How do you feel about this ? I see nothing wrong with a business expecting children and adults to "play nice" while inside ...

thoughts & comments ??



CHICAGO - Dan McCauley had seen one too many kids at his cafe lying on the floor in front of the counter, careening off the glass pastry case, coming perilously close to getting their fingers pinched in the front door. So he posted a sign: "Children of all ages have to behave and use their indoor voices."



To him, it was a simple reminder to parents to keep an eye on their children and set some limits. But to some parents in his North Side Chicago neighborhood, the sign may as well have read, "If you have kids, you're not welcome."

That one little notice, adorned with pastel hand prints, has become a lightning rod in a larger debate over parenting and misbehaving children.

"It's not about the kids," says McCauley, the 44-year-old owner of A Taste of Heaven cafe, who has no children but claims to like them a lot. "It's about the parents who are with them. Are they supervising and guiding them?

"I'm just asking that they are considerate to people around them."

While he has created some enemies in his neighborhood, McCauley has received hundreds of calls and more than 600 letters, the overwhelming majority of them supportive. One letter-writer from Alabama typed out in bold letters: "In my opinion, you're a hero! Keep it up."

It is a sentiment that people feel increasingly comfortable expressing. Online bloggers regularly make impassioned pleas for child-free zones in public, while e-mailers have been forwarding a photograph of a sign in an unidentified business that reads, "Unattended Children Will Be Given an Espresso and a Puppy."

While it is common policy for upscale restaurants to bar children, owners of other types of businesses also are setting limits on kids.

The Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas, for instance, does not allow visitors who aren't guests to have strollers; hotel officials say it is to prevent crashes with other pedestrians. The Bellagio Hotel does not take guests younger than 18 without special permission.

Some parents are fine with the limit-setting and complain that too many of their peers take their kids to places traditionally meant for adults, such as late-night movies and rock concerts.

Robin Piccini, a 42-year-old mom in Bridgewater, Mass., gets annoyed when she has hired a baby sitter for her daughter, only to end up seated at a restaurant next to unruly kids.

"I am paying the same price so that I can have a relaxing dinner, but because there are lazy parents out there, my dinner has to be stressful and tense," she says. "How fair is that?"

Still, while they agree that some parents push the boundaries too far, other weary parents feel under siege — and misunderstood.

"Don't get me wrong. As a parent, I have an arsenal that includes the deadly stare, loss of privileges and `We're going back to the car, RIGHT NOW!'" says Angela Toda, a 38-year-old mother of two small children in College Park, Md. "But the bottom line is, there are certain moments that all kids and parents have — and sometimes your kid is going to lose it in a public place."

She says she does not usually respond well to other people's interference, "unless it is a sympathetic look."

Parents in Port Melbourne, Australia, also were upset last year when a sign appeared on the restaurant door at the Clare Castle Hotel stating that children were welcome only if they stayed in their seats. The establishment has since changed hands and dropped the policy, which new owner Michael Farrant says makes no sense in a neighborhood filled with young families.

"I like the kids running about," says Farrant, a father of three, including a 2-year-old. "I know what it's like with a little one. Sometimes, there's no controlling them."

Still other business owners are creating separate spaces for kids and families, in an attempt to accommodate as many generations as possible.

All Booked Up in Suffolk, Va., is among bookstores that have separate sections where kids can play and rest. Many ballparks have alcohol-free "family sections." And a few restaurants have added separate dining areas for parents with children.

Zulema Suarez, a professor who studies parenting, applauds attempts to strike a balance.

"There needs to be a give and take," says Suarez, an associate professor of social work at Adelphi University in Garden City, N.Y. "Children don't need to be allowed to run wild and free, but they do need to be allowed to express themselves."

Too often, though, our cultural emphasis on freedom and individual rights gets taken to the extreme, becoming "a kind of selfish entitlement that undermines our ability to function as a civil community," says George Scarlett, a professor of child development at Tufts University in Boston.

"The rights of any one individual — whether he or she be a parent, child or stranger — do not negate the rights of others."

expecting peoples kids to behave in certain situations seems resonable, of course the occasional outburst is going to happen a lot depends on how the parents handle it .

i have been to places where people have taken their children and they make no effort to make them behave. running around screaming in the theatre, cinema and in restaurants is not acceptable.

kids today are fuckin bezerk,i remember tha day when if u acted up in a sto' u got ya ass tapped right there.

imo child free zones are reasonable.

because adults should be able to enjoy a quiet meal without being forced to endure the antics of someone else's children...

and on the other hand there should be child-friendly restaurants as well. where people can go who expect to be in the company of children.

TheRealFiness said:

yup--or like my dad used to do, he'd pull me outta the store and whoop my ass in the car or when we got home.

but yeah, i read about this last month and i think it's right on. the employees of any cafe-type establishment ain't babysitters, you should be able to handle your own children and teach 'em how to behave whenever you take 'em out somewhere. nowadays some kids are pretty much spoiled to death so they can get away with shit.

OMFG, THIS IS MAKING NATIONAL NEWS?!?!?

this is so ridiculous. this is happening in my neighborhood, and i totally applaud the shopkeeper. i love going to cafes in my neighborhood, usually because i like to take my laptop and get a lot of writing done in a comfortable place away from home. lots of people in my neighborhood use cafes as a place to write, study, work, have meetings with classmates or co-workers, etc. sometimes friends just meet there to talk.

cafes aren't places for kids to play. they just aren't. not in my neighborhood, and i would think, not anywhere. if an adult ran around a caribou coffee shop screaming and knocking stuff over, he or she would be kicked out. why should it be different for kids? a disruption is a disruption.

if it were a mcdonalds or a chuck e. cheese, it would be different. but it's not.

'permissive parenting' is getting WAY out of hand these days. if i would have acted like some of the kids i see throwing fits whenever they damn well please, my mom wouldn't have tried to reason with me or bargain with me. she wouldn't have smiled and suggested the "option" of being quiet. no. my mom would have pulled me to her face by my collar, called me a few choice names, threatened my life, and put the fear of god into me.

and i would have shut my fat little mouth right up.

fortunately, that didn't happen to me a lot, because from an early age, i understood why manners were important. it wasn't just "because mommy says so". i understood that other people had lives too, and they should be respected. kids aren't getting that these days. they're treated like spoiled little emperors, and when you challenge the cult of permissive parenting, you get an indignant chorus of "BUT WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN?!?!"

well, what about 'em?!

good for the cafe owner. i'm going to write him a christmas card praising his ass.

i think thats what he should've did. kids should be taught to conduct themselves right.

this shit:


should never happen. and he shouldn't have to tell parents to stop them. they should know already. my kids run around sometimes but they know when its time to play and when its time to sit down and be quiet.

"Unattended Children Will Be Given an Espresso and a Puppy."

Parents should only take their kids to places where they know they won't disturb other people. I am sick and tired of the parents that take their small kids to the movies. Kids that age do not have the patience to sit through a movie and that leads them to yapping and disturbing the other movie goers who have spent a good amount of money to see the movie. Think about other people.

Spats said:

Pot meet kettle

mdiver said:

I honestly don't know why parents persist in taking their kids to cafes, I would be a nervous wreck attempting something like that.
Is it because some parents believe they can fit kids in with their "lifestyle" without changing it? You CAN'T, once you have them, it's all about THEM, everything changes

My wife and I are a childless couple by choice.

We would love to see a childless community to move into or a childless restraunt to eat in, but this is seen as discrimination. What about discrimination to those of us that like our peace and don't care to have to deal with monkeys that think they know everything while knowing very little?

I think it's a great move. There's nothing wrong with expecting parents to do their job.

charlottegelin said:

but there is another way to look at this. for example, here in europe, the cafe is a tremendous part of the personal and social lifestyle whether you are a parent or not. small children are also very inclusive in parents' social activities from birth on, so that children are very accustomed to being in a social atmosphere from the time they can get into a baby buggy. it seems to be a really constructive thing as most kids i see here are quite managable in cafes and are usually sitting in their owned darned chair holding their own gigantic cups of steamed cocoa by the time they're 4. and many of the smaller ones are quite content to simply sit in their strollers or baby buggies chewing on a gigantic piece of biscotti for a half hour or so....

i believe that there should be child free areas in restaurants and cafes and airplanes, and pretty much everywhere except the grocery store. those with children can sit with others who have children and all the kids can scream and freak out together and not bother the people who are there to relax. some people seem to like screaming kids running around and acting like...well..kids and some people do not.

it's unfair to expect a child to act like a little adult when he's not. let him be a kid, just let him be a kid around other kids and adults who like kids. it is also unfair to ask adults to tolerate the horrible behavior of children who are not their own when many times the parent can't even tolerate it themselves.

Nothing wrong w/ that sign, some parents are so used to the chaos (I suppose they have to be not to go nuts, but still) that they don't realize when their kids are being a real disturbance to others.

I fucking hate that - kids are wonderful, but be considerate of them & of the others in the atmosphere. If your kid is going wild & screaming in a low key establishment, take control & quiet them down or make an exit. Don't just go on w/ your fucking conversation while little Jimmy is doing donuts @ my table



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[Edited 12/7/05 4:36am]

Ottensen said:

I would have to sedate my kids, I reckon. Once they feel too familiar somewhere they are off and running.

In the scenario described above, the adults also seem accustomed to the kids and there is a happy balance. If other adults are not into the kids being there, tensions arise.

meow85 said:

i agree

i think the owner of that cafe should make t-shirts and postcards out of his sign. it would become TRES CHIC in my neighborhood, and it would piss off all the right people.

Anxiety said:

good idea

charlottegelin said:[quote]

Ottensen said:

I would have to sedate my kids, I reckon. Once they feel too familiar somewhere they are off and running.

i see what you mean. what i noticed from moving to europe is that adults are very inclusionary towards children moreso than at home in the states. for example, parents do their daily errands with their children from the time they're born, either with the baby bjorn thing strapped to them, or with the baby in a buggy (the kind with 4 wheels). people help you lift your baby buggy up subway stairs, on to buses, or if you're inside of a small shop you can leave it outside and no one dares to touch it. also, in a lot of northern european countries, people use bikes instead of cars (we have bike lanes on our sidewalks here), so people really do ride all over town with their kids from the time they can sit up and be strapped into a seat. the funniest thing though, is at large supermarket chains, where they have cute little child sized-shopping carts so your kid can push groceries and basically be interactive with you to make something mundane as grocery shopping a family experience. so i think essentially it starts with having certain activities be so much a part of a socio-cultural lifestyle, that it somehow makes it a little easier for kids to be part of certain social situations when those lifestyle behaviors are nurtured from the start. nobody here minds being around kids because we're used to seeing them and they us. especially in shops, cafes, and restaurants. generally speaking though, parents here draw the line at places like theatres and performance venues, because, well, kids are kids! but for the most part it seems like tiny ones are a very interactive part of the social fabric here...

here's the horrible, evil sign and the villain responsible:

About time!

Is there something about parents that when they go into a public place they allow their kids to run around mental and become a problem to everyone else.
The last thing i want is having to watch a young child running around because his/her mum is too busy talking to her friend to even care how many people her kid is annoying.

i say well done that man.

Whoever interpreted his sign as anti-children is whacked out of their skulls. Parents need to teach their children better manners these days. One time I was at the Carls Jr. eating lunch and a little kid got sick and threw up on the seats. The mother just walked over, wiped his face and left his throw up on the seats. Didn't even try to clean it up. With crap like that you can see how kids have not learned jack crap from their parents

Parents need to control their crazy fucking kids!!! Plain and simple. Don't get mad at an establishment because your ass don't have control of the situation

and you know one of those parents that feels insulted by the sign would be the first to sue if the kid had something spilled on him/her because of lying down by the counter, or pinching a finger in the door, etc.....

bluesbaby said:

Totally!!

Anxiety said:

OMG!! He made it SO friendly w/ little goofy hand prints & everything That is so NOT anti-child, it's anti-irresponsible parents!! THAT'S why some are angry, b/c they know their shit is out of control