Cool. I understand. I'm with you. But as John Winthrop, the governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630), told us back in 1645, "For the other point concerning liberty, I observe a great mistake in the country about that. There is a twofold liberty, natural (I mean as our nature is now corrupt) and civil or federal. The first is common to man with beasts and other creatures. By this, man, as stands in relation to man simply, hath liberty to do as he lists; it is a liberty to evil as well as to good. This liberty is incompatible and inconsistent with authority, and cannot endure the least restraint of the most just authority. The exercise and maintaining of this liberty makes men grow more evil, and in time to be worse than brute beasts."
I know what you're thinking: Why are you quoting one of those coffee-filter-collar-wearing dudes from the 17th century, bro? What, are you, like, Glenn Beck and shit? You going to get out your oversized Founding Fathers posters and whiteboard? No, I'm not. But the op-ed, "'Family friendly' but don't bring kids," by Ruben Navarrette, Jr., in yesterday's Fresno Bee set me off.
In the piece, he takes issue with Mike Vuick's ban on children under six in his Monroeville, PA, restaurant, McDain's, because Vuick "[feels] that McDain's is not a place for young children. Their volume can't be controlled and many, many times they have disturbed other customers." (Vuick also said he has nothing against children, but he "thinks that crying and screaming in restaurants is the height of being impolite and selfish.")
Navarrette opens by arguing, "None of us were promised that we could make it through our lives without ever being bothered, inconvenienced or made to feel uncomfortable. When that happens––and it will––you do what grown-ups do: Put up with it, or you leave the environment that is causing you so much misery and go someplace else." He also said that "the proper response isn't always a smoking ban, a profanity ban, a fast food ban, etc. Sometimes, all you need to do is speak up and ask people to be more considerate." Yeah, that usually turns out well. Turn that liberty fist pump into a fist-fight!
To answer his first statement, you merely have to rephrase it toward a different situation––sexual harassment, por ejemplo (yes, we speak Spanish poorly in the Kingdom)––to understand how utterly misguided it is. And Even though Navarrette openly admits to being a father of [poorly behaved] young children, it can be assumed. He can't be objective because he clearly has a dog in the fight. (Can we also assume he's also a smoker, since he's so bummed on the successful indoor smoking ban in California?) There are no people less objective than sleep-deprived smoker parents, except maybe pet owners.
Now, I don't want to turn this into a breeders versus non-breeders argument, but the kids in restaurants issue happens to close to my heart since I worked in several restaurants. I cannot tell you how many times parents sat idly by drinking beers or sipping wine while their childabeasts ran wild through the restaurant, or tracked mud in after a ball game (take off your cleats!), or executed something just short of an IED at a table area with food, only to have the parents look up at a clearly frazzled me, shrug and say, "Ha! Kids!" Like being a parent with young children is a free pass to do whatever the hell you want.
Navarrette goes on to admit just this: kids cannot be controlled like "television sets or boom boxes," and, "[When] one of your children is screaming, you aren't thinking about people at 'neighboring tables.' [. . .] you're just trying to put the fire out." Well, dude, if something is on fire and can't be controlled, I would prefer if you took it outside (to smothering it, of course). Yeah, over there by the sad smokers, twenty feet from the front door.
Look, we all have laws we don't like. I don't like booze being banned on the beach because families don't like a bunch of young and not-so-young drunk people misbehaving. And the bans come down to what Winthrop argued: "liberty to do evil as well as good [. . . but] this liberty makes men more evil."
We're also a democracy and can pass any laws we want, as long as they're Constitutional. We've banned people under 21 from being allowed to buy booze or enter a bar. We've banned people under 18 from seeing certain movies without an irresponsible parent that will allow them to see rated R movies (and we have NC17. Take that, irresponsible parents!). We've banned people under the age of 35 from being President. So if one man wants to ban children under six from one restaurant in some obscure town, not only do I support him, I would eat there every chance I got, just like I prefer bars without smokers.
I guess the thing that bothers me most about Navarrette's argument is the underlying classism involved. If I go to McDonald's and kids are running around screaming, I know I signed up for that. (They have a Play Palace.) On the other end of the spectrum, if you (notice the switch to second person, here) go to the most expensive restaurant in town, and you're dropping serious cash on a meal and wine while a man softly plays the piano in the corner, you're probably going to be bummed if someone's kid orders the anarchy burger. So, really, the battleground is the middle class breeders versus non-breeders.
Horn sounds: I hereby announce that all children in the Kingdom of Eric Parker under the age of six are banned from any restaurant not expressly catering to children. (Don't worry; we're going to have TONS of crazy kid friendly eateries.) Children under five will also be banned on any flights longer than 2 hours. Sorry.
My suggestion to any of the middle class breeders who want to enter McDain's or restaurants in the Kingdom of Eric Parker is to do what all underage people do: get fake IDs. Dress your kids as small people. Use Magic Markers to draw beards on your young sons. Dress your young daughters like those creepy children's beauty pageant contestants.
Navarrette ends his opinion piece with everyone's favorite logical fallacy: the slippery slope argument. He says, "But the real problem with Vuik's proposed 'child ban' is that it's a harmful enabler. It'll only encourage more complaining by customers at 'neighboring tables.'" Next thing you know, those complaining customers will want to ban the post-dinner cabaret and donkey show. And on and on . . .
Did I mention the first children's restaurant in the Kingdom of Eric will be called The Super Duper Slippery Slope Pizza Emporium?
Hello! Interesting read, sir Eric. I have a couple of thoughts I'd like to project into your cosmos based on this entry. Here they are:
ReplyDeleteFirst, I am in support of someone being free to have whatever restrictions on his/her private entity, and I agree that people with rampaging children should take responsibility for them and should respect others by not ignoring the issue for their enjoyment a nice drink. I disagree, though, that this is an issue of "middle class breeders versus non-breeders." Not all parents with kids in restaurants let them rage without discipline, and not all people in fancy kid-free restaurants aren't parents of young children, so I think the issue is more truly "breeders who can't/won't afford babysitters but bring their rampaging children out without disciplining them anyway because they are placing their convenience over respect for business owners and other patrons" vs the collective of "people in restaurants who do their parenting job decently and/or non-parents in restaurants." I think this Navarrette guy is wrong to say children can't be controlled, but I think you're wrong to say that patrons of nice restaurants aren't parents and/or wouldn't take responsible/respectful control of an outruly kid situation in public. What are your thoughts on this?
smargical,
ReplyDeleteI think you're wrong in saying an individual may have whatever restriction they want on their private entity, I'm thinking Jim Crow here, but I think you're totally correct when it comes to responsible parents vs. irresponsible parents. On the few occasions we ate at restaurants as children, we had to remove our hats and wouldn't have thought of raging anywhere near the powerful hands of my father. Did I insinuate rich people in nice restaurants don't have kids? I didn't mean to if I did. I guess they just don't bring them; but there seems to be an understood etiquette in fancy restaurants, and who wants to drop lots of cash on a child's meal? Of course, a restaurant owner could always ask customers with unruly children to leave, but who wants to deal with the conflict?
Hey, on another note, how did you find my blog?