Welcome to round three of the Parenting Roundabout podcast for the week of May eighth.
I'm Terry Morrow, and I'm here with Nicole Ritics Hello, and Catherine
Heleco. Hello. We're moms of teens and young adults, and when it
comes to parenting, we've been there, done that, bought the T shirt.
But we're still waiting for that day when we'll reach the finish line and
have no further need to lay down in a dark room with a wet rag
over our eyes worrying about something or other. Wednesdays Complaint Day here on Parenting
Roundabout, and today we are complaining about people complaining about and hating on kids
and by extension, their parents. So, Nicole, you found this article
on Sarcastic Mommy about an increased dislike of children in our society. Yes,
shockingly enough, it's increasing. Hasn't been around for a while, right,
I mean, maybe it's the first time this site wrote that article. But
I was going out to restaurant with my kids when they were little. I
didn't feel the warm embrace of my fellow patrons, right, especially as my
son was standing up on the seat looking over at people. See if a
kid does that I turn around and I say hi there, and then I
scare them and they sit down and cry. But still, right, I
don't know. I don't hate on kids. Well, apparently, according to
people who do not like kids, their reasons are children aren't noisy, they
ask too many questions, They're not intelligent and therefore boring. Wow, they
force you to entertain them, and they need constant monitoring. Okay, Now
my first soul is do any of these adults or their friends ever drink?
Do they drink in excess? Because when they do, they are all of
those things and they are adults, which is the worse. If you're out
of the bars of a Friday night, I don't want to hear about how
hard children are to deal with. Right, you're worse anyway. Yeah,
well yeah, you know, dogs will peel on your carpet, and yet
we still love dogs. Okay. So somebody wondered if maybe it's because people
or I mean, they're suggesting that this is a new sentiment. And to
be honest, I haven't seen an article like this before, the one that
just kind of so blatantly says, yeah, our kids discikable. But or
is there an increased as slike of children. But they are also referring to
the pandemic, saying that people spend a lot of time in their own very
controlled environment and they got used to that, and so now their tolerance level
is much lower when they go out into public and there's children around. I'm
not sure. I wonder if it's it's not just children. I mean,
it's like your tolerance for basically everyone, and everybody has, you know,
because you hear about the way people treat each other, you know, like
on in public spaces. It doesn't have to be a kid, but you
know, people are are very intolerant, it seems of other people's presence in
the world so well. To be honest, it's adults that make it horrific
most of the time. Yeah, not kids. Yeah, but I don't
know what are your thoughts. I mean there I think like it used to
be, oh, kids should be seen but not heard, right, But
there was still like a acknowledgment that like kids are a thing that we all
that we all experience, you know, like we need children in order to
you know, have society. So you know, maybe people didn't bring kids
to like a fancy restaurant or whatever, but they were accepted in other places,
and maybe that's changing. I don't I don't know, right, Yeah,
I remember being very annoyed when my son was little because I wanted to
take him. He loved, loved, and this was when he was like
three. He loved the Broadway Lion King like he listened to the soundtrack every
single night. He looked at the like photo program. You know, it
wasn't there was basically not it wasn't a storybook, it was pictures. He
wanted to look at that all the time. And I wanted to take him.
He had seen it, you know, obviously once at a theater near
us, and I going to take him to see it again somewhere else.
And they would not sell tickets to a kid under four or five or whatever.
There was an age limit, and I was like, excuse me,
like I'm paying for this, Like yes, you will not take my money.
Like I can judge whether he can do it or not. He's the
Lion King, I know. At death of a salesman, I was very
very mad happened, Like come on, I want to save you. Some
savvy theater person should have set up a showing of that either, just for
families or you know, welcoming of families, right, and you don't go
to that theater if you don't want to have kids around you, right,
Because I'm sure he's not the only kid who would have loved to have seen
that again and again and again, and somebody should have wanted to take your
money again and again and again. Exactly. Yeah, I'm surprised that nobody,
nobody picked up on that audience and exploited them ruthlessly. No, I
mean, and I didn't. I didn't test it out. I didn't like
just say, like, just buy the tickets anyway and be like, yeah,
try to try to stop me. Yeah. So I don't know what
would have happened if I had. But anyway, that's just an example of
like, yeah, sort of short sightedness around, yes, being tolerant of
kids. Yes, so yeah, I mean adults, I guess feel like
they need their spaces and they don't like them to be violated. But get
over yourself. I don't know, right, I mean, parents have to
be smart about where they bring their kids. But at the same time,
I don't know how real this is maybe a little bit, but it's also
I have to have an article for my blog. Hey, tell me all
the things you don't like about kids. Yeah, and I think it started
with like reddity, I got to take it. Yeah, but you know,
I do hear and see things like this. But then I go on
social media, and you know, of course it's just who I choose to
follow and everything. But I see so many things with celebrities showing pictures of
their kids and their pregnancies and all of this stuff, and thousands of people
saying, oh, your kid is so cute, all this is so wonderful,
out children are so great or what you know. It's like, I
mean, maybe they wouldn't really want to be in a restaurant with them,
but still there seems to be a general positivity about kids, at least in
the accounts I'm looking at. Similarly to you know, everybody loves dogs.
You wouldn't necessarily want a dog sitting next to you in the theater, but
that doesn't mean we hate dogs. I don't know. Everybody just needs to
calm down, I think, But it is usually it is when you have
I mean, I always had a kid who was I mean, he could
not have sat still in the theater. He was the person they were keeping
your kid out because of right, but you knew that and you didn't bring
him there. You know, sometimes, you know, you want to go
to a restaurant, or you want to go to a movie, or you
want to be in a public place, you want to go to the mall,
and your kid acts up and people look at you like, how dare
you? You know? Sex this space here in a quarter of a toy
store? Right, what is wrong with you? So you know, it
will be nice if everybody could just be tolerant of everybody else. But you
know, yeah, but I didn't come to you know, Chase Snob for
dinner and right expect that, you know, people would even expense a bottle
of champagne at the next table. We're having to listen to my kid scream.
But well, and that's a good point, the fact that you were
aware of that and worked around it, or at least tried to mitigate some
of the issues that would arise when you took your son out in public.
Right, Yeah, I feel like they're you know, the people that there
are people that are unaware of that, and that can create a lot of
negative feelings. Like I don't know if you heard of that story recently of
the mom on the plane with the two kids. Yeah, killcorn or something.
Yeah, And there is a big hullabaloo about her being asked to pick
up her kids popcorn and she was offended, highly offended, or her husband
was offended or something along those lines. But I mean I could see you.
I think in that case, I'd be more mad at the like the
for letting that, you know, for not being aware of that. But
if it was a grown up who spilled popcorn, no flight attendant would be
like, you need to pick that up, you know. Yeah. True,
we all make a certain amount of mess. I mean, I mean
the kids were throwing popcorn and people in other aisles, I would say that
would be a thing. Well, you had to see the picture. It
was pretty messy. I guess it was pretty bad. How much did she
pay for the plane tickets? It's like, yes, you have to be
sensitive what your kids are doing. And I mean if they were tearing the
upholstery, I would say, yeah, if they were poking the people in
front of them with a stick, if they made some food detritus, and
if eating the popcorn helped them sit still and be quiet, just aren't they
going to vacuum the plane anyway, right, No, they don't really do
that between plane. Well they should, and it's like, yeah, I
won't take my kid into a big fancy restaurant or into a theater or something
like that. But don't shoot me dirty looks at McDonald's. Don't shoot me
dirty looks at Applebee's. You know what It's like, there's got to be
a safe spaces and that's a place where the different things merge and you can't
just say no, you may sit at home and I better not see that
kid on a zoom call. We share the planet, y'all, come on.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I mean a plane is one of
those places where, yeah, you kind of have to be more mindful of
your personal space. Yeah, I mean if the popcorn was within their personal
space and if it's just on the floor, no, it was everywhere around
them. It was like in other aisles, in front of other passengers.
I don't know how far, but that I mean, I would say if
it was I'm a terrible, permissive, horrible person, but I would think
if it was within their bank of seats, just let it go. If
they're no, I think that's that the stewardest or whoever is someone They don't
clean the plane at all in between people. Not really, I mean they
wipe some seats down, I think not even I mean no, there's non
popcorn stuff that could get on the floor. I'm just saying, I don't
know. I think that for the the I don't know. Airline travel is
a lot to or know that it used to be. But it still costs
a pretty penny, I believe, and you don't get to be I don't
know some passengers just because their families. But I guess the point is that,
like, that's not the child's problem, that's the parents problem. Okay,
So the drunk businessman who spills alcohol on the floor and who uh you
know, puts candy wrappers or drops his napkin from his dinner or whatever,
who makes a mess. Do they make him get on his hands and knees
and vacuum up the stuff. I don't think they do. No, he
would get kicked off. I don't know. I just think I didn't see
the picture of the popcorn. Maybe it was egregious. I just feel like
people may sometimes have expectations of families the families cannot reasonably meet. And I
am tending to be sympathetic and having a kid on a plane flight, especially
a kid, but what prevents the ad kids on a plane flight was difficult?
To what having my son on a plane flight was difficult? Yeah?
He would? Really what prevents the adult from like thousand times preventing that?
Like not preventing it? But I mean, didn't you tidy up a little
bit after you left a space that was decimated by a light? Was?
And how exhausted I was? Probably? I think I would have maybe had
an expectation that they cleaned the plane in between flights. And if they don't,
why not? It can't vacuum. We are off the topic here.
This is why people dislike children. It's because of mothers like me. That's
fine. I'm still a little woozy from that. And you know, I
mentioned that they cut that well, suffice to say that it's not all the
children's faults. They're being dislikable quote unquote dislikable. I think parents people adults
play a role in that as well, So you know how I feel a
bit any parents though too. Well, let's just shut this conversation down before
Yes, this is why people don't like me. That will becomes an increased
dislike of Terry amongst the podcast listeners. Always a joy Chat GPT, aren't
you Terry Lost? Is gonna move all here? Meet our new artificial intelligence.
Yes, and we're gonna be able to input exactly what we want you
to say as right, so it's in our favor. Tune intomorrow when we'll
obsess about chat GPT, and then on Friday to see what we've come up
with for our Roundabout round up picks this week. Find all our episodes at
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