Kids in Cafes

Belated as usual, I'm still going to put in my two cents about "rowdy children in coffee shops." These days I don't have much time to track current debates through the blogosphere, and Technorati makes me tired. But I'm guessing (yes, I know I'm setting up straw men, or, more likely, women) that the childfree applauded the Chicago cafe that posted the sign saying "children of all ages have to behave and use their indoor voices," and the moms (I know I should say parents, but I'm guessing it's mainly moms) waxed indignant.

Well, for once, you can sign me up with the antis. Or maybe that would be the pros. The anti-children wreaking havoc in cafes contingent. And the pro-businesses have every right to make children unwelcome contingent.

Basically, it comes down to capitalism and parenting.

Let's take capitalism first. I am no big fan of capitalism, but it happens to be our system. And, being married to the restaurant business has given me a lot more sympathy with small businesses than I once might have had. Take health insurance, for example. What good is mandating that small businesses give their employees health insurance, when the profit margin of such businesses is often so thin that the owner barely gets paid, and adding the cost of health insurance to the expenses side of the ledger would make the business go under, so those employees would have neither health insurance nor jobs? (The answer to that one is, of course, universal health care, but this is about cafes, not health insurance.)

Here are two key points about businesses under capitalism: they need customers to survive, and customers can choose whether to patronize them. Obviously there are some givens. A business cannot discriminate on the basis of race, gender, religion, or disability (and in some places sexuality). But that does not mean that a business has to let customers do what they want and give them what they want. A restaurant can choose not to serve alcohol. A restaurant can choose to make men wear jackets and ties. By doing so, they will delineate their clientele, because just as they can choose what kind of place they want to be, we can choose whether or not we want to patronize such a place.

Having children is not the same as using a wheelchair or being an inter-racial couple. And besides, the guy in Chicago did not ban children; he simply stated that children need to behave in his cafe. Just like the French Laundry states that men need to wear jackets (at least I think they do--I'm too lazy to check, but you get the point). You don't want to wear a jacket? You don't want to make your children behave? Then go somewhere else. And his cafe will either survive on the business of those who like quiet with their coffee, or it will fail. Which is his problem.

But let's talk about making children behave (I've pontificated about this before, I'm sure, but once again, I'm too lazy to find a link). I'm at once pleased and dismayed when I get compliments about my children's behavior at restaurants, which happens all the time. I'm pleased because I want my children to behave and I like getting compliments about them. I'm dismayed because really, they are nothing special. They sit quietly, for the most part. They eat neatly, for the most part. They draw pictures or play with toys, quietly and neatly. If they are not quiet, we hush them. If they are not neat, we clean up after them. They say please and thank you, occasionally with a parental prompt. If E falls asleep, she does it without fanfare, in my lap or on the floor.

This seems to me like the baseline, not grounds for compliments. If they are getting compliments, it means that most children are not acting like this, and, well, then I don't know why those children are in restaurants. It's just not that hard to watch over your children, help them to behave, and, if they stop behaving, TAKE THEM OUT OF THE RESTAURANT. God knows I've done it more times than I can count (taken them out of the restaurant, that is, and for the case of my argument here, restaurant=cafe).

Yesterday I went to a cafe to work. A toddler screeched for an hour. An hour. First in agony, then in glee, but the whole time it was a piercing screech. His mother followed him around the cafe, and tried not to look anybody in the eye. One screech? Fine. A few intermittent screeches? OK. But what right do you think you have to inflict your child's screeches on a cafe full of people chatting and reading and working FOR AN HOUR? Sure I can come up with the sympathic interpretation: perhaps her child has been screeching for three weeks and she just had to get out of the house. Except that it was a beautiful day and that's what playgrounds are for. And if it wasn't a beautiful day, that's what parkas and mittens are for, or children's museums, or the children's room of the library (I know, libraries are supposed to be quiet, but I'm trying to come up with a low-cost alternative).

That cafe sure could have used a sign saying "children of all ages have to behave and use their indoor voices."