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(Disclosure, I am a parent and a happy one.) There is something so bleak about the quiet child hate in the modern world. To me, it implies on some level a lack

(Disclosure, I am a parent and a happy one.) There is something so bleak about the quiet child hate in the modern world. To me, it implies on some level a lack of hope for a better future. This is as far as I can tell, a systemic problem of the modern world. Yes, bad kids are annoying. We've all been there. The problem is the behavior, not the fact that the misbehaving human is young. I'd be perfectly fine with designated public "quiet zone" (like libraries have been forever) and most kids could probably handle that concept too. Exclude behaviors, not people. As another example the article mentioned older men harassing young female wait staff, for those cases have a "no-romance zone". Anyone who can't abide by the rules gets ejected from that space. It's not that complicated. The real issue to me is that some people are offended that the young exist. I don't like people much either in general, but I don't resent their very existence. Kids are good if for no other reason than to remind you what a fool you were at that age. You're probably just as much a fool now, just (hopefully) in new and interesting ways.

trilbyglens 3y ago
Where i live in Europe "quiet child hate" is not a thing. People take their kids everywhere and they are well behaved because the world takes them seriously here. It really strange how american kids are so I'll behaved compared to most places here in Europe. Definitely systemic factors at play.
thefz 3y ago
> I am a parent and a happy one.) There is something so bleak about the quiet child hate in the modern world. To me, it implies on some level a lack of hope for a better future. It is not. You are giving a wider scope to something very trivial, such as feeling upset by sudden and very high noises, and the annoyance of little kids running around unsupervised. There is no higher meaning here, just the need for education.
jfengel 3y ago
The problem with "eject behaviors, not people" is that it puts a burden on the staff. People who are misbehaving often do not accept "you are behaving badly, please leave". They're often argumentative -- if they were polite, they wouldn't have engaged in that behavior in the first place. By the time they can tell that the behavior is a problem, it's more difficult to fix. That's where these rules come from. The staff has to make a choice: tolerate the unpleasant behavior, or risk ratcheting it up to even worse behavior by intervening. It was bad for business, so they made rules. They knew it would cost something; they believed that the benefit was worth the cost. I do believe that it's incumbent on adults without children to tolerate children to a considerable degree -- more than seems fair to them. But I've also found that a lot of parents consider "I'm raising the next generation and therefore justified in demanding infinite tolerance" to be valid, and that's just not right. When we can't negotiate a middle ground, extremes get set.
ASalazarMX 3y ago
It's not child hate, unless you count the sarcastic younger generations' dark jokes. For me and my wife, it was a rational decision. We never enjoyed kids much, we have careers that we wanted to fully pursue, and other people are having enough kids to make up for our lack of 1-2 more. We're also convinced that the world is overpopulated. What's the advantage of being 9 billion or more against being, say, 5 billion? The happiest countries in the world have lower population density, so the resources aren't as strained, and the natural beauty is still afordable to all. Dwindling gradually shouldn't be as disruptive as we're made to believe. That, and also the glomy future our kids would have had. The biggest culprits of climate change and pollution aren't giving signs of stopping anytime soon (even more with the recent demagogic resurgence), and while we'll be dead in a few more decades, the younger generations will live in harder times than we did. Not having kids is also an abstentionist stament, because people who want more kids overlap significantly with people who don't care about the world they'll be leaving to those kids.

trilbyglens 3y ago

Where i live in Europe "quiet child hate" is not a thing. People take their kids everywhere and they are well behaved because the world takes them seriously here. It really strange how american kids are so I'll behaved compared to most places here in Europe. Definitely systemic factors at play.

thefz 3y ago

> I am a parent and a happy one.) There is something so bleak about the quiet child hate in the modern world. To me, it implies on some level a lack of hope for a better future. It is not. You are giving a wider scope to something very trivial, such as feeling upset by sudden and very high noises, and the annoyance of little kids running around unsupervised. There is no higher meaning here, just the need for education.

jfengel 3y ago

The problem with "eject behaviors, not people" is that it puts a burden on the staff. People who are misbehaving often do not accept "you are behaving badly, please leave". They're often argumentative -- if they were polite, they wouldn't have engaged in that behavior in the first place. By the time they can tell that the behavior is a problem, it's more difficult to fix. That's where these rules come from. The staff has to make a choice: tolerate the unpleasant behavior, or risk ratcheting it up to even worse behavior by intervening. It was bad for business, so they made rules. They knew it would cost something; they believed that the benefit was worth the cost. I do believe that it's incumbent on adults without children to tolerate children to a considerable degree -- more than seems fair to them. But I've also found that a lot of parents consider "I'm raising the next generation and therefore justified in demanding infinite tolerance" to be valid, and that's just not right. When we can't negotiate a middle ground, extremes get set.

ASalazarMX 3y ago

It's not child hate, unless you count the sarcastic younger generations' dark jokes. For me and my wife, it was a rational decision. We never enjoyed kids much, we have careers that we wanted to fully pursue, and other people are having enough kids to make up for our lack of 1-2 more. We're also convinced that the world is overpopulated. What's the advantage of being 9 billion or more against being, say, 5 billion? The happiest countries in the world have lower population density, so the resources aren't as strained, and the natural beauty is still afordable to all. Dwindling gradually shouldn't be as disruptive as we're made to believe. That, and also the glomy future our kids would have had. The biggest culprits of climate change and pollution aren't giving signs of stopping anytime soon (even more with the recent demagogic resurgence), and while we'll be dead in a few more decades, the younger generations will live in harder times than we did. Not having kids is also an abstentionist stament, because people who want more kids overlap significantly with people who don't care about the world they'll be leaving to those kids.