It's disrespectful to inflict child's bad behavior on others

It is a sign of these postmodern times that a simple, straightforward bit of seemingly innocuous news can turn quickly into a controversy. Said dust-up began when The Charlotte (NC) Observer reported that the one of the first organic grocery stores in town, a relatively small establishment that could no longer compete with the big greens, was closing. Too bad.

Several days later, the paper published a letter to the editor from a woman who said the reason she stopped giving her business to said store had nothing to do with prices. She complained that children were being allowed to run amok through the aisles while pushing child-size "future shopper in training" carts that have become standard equipment in grocery stores. According to her, it seemed that neither management nor the parents of these children were inclined to put a stop to this unruliness, so she took her business to more civilized places.

Yet another letter followed, this from a fellow suggesting that perhaps the writer of the first letter should be more tolerant of children. Perhaps unwittingly, he seemed to be confirming the woman's complaint: children had been allowed to turn a place of business into a playground, thus disturbing the peace of certain other shoppers. In any case, he was saying "So what?"

I am not in a position to discover whether or not the woman had grounds for her complaint. More often than not the future shoppers I've encountered in the grocery stores in which I shop have been under the supervision of their parents.

But the gentleman who wrote letter No. 2 effectively changed the issue from whether or not a considerable number of future shoppers were out of control in said store to whether or not the woman who wrote letter No. 1 is sufficiently tolerant of children. I think he missed the point. The woman demonstrated no animosity toward children. She was complaining about adults who were not accepting proper responsibility.

I have been in stores, restaurants and other public situations where adults seemed oblivious to the fact that small children were creating disturbances. In those situations, I am not annoyed at the children. After all, young children are inclined to boisterousness. Furthermore, they don't know when they are being a public nuisance. It is the responsibility of their parents to keep them under control in public places. When parents do not properly assume that responsibility, I am more than just slightly annoyed at them, not their children. To use the above fellow's terminology, I am decidedly intolerant of parents who allow their children to disturb the general peace. There's no excuse for it.

But this is really about respect, not tolerance. In that regard, I propose what has apparently become a somewhat radical notion: It is disrespectful, in any context, to inflict one's under-disciplined child on other people. It does not matter whether the inflicting takes place in a home, store, restaurant, airport, airplane, library, theater, gallery, park, or parking lot, it is disrespectful. As such, it is self-centered.

The message behind it is "My children have more rights than you, and if you do not recognize this, then you are the problem."
In the final analysis, it all boils down to this rather old-fashioned idea: Love thy neighbor by controlling your children in public places, and if they refuse to be controlled, remove them.

E-mail John Rosemond at
www.rosemond.com.