What’s the matter with kids today and why doesn’t anyone want them around? In June, Malaysia Airlines banned babies from many of their first class cabins, prompting other major airlines to consider similar policies.
Lately, complaints about screaming kids are being taken seriously, not only by airlines, but by hotels, movie theaters, restaurants, and even grocery stores.
And…
“Brat bans could well be the next frontier in destination and leisure-product marketing,” writes Robert Klara in an article on the child-free trend in AdWeek.
Klara points to Leavethembehind.com, a travel website for kid-free vacations, with a massive list of yoga retreats, luxury resorts and bargain hotels around the world that ban children.
“Call me a grinch, a misanthrope, a DINK (dual-income-no-kids), or the anti-cute-police, but I hate (hate a thousand times over) ill-behaved children/infants/screaming banshees in upscale restaurants (ok, anywhere, really, but I don’t want any death threats),” writes Charlotte Savino on Travel and Leisure’s blog. She lists a slew of a popular destination restaurants with kid-free areas and policies for travelers looking for quiet vacation dining.
Well apart from not exactly finding kids “cute”* (I have a cat who is cute for a certain value of cute - meaning cute if you ignore his persecution of small birds or his gorging on Felix and then puking in the airing cupboard) anyone who has endured nine hours on an airliner without a fag but some screaming brat in the next row (they have overhead baggage lockers for a reason) knows it is something that would not even be allowed in Gitmo.
But read the comments…
Posted by Krystal K Tue Jul 26, 2011 2:12pm PDT
First cigarettes (which I agree with), now children… wow!
…
Posted by N G Tue Jul 26, 2011 2:16pm PDT
Ok, I can see banning them from certain places, like nice restaurants and Harry Potter showings (not really child appropriate anyways) but this is a little excessive.
[Harry Potter not for kids - I weep]
…
Posted by Stef J. Tue Jul 26, 2011 2:20pm PDT
This is starting to go too far. It is turning into age discrimination.
[bet you didn't say that about smokers did you? - until they came for you! Anyhow, babies (like telephones) are anti-social almost by definition. You can't stop a rug-rat from causing chaos - it is what they do - but an adult - well, that's different because unlike babies they are responsible moral agents and not mere forces of nature.]
Most of the rest of the comments acknowledge the problem but it’s the first I return to. What gets me is the inability to see the fundamental difference between a business or individual deciding a policy on it’s own turf and a government doing it for everyone whether they like it or not. This is really concerning. Too many people do not get that distinction. But it is fundamental. It is the touchstone of freedom.
What really gets me is the naivete of people thinking bansturbation ever stops at just what you want banned. You invite a vampire into your house and all that (you have seen “The Lost Boys”?)… And I guess the idea is also that corporate power = state power. The later concept is forgiveable given the cosiness of many big companies and government. I mean do I have any choice in a wire but BT? No.
H/T Dick Puddlecote.
*They can be construed as “cute” until they shit themselves with an accompanying Dame Judith most vile and then scream blue fucking murder. And you still get fucking “Baby on board stickers” on cars. Arseholes - utter wankers (if only, or if only they’d taken the Jean-Bertrand path). People who have the even viler “Little Princess on Board” sticker have of course made their own cross to bear (a neat case of the punishment not only matching the crime but being the crime itself). I will guarantee** that their daughter will be a crack whore with a bun in the oven by fourteen.
**Not actually a guarantee.
I don’t really cleave to the er “standard libertarian” perspective of seeing these things in terms of property rights. Yes, propertarianism means you get to be Al Murray “my gaffe, my rules” and all that but I think in the end, living in a free society means having a liberal, or relaxed, or whatever, attitude. If everyone’s intolerant- to kids or smoking or fat people or whatever, your society will be miserable and proscribed, whether that is by the State or a legion of Al Murrays as property owners, or by said property owners having to pander to the legion of intolerant people who they rely on as customers.
Kids run about and make noise. Get over it, people. Have some places where kids don’t go, like pubs or clubs for adults or even entire holiday resorts that are kid free zones if you must. But I think somebody who really gets this pissed off by other peoples’ children has a problem, I really do. Bansturbation seems to be driven by people who are obsessive compulsives, and bottom line is maybe they really need to wonder if they are, y’know, entirely sane.
I can’t speak for anyone else but my big problem is less with the kids themselves doing what kids do, but with the parents who look proudly on as their little darlings wreck everyone else’s day. That, and the things they call you if you mention politely that perhaps they might attempt some small modicum of control over their charges.
Now I realise that since the state took away the parent’s right to smack the little bastards round the ear* in order to instil some sort of discipline in the noxious tykes, parental control is a bit difficult, but even a sigh accompanied by a “What can I do” expression when making some feeble attempt at restraint would at least mollify.
*And if you were to attempt to discipline the out of control monsters, it would be an instant case of “mind your fingers” as the cell door slammed behind you.
If only there were more child-free pubs. Over the past twenty or so years, pubs have got far more “child-friendly” but also, in general, far less busy, and far less numerous.
The lack of child-free pubs is largely a result of State “nudging”, as we well know, not least by trying to turn them all into “family restaurants”. Which is part of the Prohibitionist agenda, and so on and so on…
Just more examples of ten a penny, authoritarian
Guardianistaspost-human fuckwits who hate people. They emerge fully formed when a cow takes a dump and the sun hatches it.Serendipity.
Tim Worstall
Hmm, Tim’s site seems to be down again. It seems to go down more often than a Whitehouse intern. It’s not a very good advert for his webhosts.
NickM, I agree with you, anyway. It is, of course, the parents who are to blame and it is they who should be inconvenienced. Try going to Pizzahut for quiet early evening meal. It’s impossible because they are invariably full of screaming parties of kids. And parent who couldn’t care less about the misery their offspring are causing.
“What’s the matter with kids today and why doesn’t anyone want them around? In June, Malaysia Airlines banned babies from many of their first class cabins, prompting other major airlines to consider similar policies.”
If they’re looking to increase their market share they’d be better advised to create smoking sections in the rear of their aircraft (as all airlines did when flying was a civilised way to travel, rather than the grim and unpleasant experience it has now become). It’s guaranteed they’d have a 100% take-up for those seats on every major route they fly.
(BTW, whatever happened to that German chap some years ago who was going to start an all smoking airline to the far east? The last I read was he was on the brink of getting it off the ground, and then - nothing.)