I've Got A Lot of Blogging To Do.
And eventually it will be about my class, but as the crisis is ongoing (and it is a crisis, one that has left me with legitimate PTSD), I'll refrain from saying anything until it's over.
That is... if it's ever over.
But, to business.
I didn't blog because I was busy teaching said course. And now I'm back. I've done two posts in two days and here's the third.
It's been in the news recently that there's a new movement to ban children from certain things and places like airplanes, movie theaters, restaurants, etc. And I want to talk about it because I just read a really interesting article which you can read if you follow this link.
My opinion may or may not shock some of you and hopefully I'll do a good job of explaining myself, but maybe I won't and I look forward to your letters.
Now.
As much as Auntie Megs really does love and adore the growing population of "nieces" (literally, I think it's majority girls at this point; if I've forgotten a boy it's because I don't like him--that's a joke) that I'm acquiring from the friends around me who are beginning and expanding their families, I am all for this ban. If McDain's, one of the first restaurants to come out with this policy in their restaurant, was anywhere near me, I'd be making a reservation right this second. I actually cheered when I heard about this on the news, I may have even clapped. I can't remember I was so happy!
I've just said that I love the kids in my life, for the most part. And that's completely true. I'm excited for my friends who are fulfilling desires in their lives to be parents and I'm glad to be part of it and to get the opportunity to spoil some of these kids and watch them grow up and see who they're going to be.
But I don't love all kids.
...
I don't love most kids.
...
I don't like kids.
I don't. I haven't for years. I did when I was a kid and babysitting, when I was 13 maybe I had some favorite kids that I loved to babysit but they nicknamed me Munch. How awesome were they?!
There are a lot of reasons I don't like kids. I like my health, kids are always sick and you get sick when you're around sick people. They're loud, they smell weird, I don't know how to talk to them (I talked to Claira Beans when I was in Phoenix for Morgan's wedding about Gaddafi. She's 6 months.), I can't understand them when they talk so I don't know what they want or need or said, they freak me out I can't tell what they're thinking, they're all sticky, and they're so demanding. And that's not an exhaustive list.
"Call me a grinch, a misanthrope, a DINK (dual-income-no-kids), or the anti-cute-police, but I hate (hate a thousand times over) ill-behaved children/infants/screaming banshees in upscale restaurants (ok, anywhere, really, but I don’t want any death threats)," writes Charlotte Savino on Travel and Leisure's blog (from this same article).
And that is exactly why I love the so-called "brat ban."
Stick with me. Because I know who I am. I'm not deluded. I know I'm the single girl who doesn't want to get married, who does not want to have children, who cannot for one minute imagine my life as anything other than what it is right now. And it is uninterrupted sleep and Cheerios where I drop them. But I can have an opinion about this, and it may not be the feminist bra burning approach you think.
Or maybe it will be. I look forward to your letters.
Clearly, kids terrify me. And I have left a grocery cart full of groceries because no matter where I went mom and screaming 3 year old were right behind me like the bad guy in a slasher film.
I couldn't run fast enough.
So while screaming, misbehaving children is the problem in our faces, my problem is with the parents. And again, I love and adore all my friends who are now parents or are going to become parents soon, but if you parent like this, we probably won't stay friends for long.
When my sisters and I were little, and misbehaved we left. Wherever we were. Church. The store. A restaurant. People's houses. Anywhere. Didn't matter. If we were going to act like that we could do it at home.
And according to my parents, we didn't misbehave that often.
Because we learned how to behave in public. We were told what was expected of us and what the consequences would be if we didn't do it.
Kids aren't idiots. They can be reasoned with, to a certain extent. But if you never enforce rules or punishments of any kind they'll walk all over you. Because they can.
My parents tell us about when we were really little, really really little, and we would go to our Grandparents house and my Nana had glass and porcelain figurines out on a coffee table in their living room. She would always put them away when my cousins came to visit, and was going to do so when we came over but my Mom told her no, leave them out Megan won't touch them. And apparently I tried, was told no, and just stood there and looked at them.
Maybe I was perfect, but more likely I just knew my parents weren't to be messed with.
There are exceptions. Sometimes you go places where you expect there to be children and you expect there to be screaming and misbehaving among actual normal kid behaviors like playing, running, yelling, having fun, all that stuff. Chuck E. Cheese. The grocery store. Honestly, it's a family place, I think anyway. There's just something about the sound of a screaming kid that makes me homicidal and if there's nothing being done by the parents I'll leave. It's my right and in a place like that, while I would expect kids to sit quietly and not cause problems, I can escape. Not so on an airplane. But if you were the parents who had your kid on a family flight with only other families, that might make me crazy as well.
It's a tricky subject. It is.
And I also think there should be some places that are reserved for children. My parents just told me about a restaurant we went to where they put us in a family room and apparently we tore it up. But we were allowed to be loud in there, to run around, to play with each other, and to eat with our families while the other patrons of the restaurant got to eat in peace. Win-win! I think places like that are important. Parents shouldn't be shunned because they have kids with them, not everything can be cause for people to get babysitters. I understand that.
But if parents, parented, I would be much more sympathetic to them. Sometimes kids misbehave. They just do. They're in a mood, they're unreasonable at the time for whatever reason, but it's a bad day. We all have them. What we don't all have is our Mothers and Fathers ready to escort us into the lobby or back home to keep us from shoving our tantrum in other people's food.
Most of the time, when I see people become parents, they think they can still have their life. Your life happens when you have a babysitter. When you have your kids with you they are your life. And if your life is pitching a fit, your life should be headed away from mine.
The last line of the article, I found really interesting.
What's the alternative then? Like I said, we're dealing with the problem in our faces. The loud, screaming, misbehaving kid at table 19. And a lot of people see that as the problem. I obviously do not. Kids know what they're taught and if you teach them that they can do whatever they want, they will. I blame parents. 100%.
So are we discriminating against people because they are parents or because they're bad parents?
I look forward to your letters.
That is... if it's ever over.
But, to business.
I didn't blog because I was busy teaching said course. And now I'm back. I've done two posts in two days and here's the third.
It's been in the news recently that there's a new movement to ban children from certain things and places like airplanes, movie theaters, restaurants, etc. And I want to talk about it because I just read a really interesting article which you can read if you follow this link.
My opinion may or may not shock some of you and hopefully I'll do a good job of explaining myself, but maybe I won't and I look forward to your letters.
Now.
As much as Auntie Megs really does love and adore the growing population of "nieces" (literally, I think it's majority girls at this point; if I've forgotten a boy it's because I don't like him--that's a joke) that I'm acquiring from the friends around me who are beginning and expanding their families, I am all for this ban. If McDain's, one of the first restaurants to come out with this policy in their restaurant, was anywhere near me, I'd be making a reservation right this second. I actually cheered when I heard about this on the news, I may have even clapped. I can't remember I was so happy!
I've just said that I love the kids in my life, for the most part. And that's completely true. I'm excited for my friends who are fulfilling desires in their lives to be parents and I'm glad to be part of it and to get the opportunity to spoil some of these kids and watch them grow up and see who they're going to be.
But I don't love all kids.
...
I don't love most kids.
...
I don't like kids.
I don't. I haven't for years. I did when I was a kid and babysitting, when I was 13 maybe I had some favorite kids that I loved to babysit but they nicknamed me Munch. How awesome were they?!
There are a lot of reasons I don't like kids. I like my health, kids are always sick and you get sick when you're around sick people. They're loud, they smell weird, I don't know how to talk to them (I talked to Claira Beans when I was in Phoenix for Morgan's wedding about Gaddafi. She's 6 months.), I can't understand them when they talk so I don't know what they want or need or said, they freak me out I can't tell what they're thinking, they're all sticky, and they're so demanding. And that's not an exhaustive list.
"Call me a grinch, a misanthrope, a DINK (dual-income-no-kids), or the anti-cute-police, but I hate (hate a thousand times over) ill-behaved children/infants/screaming banshees in upscale restaurants (ok, anywhere, really, but I don’t want any death threats)," writes Charlotte Savino on Travel and Leisure's blog (from this same article).
And that is exactly why I love the so-called "brat ban."
Stick with me. Because I know who I am. I'm not deluded. I know I'm the single girl who doesn't want to get married, who does not want to have children, who cannot for one minute imagine my life as anything other than what it is right now. And it is uninterrupted sleep and Cheerios where I drop them. But I can have an opinion about this, and it may not be the feminist bra burning approach you think.
Or maybe it will be. I look forward to your letters.
Clearly, kids terrify me. And I have left a grocery cart full of groceries because no matter where I went mom and screaming 3 year old were right behind me like the bad guy in a slasher film.
I couldn't run fast enough.
So while screaming, misbehaving children is the problem in our faces, my problem is with the parents. And again, I love and adore all my friends who are now parents or are going to become parents soon, but if you parent like this, we probably won't stay friends for long.
When my sisters and I were little, and misbehaved we left. Wherever we were. Church. The store. A restaurant. People's houses. Anywhere. Didn't matter. If we were going to act like that we could do it at home.
And according to my parents, we didn't misbehave that often.
Because we learned how to behave in public. We were told what was expected of us and what the consequences would be if we didn't do it.
Kids aren't idiots. They can be reasoned with, to a certain extent. But if you never enforce rules or punishments of any kind they'll walk all over you. Because they can.
My parents tell us about when we were really little, really really little, and we would go to our Grandparents house and my Nana had glass and porcelain figurines out on a coffee table in their living room. She would always put them away when my cousins came to visit, and was going to do so when we came over but my Mom told her no, leave them out Megan won't touch them. And apparently I tried, was told no, and just stood there and looked at them.
Maybe I was perfect, but more likely I just knew my parents weren't to be messed with.
There are exceptions. Sometimes you go places where you expect there to be children and you expect there to be screaming and misbehaving among actual normal kid behaviors like playing, running, yelling, having fun, all that stuff. Chuck E. Cheese. The grocery store. Honestly, it's a family place, I think anyway. There's just something about the sound of a screaming kid that makes me homicidal and if there's nothing being done by the parents I'll leave. It's my right and in a place like that, while I would expect kids to sit quietly and not cause problems, I can escape. Not so on an airplane. But if you were the parents who had your kid on a family flight with only other families, that might make me crazy as well.
It's a tricky subject. It is.
And I also think there should be some places that are reserved for children. My parents just told me about a restaurant we went to where they put us in a family room and apparently we tore it up. But we were allowed to be loud in there, to run around, to play with each other, and to eat with our families while the other patrons of the restaurant got to eat in peace. Win-win! I think places like that are important. Parents shouldn't be shunned because they have kids with them, not everything can be cause for people to get babysitters. I understand that.
But if parents, parented, I would be much more sympathetic to them. Sometimes kids misbehave. They just do. They're in a mood, they're unreasonable at the time for whatever reason, but it's a bad day. We all have them. What we don't all have is our Mothers and Fathers ready to escort us into the lobby or back home to keep us from shoving our tantrum in other people's food.
Most of the time, when I see people become parents, they think they can still have their life. Your life happens when you have a babysitter. When you have your kids with you they are your life. And if your life is pitching a fit, your life should be headed away from mine.
The last line of the article, I found really interesting.
"[...] are parents in danger of becoming second-class citizens?"
What's the alternative then? Like I said, we're dealing with the problem in our faces. The loud, screaming, misbehaving kid at table 19. And a lot of people see that as the problem. I obviously do not. Kids know what they're taught and if you teach them that they can do whatever they want, they will. I blame parents. 100%.
So are we discriminating against people because they are parents or because they're bad parents?
I look forward to your letters.
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