The "No Kids Allowed" Movement

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I like the no kids allowed movement because children in western civilization are loud and irritating. They need to stand still and shut up.

I hated kids even when I was a kid. The other kids bullied me because I was nicer than them.

I got bullied quite a bit as well, nothing really major though cause I hung out with kids older than me a lot, which made it so kids my age were more careful when the older kids were around.

I also really didn't hate anyone, in any event, hating people was fairly pointless.

I understand, that there are special places where kids should not be around. (Because of violence, danger, explicite things and so on...) Personally i found it hard to believe, that the discussion is about normal restaurants. From my personal experience when i made holiday in the USA (Florida: Miami, Orlando, Keys, ... a visit to Cap Canavaral) real restaurants are the only place, where you can get real food. So families would be forbidden such a complete normal thing like eating outside their hous? This seems so weird to me, as if you would say, because i´ve got children i am no longer allowed to visit a toilette? O_o

I mean McDonalds and Fast Food is nice, buts its not food, its candyjunk and you can go there for fun, but it has nothing to do with a meal. And you should have a real meal and real food every day. So normally you eat at home anyway because its cheaper, but sometimes you dont have the time to cook, so you are forced to visit a restaurant. And i understand, that under some circumstances i should not go there because of the other visitors, so if i had ebola or bubonic plague. But because of having kids? O_o This is no illness? This is part of the normal society. And getting a babysitter just because of going eating? What next? A babysitter, so i am allowed to go sh*****g? A babysitter, so i am allowed to go shopping? Sure, noone is happy when youve got the normal "CHOOOOOOOHOOOCOLATTTE" Terror scream kid in the supermarket, but thats the way it is. And no, i dont have children on my own yet, still i never came to the idea to forbid families to have a social life doing so extra orinary things like ... eating. O_o I hope breathing is still ok. ^^

And sure, as diagnosed asperger i also have my issues with normal society, but i was always aware, that this is my problem, not societys. So i hate the chatting of my office colleguas, but i know its part of the normal society, so i got me some ear plugs and everyone is happy. So i already had the bad luck to start eating in an restaurant when later came once a wedding society and one a company having their christmas lunch. Ok, thats bad luck and i had to ask the waiter to store my food, so i could take it home with me, but i never had the idea that the owner of the restaurant should forbid people to have festivities in restaurants just because its to much noise for me.

The thing i was wondering about: In many restaurants in europe with a bit more quality then standard, there are normally different areas. So the front area where you have desks for around 4 people, where office colleguas and friends are meeting, then behind a part with bigger desks for families and so on and a part with mostly small desks, most for 2 persons and few for 4 persons. So the customers separate themselfs anyway, if you want to have the candle light dinner you take the desk for two, you have family you need the bigger desks anyway and so on. But to be forbidden for around 12 years to visit a restaurant, because of doing so terrible things like getting kids, seems really freaking to me. O_o

I dont know, maybe there is another standards to "visiting a restaurant", so for me its is a normal thing to visit restaurants, when you didnt have the time to cook or to celebrate birthdays and so on, and it seems pretty normal for me to take the kids with them, because they are hungry too or want to celebrate their own or mummys birthday too. ^^ But it seems to me that visiting a restaurant seems to some of you more like a kind of event or so. So i understand, that you dont want to do a candle light dinner in a normal restaurant, i just do not understand why your restaurants just dont separate their customer areas.

Thumbs up to the restaurants.

Too many people can't or won't control their kids these days. There is absolutely no reason anyone else should have to put up with that. So screw em. The parents can learn to cook.

And whats with (Sorry, dont know the political correct word.) families with ret*d relatives or old relatives with mind diseases? Are they also to be punished for not chaining their relatives in the cellar but offering them a normal social life? I am sorry, but a restaurant is a place of normal society for me, and children, old, diseased, ret*d and so on are part of the normal society.

Where do you go to celebrate the birthday of your 80 year old granny, who is loosing 50% of her supper while eating? And why should she be punished not to go into the restaurant again, do you think she is doing this for purpose? And some kids are ret*d in a way, they will always make noises and not be able to proper eating. So because of practicing the sin of integrating your relatives, they should be punished to never be allowed eating in an restaurant again?

Sorry, but this seems really weird for me. A restaurant who would act like this, could close in an instant in my surrounding area. No wonder, when you are telling 80% of your customers to stay at home because of being a normal family instead a single Yuppieh.

Last edited by Schneekugel on 30 Nov 2012, 7:41 am, edited 1 time in total.

^
Eh, it's up to the restaurant. If they're trying to promote a certain environment and children would detract from that, they may find it beneficial to lose some customers while keeping a greater number happier by excluding them. On the other hand, they may want the family business and try to make their establishment kid friendly, it all comes down to what they're going for and who their market is. It's really no different than a dress code, if you detract from the desired atmosphere than you're not allowed in.

I believe that the focus is on noise and disruption.
A family with a member who has Alzheimer's should make a decision based on how aware that person is on that particular day. If the 80-year-old granny is agitated or confused or upset, then no, she does not need to be taken someplace where she will probably be further upset.
I worked in a locked facility for 'ret*d' or Developementally Disabled for 5 years.
Some of the residents we took across the street to a movie theater, it worked out just fine, one to one accompaniment.
None of them would be taken to a restaurant, however. It would not be fair to other diners.
If granny is losing some of her food, do you mean drooling, or can she no longer feed herself?
If the family is willing to be responsible and spoon-feed her, and make sure there is no mess, they still should be seated in a separate 'banquet room', especially one with doors.
However, this must be the owners' decision.
You brought up 'ret*d' people. Where I worked, most of the residents had seizure activity...ever seen a grand mal seizure?
You don't need one happening at the table next to yours.
Does granny have a catheter?
Leg bag?
Adult diaper?
Does any of these three things pertain to the 'ret*d' person?
Then take them to the park, take them for a ride in the car, but not out to dinner.
If a child's behavior cannot be guaranteed, there are plenty of places that cater to children who want customers.

Sylkat

Last edited by Sylkat on 02 Dec 2012, 2:20 am, edited 1 time in total.

My english is bad, but her finger were chilling (?) a bit so if it goes for soup or things which are hard to keep on a spoon like peas and so on, she would be loosing some of it. And when eating something fluid, she slurped and so on... and a little drooling did happen to her later. And she did not want to be fed until she couldnt get out of bed anymore, 1-2 napkins did the job until then quiet well. Only if it was about cutting with the knife she needed some help because she couldn´t do enough pressure(didn´t have enough strength, but its not as she would have ordered steak or other hard to chew things anyway. (So she got wrong teeth, but still cared to eat easy chewable things.) And she was a "bit" too loud when talking, because she was a little deaf when getting older and couldnt hear herself not that much.

Sorry, but i would have thought of me as an total a**hole by telling her, she couldnt come with us any longer. "So thanks granny for building up our country after the war from ruins, thanks for watching me when my parents couldn´t, but please, now get the f**k off because you are old and ill and we do not want you anylonger as a part of society, so please go hiding in your room?" O_o

And that fast food stuff did come up around 1980 in europe anyway, so she wouldnt even recognize this stuff as food anyway, even if we had taken her to such a place instead of a restaurant.

Beside that there would be only few people, who would support that anyway, so if it isnt about a sport restaurant, cafe restaurant and so on... who have special customers, most visitors of restaurants are families, celebrating something or had a vacation so you couldnt cook or so and its pretty normal to take everything whith you, from toddler to granny. Else it would suck, because part of the family had to stay at home, so its no family meal.

Still its different, so if your children are not behaving, then its usual that other customers will complain to you as parent to take more care of your kid. But if the kid had an accident at birth, and was "damaged" because he got no air some time, and is sitting in a wheel chair, babbling around all time during the meal, its accepted. I mean what should you complain about: "Please could you do a miracle and heal your sons brain or get out of here?" O_o If i did that, i better should move out of town.

Still its not about being holy or supernice or anything, people are just aware that one day, they will be the one with the kid, or if they have bad luck a kid with "special needs" (?) or the drooling granny theirself, and that babysitting thing isnt really practiced by us, so everyone of us would be forbidden to have a social life for years, just for having a normal family.

So if the kids are really misbehaving beyond their social cabilities in their age, i understand if the restaurant owner threw them out. But throwing everyone out just because there maybe 10% children who did not learn how to behave: Why should i accept to be punished for something another person is responsible for? When my parents had their 15th wedding day they went to our capital city to one of the finest restaurants, that was far beyond our usual standard. So my mother teached us befor the "special rools" when eating at home like, crossing Knife and spoon means "please leave the dish on the desk, i am still eating" and so on. My sister was 12 and i was 7 and the only problem that accured, was that i had to go to the toilettes between the meals, which is against the "good rules" in the fine restaurants. God damn it, i think the other visitors will have understood that 7 year old girls have a smaller ... (You know what i mean, but i dont know the word in english. ^^). When visiting the USA as a child they even taught me a standard of "Can i have ... please. Thanks. Hello," And so on.. So why the hell should my parents, able to teach their kids a standard behaviour, accept to be punished for actions of other people? I´d be angry about people, punishing me without cause and wouldnt visit them any more.

You wouldnt accept it either if the police punished you for something your neighbor did, because its not right.

I dont know, maybe its really because this babysitter thing seem to be different, its not really accepted that much as it seems to be in the USA. But leaving relatives at home while going out to have fun with the family, it does really have a bad touch for me. Its for me a "What will the neighbors say, if we did that." thing.

that is a pity

I briefly worked in a restaurant,we all dreaded it when small children came in,mainly because their parents gave them free rein.Imagine spider monkeys at a buffet.Not fun at all for the staff.

"Children should neither be seen nor heard from---ever again".
W.C. Fields

"I like children.If they are properly cooked."
W.C. Fields

My wife and I are VERY strict on our kids. They can totally handle 5***** restaurants and other high-collar venues.

Here's what makes me sad, though, about my experience. I enjoy taking may kids to the university about half an hour from here and letting them sit in on a public faculty chamber music recital. My kids sit still as statues the whole time, reserve applause for the completion of a performance instead of clapping between movements, and anyone unfamiliar with my kids would want to poke them just to make sure they're still alive and breathing. We plan and strategize EVERYTHING to make sure behavior is above par. And I think because so many high-fa'lutin' types are so shell-shocked by the behavior of small children, and I'm talking 3 and 5 years old here, I get ugly looks just for my kids being there. The truly awful part is I completed my bachelor's degree there so half the profs know me from having taken their classes. The look of absolute horror is almost as demoralizing as it is amusing. And it's unfair, because music is such a big part of our lives and my oldest is even showing some signs of having perfect pitch.

Another amusing episode was when we visited the Biltmore Estate... Everything on the estate grounds is 5***** all the way, even the "bistro" in the countryside. We explained to our children that they have to be on their "better than best" behavior. They had good table manners, didn't knock glasses over or break plates, and barely spoke above a whisper even though it was a bistro atmosphere with lots of ambient noise. And the wait staff still gave us some nasty looks and acted really nervous because our children, who I think were 2 and 3 at the time, were there.

I don't blame businesses for going "No Kids Allowed," and there are certain places we won't take our kids anyway because of the expectations these kinds of places set and because, I'm sorry, kids won't appreciate a plate of food that costs $50, nor will they understand why you can't have soda or at least iced tea. It's sad, though, that there are places that are open to the public, such as free recitals at a university, and you get dirty looks because OTHER parents can't get consistent behavior from their kids. Here's a hint: You have to be the bad guy, the evil monster that bringeth the rod of discipline (whatever form that takes, I'm not advocating beating kids to a bloody pulp), you have to communicate high expectations to children, yea, even the little ones, and you have to consistently hold them to those high expectations.

There's a good way to handle this. Just have a family section in the restaurant. Put the people with oodles of kids and infants in this section and have it be a bit of a distance from people without kids. No sense on barring people with kids because you are losing business that way and the point is to make money.

Agreed. And I think probably a lot of places already do this.

I went to Olive Garden once with my family (which we don't do often) and I was surprised to notice just how many tables near us had 2 or 3 children. And that's when it dawned on me that we'd never been seated in that section before...

Here's the main problem with Western Civilization: Children here behave like animals should behave and pets here behave like children.

In Africa and the Middle East, children stay still and shut up when they are told.

I've child-proofed my house but they still get in.

A good hard whack across the shoulders with a sjambok makes them stop running around so much.
Just kidding.