OT: No Brats Allowed!

[Guest guest]

In an earlier posting I addressed the hidden cultural thread of

misopedia (hatred of children) with regards to missing fathers. Here

is another manifestation.

-Lenny

No Brats Allowed!

Is American society increasingly intolerant of tots?

By Clayton for MSNBC http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14136994/

For Nooney's 3-year-old twin boys, playing with the

the Train set at their local bookstore in Southern California is a

major thrill. Jack and Sam push , Arthur and friends down the

track, they run around the table, jump up and down — and, of course,

they squeeeaal.

Nooney expects as much in the children's section of the store.

But on a recent afternoon, she was surprised by an employee who

confronted her, calling her darling Jack a tyrant.

" He was a little loud but this is a children's section, " says

Nooney. " They run a noisy, cavernous bookstore but they don't want

kids to make any noise? It just seems ridiculous and leads me to

believe that they don't want kids, they want silent kids. "

The bookstore is not the only place that likes quiet, controlled

children — and isn't afraid to say so. Across the nation, there are

signs of a low-burning uprising against children supposedly behaving

badly in public.

Eateries from California to Massachusetts have posted signs on

doors and menus saying " We love children, especially when they are

tucked in chairs and well behaved " or " Kids must use indoor voices. "

In North Carolina an online petition was started last year to

establish child-free restaurants — the petition loosely compared

dining with children to dining with cigarette smoke.

In response to an MSNBC.com story about the controversy over

pets in public places, some readers wrote in to say they'd much rather

see a dog at dinner, the movies or the mall than little " cretins. "

Dogs are better behaved, they smell better and they're much cuter,

wrote one reader.

phine Charlton, a public relations consultant in West

Hollywood, Calif., says she loves children but feels they are becoming

public nuisances nonetheless. Her local Whole Foods has been overrun

by " breeders " with an oversized sense of entitlement, she says,

museums are now inappropriately clogged with strollers, and even

first-class travel has morphed into " Romper Room " in the air.

" You can't work on planes anymore because of kids running

around, " says Charlton. She recalls a recent flight when parents

allowed their toddler son to run up and down the aisle in first-class.

" My friend said, `Hey, would you mind watching your child?' You

would've thought he wanted to nail the kid to a cross! "

+Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14136994/