Who's To Blame

There are restaurants around the Pittsburgh area that are banning kids from being in their establishments. That has brought an uproar from angry parents while also bringing a sigh of relief to many other people.

There was a poll on the local TV station asking if people were for or against that. I was very surprised that the majority of the respondents were for it. I just never expected that.

I love children. The openness in their eyes, the inquisitiveness they have. Their willingness to adventure and learn. Their ability to make me smile. The way they have of reminding me of things I've forgotten. The youthfulness they make me feel in my tired old bones as I watch them play.

I love teaching kids things. Things that help them understand the beauty of the world around us all. How to plant and grow beautiful flowers and plants for enjoying as food. Appreciation and respect of nature. Appreciation and respect of other people and their opinions and ways.

I don't like making them feel bad when they need corrected, but it is something that needs done... There in lies the problem that the restaurants are confronted with.

I can smile when a child wonders over and peeks to see what I am eating, or even says hello. But children that treat the dining area like a playground while running and screaming, not so much. Then when the children don't want to accept what they're served and start screaming and whining, that makes my meal seem undesirable and tasteless.

As a child I myself was not always so well behaved. (Believe it or not...) I even remember once that my dad grabbed me and drug me to the restroom and gave me a piece of his mind. Yes, he even gave my backside a sound smack. I didn't like it at the time, but it was called discipline and he was not afraid to get my attention and teach it.

They had asked nicely for me to behave and act like a nice young gentleman. The warnings with words were given. The look that only a mother can give that usually put the fear of God in a young childs heart was given. When all that failed and I continued to act like a wild animal, it was time for some wild animal training.

I lived and I learned. Learned that unacceptable actions would bring unacceptable consequences. Learned that when asked nicely that I should change the way I was acting.

But today there are to many parents who refuse to discipline and control the little beast within their children. They refuse to give them a good sound spank and warning... Well that's fine for them. But then they also refuse to take their untrained children and leave. That makes everyone else's pleasant meal and conversation a miserable experience.

So after receiving countless complaints from dissatisfied unhappy customers, the restaurants have taken a stand. It's sad that they took the stand they did but what else could they have done? Their customers were unhappy. Their staff had to do clean up after the unruly children made their messes and couldn't spend their time waiting on customers. The restaurants had to foot the bill for the things that were broke.

It's not each and every child that brought about this unfortunate result, it's the parents who refused to do anything about their untaught children. The same parents that are now crying the loudest, that they are given no consideration and respect by the restaurants and society. Yet they didn't respect the patrons of, or the restaurants when they let their children run wild.

These are the people that deserve the blame, not the restaurants!

A wild animal who causes society fear and unrest is trapped and caged, sometimes put in zoos, sometimes even killed, if it didn't learn from it's mother to respect humans and live within it's bounds or if it didn't learn from experience how to behave. But human children who don't learn are caught and caged too, they get locked behind bars of a prison, some even sentenced to death.

Those children are your future, those children are your legacy. Care about them, teach them well. They are your most important job in life and your biggest responsibility. The future of the world depends on what you teach or don't teach...

It makes me sad though for the caring responsible parents and their families. But what else could be done short of scarlet letters put on uncaring families? It's wrong that good families have to suffer for the uncaring thoughtlessness of the others. They who teach their children to be good members of society can now not dine and enjoy the social atmosphere of nice restaurants.

There is a part of me that would rather see the decent caring people take time away from their meals and all help escort the uncaring from the premisses. But I suppose that would be similar to the witch hunts...

This is a perplexing problem that today is keeping a smile from my face...

I enjoy children and will miss the smiling, inquisitive, yet well behaved faces at the restaurants. I'll miss seeing them interact with society and grow. I may find myself start eating even more at Mc Donald's, Burger King and the likes just to see them.

Yes, it's a sad thing to me, how about you? Do you have any good ideas of how this could have been dealt with in a better way?

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