Mike the Usurper wrote:

flynn23 wrote:

bucy wrote:

Bridget Dehl shushed her 21-month-old son, Gavin, then clapped a hand over his mouth to squelch his tiny screams amid the Sunday brunch bustle. When Gavin kept yelping "yeah, yeah, yeah," Ms. Dehl whisked him from his highchair and out the door.

Right past the sign warning the cafe's customers that "children of all ages have to behave and use their indoor voices when coming to A Taste of Heaven," and right into a nasty spat roiling the stroller set in Chicago's changing Andersonville neighborhood.

As far as I'm concerned, there's only one side to this issue. It is completely inconsiderate to take small children that can't be quiet, sit still, etc, into an adult establishment like a coffee shop where they proceed to irritate the piss out of everyone else there.

You obviously don't have children.

I do. A better comment in the article is

"If you send out positive energy, positive energy returns to you. If you send out energy that says I'm the only one that matters, it's going to be a pretty chaotic world."

The shop owner is dead on in that comment. While controlling a small child is a virtually lost cause, as a parent, part of the responsibility is doing things so that your children are not driving the people around you nuts. If that means there are places you don't take them, then that's what you do.

I would agree with that sentiment. I guess I just bristle when I hear people get uppity about having kids in places like libraries or restaurants. No one likes an unruly child. And they like the parent of an unruly child even less. But to expect the child to be a quiet and doting lump is unreasonable.

RE: At Center of a Clash, Rowdy Children in Coffee Shops