Nathaniel

Shockey

Read Nathaniel's bio and previous columns here

April 29, 2009

Someone Control These Damn Kids!
 

Maybe it’s because I have a baby on the way and it’s suddenly dawned on me that I will never, ever, allow our child to make a ruckus in any public place, much less a crowded one. The thought of watching my child make carpet angels in the middle of an aisle where servers, some of them with rather heavy footsteps, walk rapidly and even clumsily would certainly be enough to give me concern about my child’s health. When it’s someone else’s child, I’m more concerned about the server’s health. I figure that at this point the child has it coming.

In a culture that features parents who interject in nearly every aspect of their children’s lives, whether it be what they’re being taught in school, that their children get solos in musical ensembles (regardless of talent), that they are never picked last in gym class or that teachers schedule the date of any given event around their child’s availability – it is somewhat surprising that these same parents would allow their children to be road kill in a crowded restaurant. It seems as though, once they leave their houses, they no longer hold themselves responsible for their child, that somehow everyone around them has automatically become a babysitter. I wonder if it is an unplanned collateral consequence of the ridiculous “pedestrians right of way” rule. We imagine that if we make a law that cars are never allowed to hit people on foot that somehow pedestrians will no longer be vulnerable to two-ton hunks of metal moving at speeds in excess of 20 miles per hour. And similarly, as long as we always the blame the restaurant employee for running into a child no taller than his knees, children become magically invincible.

Allow me to introduce the concept that no manmade laws supersede those of physics.

Perhaps the deplorable behavior of children in restaurants is a consequence of the increasingly accepted idea that people are inherently good. We’re at our best as children. Then we grow up and become screwed up adults with emotional baggage. Parents can’t imagine that their little Tommy is disturbing the people at the table three feet away by adorably screaming and hurling macaroni in the air. Children are pure and innocent and good and whatever they do is something to which the rest of us ought to aspire. My little Tommy is an angel. In fact, there he is right now, making carpet angels in the aisle. Aren’t children precious?

No, ma’am. Yours isn’t. You ought to try spanking the evil out of him, perhaps with a wooden spoon. It could save his life from the rapidly approaching figure that happens to be carrying eight topped-off pint glasses of beer. We might reconsider the hope we place in our future when our children are taught that laws of common decency and sensitivity to those around us don’t apply to them, much like laws of physics.

I also theorize that this problem stems from our increasing unwillingness to parent our children and our increasing willingness to be their playmates. We wouldn’t want our children to dislike us! Who knows what would happen if they actually concerned themselves with the consequences of breaking rules we actually enforced? It would be an unfathomable chaos of fear and rebellion. It’s much better to suggest general principles as concerned but never strict parents. If they disregard them, well, they’ll learn eventually.

And additionally, if the children don’t take our ideas seriously, there’s a good chance the problem stems from the idea, not the child. Parents might consider that being a good parent requires more than giving birth and paying for a child’s college education. There’s also the considerable task of raising the child, which I would suggest includes monitoring their behavior in restaurants.

In fact, let me take this opportunity to officially pledge my eternal gratitude and patronage to any restaurant that kicks out a family whose children are disturbing those around them. Please contact me if you have clear evidence and I will be sure to make room for your restaurant on my schedule.

It is indeed a mad, mad, mad, mad world. And these are only a few guesses as to why the kids in the very establishment in which I’m writing won’t stop running around and their parents won’t stop letting them. I had intended to write about something else, but at the moment, this matter seemed considerably more pressing.

© 2009 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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