pp here - sorry, I meant "their adult time" |
+1 |
Agree with the OP that our American culture isn't welcoming to kids. Adults want to segregate themselves out. Someone on this board recommended the book 'Hold On To Your Kids' and I've mentioned it before. It talks about this problem quite a bit and why (like a PP mentioned) by the time out kids are teens, they're in the basement raiding the liquor cabinet.
Definitely worth a read if you're interested in this topic! |
Just because you invited the whole village doesn't mean others want to. Also, many prople don't have $80,000 to drop on a wedding - if there's a cap, whether fiscal or space, every kid that is invited is an adult - a close friend, a relative, whatever - who isn't. Does that clear it up? |
I have a kid, and while I like her, and some/most of her friends, I don't, overall LIKE kids. After my daughter spent a week with her godmothers, I took her out to a nice Italian restaurant (nicer than Olive Garden) Wednesday as a welcome home. She's 9.
We sat, we ate, we talked, she showed me pictures of stuff she did and saw on her trip via her iPod Touch, we had a great time. Except that often we had to stop talking to wait for the kids at the next table to stop screaming/whining "Daaaaddy! Daddy I want chocolate! I want chocolate! DAAADDY!" When my girl was young, if she started getting loud or screechy or whiney or in any way annoying others I took her outside to pull herself together. I am a single mom and would just alert a waitress or hostess or whoever that we were stepping outside. Now, if she's getting upset or bratty I tell her to go out and she can come back when she's changed her attitude or pulled her shit together. When she was throwing a fit at home over having to get dressed up about a wedding I finally told her I could RSVP that she won't be able to attend and I'll leave her home with a babysitter rather than have her negativity affecting the wedding, which isn't about her. If on a flight she kicked the seat in front of her, once would be okay, followed by an apology. If she did it a second time and it wasn't an accident, I'd make her stand for the whole flight. I don't tolerate bad behavior, and am irritated by my fellow parents who do. |
You've just described every Italian Restaurant on the planet. |
Then don't go to Wal-mart. I've had the unfortunate experience to be so desparate enough to HAVE to go to a walmart at 11PM when nothing else was open and the amount of cranky, everly exhausted children that parents had dragged in there was pitiful. |
What? I don't care if a kid is at Walmart at any hour. I'm not there for an adult experience. Some cultures think you should take your small kids out to restaurants very late in the evening and just let them tizzy themselves to exhaustion. I don't care to be there for the tizzy. |
If they are at wal-mart at 11, they were probably at Ruth Chris at 8. |
I am fine with kids. It's the dipshit parents I take issue with. |
They don't interrupt becuase they have learned not to. They learned though practice. Really you have a teen that does not know how to have a conversation and when not to interrupt. Sad. |
Each wedding for my H family is different. Sometime there are kids and sometimes there aren't and I don't care either way. I know weddings are expensive. We did not have a wedding.
But.. at family gatherings kids are always there and very involved. Everybody contributes in some way. Nobody is banished to the basement.
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OP is sure quiet about what culture she is from....
That being said America isn't unfriendly to kids. It's probably behind Mexico and India, but way ahead of Europe and Japan. |
I don't understand the "it's a family gathering so kids must be there too because they are family." The key is for kids to spend a lot of good time with their family members. What's the point of a rule that the always have to be there? Do the adults disperse when the kids go to sleep just to avoid a super secret no-kid meeting that would somehow hard the children? |
I think this proves the OP's point. Some of the attitudes on here are pretty sad.
That said, it's not just America. Was in Germany last year and they seem even less tolerant of kids than Americans. Italy was totally different and one of the many reasons it's such a nice place to visit. |