he would grin, and then he would scream again. I would look around and see people staring at me and thinking: 1) Look at her, I bet she got pregnant in high school 2) Wow, she's really skinny for having twins and 3) people who can't handle kids shouldn't have them. But really, I'm 23 and could easily have had twins by now-- although since I don't have the money like Kate Hudson to hire a daily personal trainer, I probably would still have the baby weight on. Anyway, I'm a damn good aunt, but there is no way that I could tell an 18-month old to be quiet. But now he's 28 months old and if he starts screaming, I should be able to stop him cause he technically knows better and listens to me. So I guess what I'm getting at is that the child's age should be a factor in our glaring at stressed and frazzled mothers.

Now, back to my article. You can read it (here) to see what I'm talking about. I guess a restaurant has a right to post a sign saying kids need to be well-behaved, but is it really necessary? Here are some examples they cite:

A sign at the restaurant reads, "Children of all ages have to behave and use their indoor voices when coming to A Taste of Heaven."

Menus at Zumbro Cafe in Minneapolis say: "We love children, especially when they're tucked into chairs and behaving,"

I think it's pretty easy to tell what the atmosphere of an eating establishment is the minute you walk in the door. You can use the old rule of thumb that the less lighting there is, the more money you're gonna have to pay them, and the less happy they are to have kids around. But then what about all the new little cafe/delis popping up? Most of them are well-lit, but clearly do not welcome children. Use your judgement people.

Now onto the flip side:

Kim Cavitt recalled having coffee and a cookie one afternoon with her boisterous 2-year-old when "someone came over and said you just need to keep her quiet or you need to leave."

"We left, and we haven't been back since," Cavitt said. "You go to a coffee shop or a bakery for a rest, to relax, and that you would have to worry the whole time about your child doing something that children do -- really what they're saying is they don't welcome children, they want the child to behave like an adult."

Come on.... You can't use public relaxation places as a location for you to ignore your child's bad behavior. Kim Cavitt is the reason these poor restaurant owners are forced to put up these signs in the first place.

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