Tuesday, October 5, 2010

From Whence the Snowflakes Commeth

Snowflakery starts when your precious darlings scream their heads off in public places:

http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/28/banning-noisy-children/

5 comments:

  1. I don't understand parents who let their kids carry on, and then just sit there. My son is "on the spectrum". I take him out. 3 times out of 4, he's delightful. 1 out of 4 times, he bites his fingers and hums. As soon as he starts humming "check please?" and we wait by the door so the other customers can enjoy themselves. What's the big deal? They're only toddlers a few years. People want to have kids, but they just can't bear to exit a restaurant early when they need to for a few years? Definitely flake parenting. And the product is definitely new flakes.

    Oh - and - when I say I take him out, I mean like to diners, bagel shops and sometimes Panera. Never grown up restaurants.

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  2. Yep, flakery all around.

    However, if I promise to take my squirmy, yelling kid out of a restaurant immediately, can other people pretty please promise not to torture me on an airplane if I can't control her every single move? It only makes it worse if you send me death-ray looks or make loud remarks about my parenting while I do the very best I can. Either help, or don't help, but I'm just as trapped with it as you are and don't have a magic wand either.

    Kthxbi

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  3. Two sensible, sensible people. Bravo!

    In some social circles, my childless ass is not allowed to comment on ANYTHING child-related because I can't POSSIBLY know what it's like. That social circle includes my department.

    But here in the blogosphere I offer my standard story...in Third-World-Shithole (now renamed Starvistan by my students...I like it)...when you hear a kid screaming, you come running. When you get there, you HELP THE MOM. You do not berate her for her bad parenting. If you see children simply misbehaving in public, you tell them to stop and they listen...just like your children would listen to an adult who is not their direct relative.

    It works.

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  4. If you're trapped on an airplane with your screaming progeny and can't stop the screaming despite your best efforts, just stand up and issue a blanket apology. I saw a young mother do this on an airplane once. She stoop up, apologized graciously for the racket, and explained that she was doing everything possible to shut her kid up, and usually she'd step outside, but that was obviously not possible on the airplane. The evil looks quickly changed to sympathetic glances. Apologies go a long way, even if it's not strictly your fault that your kid won't stop screaming.

    In restaurants, movie theatres, etc, the best option is to step outside with the kid if the screaming doesn't stop after a minute or two.

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  5. Hmmm, I suppose that's more gracious than my usual tactics: hand out earplugs, buy a drink for my seatmates, and, if someone is truly horrible, lose my shit and snap, "I suppose you were born forty? Go write your mother a fucking thank you note and shut up." Well, OK, not now that my kid can talk and understand and all....

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