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Adjust the kid to the world

In most cultures I know, a kid is born into a society that is set up a certain way and must adjust to it and respect its rules. In kid-obsessed America, in turn, the world is adjusted to the kid with all the disastrous consequences.

In respectful societies, politeness is required from everyone, no exception. Children, from the youngest ages, are taught and trained the rules of polite behavior in the society. Wherever they are, they must adjust to the customs and rules in force in that society. When, for example, a kid is taken shopping, it must respect other customers. There is no running wild, yelling, screaming, or bumping into people allowed. Any unacceptable behavior would be curbed and punished by a parent, a relative, or an older kid, and in these rare cases of parental failure, the disruptive kid would be removed by the staff, to an immense shame to the parent.

The same applies to public transportation, street, theater, cinema, philharmonics, opera, museums, and a plethora of other culture-related places. The same applies as well to cafes, restaurants, other people’s homes when visiting them, parties, gatherings, waiting rooms, and many more. All of these places have their rules that apply to both adults and kids the exact same way. When yelling is forbidden or inappropriate, it applies to adults and children alike. When sticking one’s snotty finger into a cake is a serious faux pas, neither an adult nor a kid should do it. If holding silverware wrongly is bad manners, there is no exception for kids. When a child is too young to be physically able to comply with certain rules, it should not be taken to a place where these particular rules are in force. Too young to eat politely? It should not be fed publicly. The vast majority of children in respectful societies are able to comply with all the rules of politeness at a much younger age than their American counterparts.

In kid-obsessed America, people fail to adjust the kids to the world. They adjust the world to the kids instead. The results are deplorable. They do not teach children how to behave politely in public places or in other people’s homes. They do not require polite behavior either. Instead, they adjust the places to the kid. Certain businesses are the best examples.

I was shocked when I entered a car dealership in New Jersey to see a huge playground right in the middle of the building’s large open space, with no soundproof walls, actually, with no walls at all. There were kids there making outrageous noise and their parents doing nothing about it. To make it worse, the place was situated right next to the employees’ cubicles. I was appalled to observe how disrespectful it is of a business to put up a facility that encourages disruptive behavior and to expose customers to it. However, to expose office employees who cannot leave like offended customers can, and make them work in these conditions is much more disrespectful. They have to think, focus, write, and answer phone calls in this atrocious noise environment. It is very unprofessional to neglect the customers, the employees, and adjust the business to the rude kids’ whims. The kids should be adjusted to the situation that requires respect for the customers and for the people working there. They should be required to stand still and quiet next to the parents in respect of other people, or be removed immediately.

I saw the same idea in many banks, in many locations, distant from each other, which leads me to believe that it takes place all over the country. The only difference was that the playgrounds in the banks were smaller. Regardless of the size, however, the behavior they encourage is unacceptable for a place like a bank. Both customers and employees have to focus when thinking about money transactions, listening to or giving financial advice or reading an agreement they are about to sign. It is highly disrespectful of a bank to adjust its premises to rude, disruptive kids while it should respectfully serve the customers and require the parents to adjust the kids to the world, in this case to the purposes banks exist for. It is also shocking that the customers brainwashed by the kid-obsessed culture do not protest and do not require order to be imposed.

Play areas with toys exist also in waiting rooms in doctors’ offices and emergency rooms. This is even more unacceptable than placing them in businesses like car dealerships and banks for a simple reason: sick people go there. Wherever sick people are, silence should be strictly required and enforced. It is unacceptable to encourage kids to yell and scream in medical facilities where people are in pain, and the play areas certainly encourage this kind of rude behavior because it is a given that American kids are not trained to play respectfully, i.e. quietly. More than anywhere else, the kids should be adjusted to the world they are brought to in such places. They should be taught not only basic respect but also compassion for suffering people.

The idea of playgrounds in bookstores is equally appalling, although for a different reason than the same idea in hospitals. Bookstores as well as libraries are places that by definition should cherish an intellectual atmosphere, silence, and reflection that is associated with books. They should require respect for reading and knowledge and instill this respect in the younger generations at the earliest age possible. Silence should be strictly enforced, which applies to both adults and kids. All kids should be adjusted to the rules that for generations applied to bookstores and libraries and unconditionally required all people to be quiet and respectful in the facilities. Playground type structures that encourage rude, noisy behavior should never be placed in venues associated with knowledge and reading.

Kid-obsessed Americans have this ridiculous idea that a kid should be kept entertained in public places. This is wrong because in this kid-worshiping society kids’ entertainment is always associated with making outrageous noise. Kids should be above all taught, trained, and required to respect. A respectful kid is able to stand or sit (if there are no adults standing) still and quiet in a waiting room, a bank, or a bookstore for as long as the parents require and need to do their business. There is nothing wrong in bringing a book or a quiet toy, but the emphasis should be put on proper training that teaches the kids to stay respectfully still and quiet in public places regardless of having any entertainment. Moreover, the above examples clearly show that having entertainment for kids does not lead to their respectful behavior. To the contrary, it leads to disrespect and unacceptable levels of noise in places where silence should be a rule.

It is different in Europe, where places like restaurants, gyms, and beauty salons with playgrounds exist. These, unlike the businesses in America, are geared and marketed towards people with kids, which is what distinguishes them from other restaurants, gyms, and beauty salons marketed to the general public. These businesses found their niche and cater to a certain clientele, providing additional services, i.e. babysitting in a separate room while the parents are having an adult conversation over dinner, are exercising or having their manicure or hair done. These places clearly advertise their goal and services, and it is impossible to confuse them with general ones. Catering to people with kids does not mean that kids can be rude and wild. I know a case of kids being removed from a restaurant for people with kids for acting as rudely as an average American child. They were adjusted to the world and removed for violating the rules of politeness.

People should never adjust to kids on public transportation. They should never give up their seats for a kid (unless the kid is disabled). The kids should be adjusted to the world which requires respect for adults, especially the elderly, and give up their seats for adults. Passengers should strictly request the kid to stand up or for the parent to remove it from a seat whenever there is not enough space for adults. If parents want to bring kids on public transportation, they must adjust them to the world.

Drivers should never be required to watch particularly for kids released wildly on roads just because their parents are too lazy to supervise or train them. The kids should be adjusted to the world in which roads are for vehicles, and they should either watch for cars approaching or stay within the parents’ property. Most societies in the world are set up this way and only in kid-obsessed America signs “Caution: Children at Play” exist as proof that Americans adjust the world to the kids.

The kids should be adjusted to the world and strictly be required to respect the rules. The world should not be adjusted to the kids and by no means should it be adjusted to their rudeness, disrespect, and lack of manners. Kids adjusted to the world grow up to be polite

adults as one must never forget that ill-mannered kids (the ones to whom the world was adjusted) grow up to be ill-mannered, entitled adults. Customers should not hesitate to require to impose order and remove rude kids. They should also not be shy and boycott the businesses that adjust to kids’ rudeness. They then should inform the manager or CEO why the company lost their business. There is nothing that gets the business’ attention better than loss of money other than bad publicity, which usually also results in loss of money.

American kids as the best birth control method

The cover story on childfree people in the Time magazine did what the childfree in this kid-obsessed country really needed: it triggered a lot of discussion on the subject and became an important milestone that contributes to a broad recognition of opting out of having a child as a valid choice of responsible people. Hopefully, it will mark the beginning of the end of the discrimination of the childfree. The article is somewhat shy in its attitude and a bit suppressed by the kid-obsessed culture, trying to pass a very important message without shocking the aggressive kid-worshiping crowd too much. Nonetheless, its importance should not be underestimated.

What the author did not acknowledge, whether because she is not aware of it or because she decided to assume the method of one step at a time and did not wish to be too shocking all at once, is the American kids’ extremely rude and unsanitary behavior that makes many people not to want to have a child. Other articles I read that followed in other media did not mention this reason either.

Childfree Americans, when asked by the media face to face about the reason for which they chose not to have a child, usually make shy comments like “no, don’t get me wrong, we don’t hate kids, we just don’t want any”, “I love kids, I just don’t want any of my own”, or “I like my life the way it is, no need to change it”. In many cases, of course, this is true and some people may indeed not have other reasons for being childfree. However, a quick glance at childfree forums is enough to notice that many people choose not to have children because the children’s rudeness and lack of hygiene they are exposed to in public places or in private homes is repulsive to them. They were harassed by the kid-worshiping, aggressive people into silence about it, but their true thoughts can be found thanks to the safety of anonymous online discussion forums.

Let’s face the facts: American kids are extremely rude, talk back to adults, do not respect the elderly, scream, yell and run wild in all sorts of public places, have no basic table manners, eat with open mouths, make a mess on and under the table, throw food around, keep their hands in their mouths and noses and touch objects and people subsequently, slobber all over everything, do not cover their coughs and sneezes, and the list could go on and on. Moreover, parents behave in a very unacceptable and unsanitary way by changing diapers around food, for example, on tables or in grocery shopping carts. This behavior is not normal and does not happen in respectful cultures but young Americans who do not travel or do not have immigrant friends cannot know it. This is what they are exposed to and this is what they think is standard behavior of a child. No wonder they find it discouraging.

Let’s look at it closer.

Public places in America are full of very rude, disrespectful kids. The level of their disruption is tremendous and unheard of in many other cultures I have lived in or traveled to. The worse of all is their ear-piercing screaming for no reason, as if someone was slicing them alive and also their running wild with absolutely no regard for other people. No, I am not talking about playgrounds. This happens in offices, restaurants, movie theaters, stations, airports, on airplanes, trains and buses, in stores, supermarkets and shopping malls. Even bookstores and libraries do not escape from this pattern. To make things worse, this behavior typically is not followed by any reaction of correction or discipline from the parents, businesses, or other members of the society. The atmosphere of kids’ impunity prevails, and they do not learn how to behave respectfully. This is not normal children’s behavior. Although in kid-obsessed America it is the standard, this behavior is not inherent to a child. It is the result of a parental failure.

All this behavior is easy to eradicate with the minimum of consistent teaching and training. However, I am not surprised that so many people got convinced that rudeness is in kids’ nature. If they do not know other cultures, and 99% of the kids they are exposed to are so rude, what other conclusion can they draw from the experience? No wonder they do not want someone screaming, talking back, and bouncing off the walls in their household.

Countless times I have seen kids making a total mess in restaurants. No, I do not mean babies, I mean older kids that should have been taught table manners long before. In kid-obsessed America, food scattered all over the table and under the table is nothing unusual. Parents fail to curb this behavior in respect of other customers. The stories of wait staff on childfree forums are appalling. These parents are also not any better in their homes or as guests in other people’s homes. Although this part I know only from other people’s stories; I am outraged by what parents and relatives allow kids to do: Throwing food around, at the walls and on the carpet, sneezing into a cake, taking a bite and putting that cookie back for other guests and spitting up food on the plate are only a few examples of horror stories from parties in American homes. I was appalled to read a story of an American mother who not only lets her kid throw noodles all around, including on the carpet, but does not even clean it immediately. She waits a day until they dry out and vacuums them. No wonder cockroaches are a plague in this country.

All the above is absolutely not normal childhood behavior. It is a failure to teach the kids basic respect and a total lack of respect for the guests. Children can be taught manners and in respectful cultures they get polite behavior instilled in them from a very young age. Moreover, every misbehavior is consequently curtailed by adults or older kids in the same second when it starts. However, how can young Americans know that if all they are exposed to is extreme lack of manners and no discipline? No wonder contact with children is the best birth control method to them: Who would want this kind of mess at home?

American kids are very disobedient, thus, managing them is much more difficult and time consuming then managing a higher number of children in the cultures in which they are taught obedience. I have never seen anyone in the cultures I know taking so much time packing their children to go out. I was never exposed to “tantrums” or “meltdowns” because they did not exist. Also, I have never seen parents begging their kids to comply with adults’ requests. Most parents I know manage their kids by giving simple commands and orders that the kids obey immediately. They get dressed, eat, and get packed into a car or into a stroller in no time. In kid-obsessed America, it takes forever because the kids disobey, throw tantrums, have meltdowns, or mess up their clothes on the way out and have to be changed. They are allowed to fuss about what to wear, what toys to take (and end up taking a truckload of them), run wild and yell, which makes getting ready a never ending story. As this is what Americans are exposed to, whether in person by being a guest, or in their friends’, coworkers, or relatives’ stories, they should not be blamed that they do not want kids. Who would want all this? They simply do not know that kids can be obedient and easily managed.

American childfree people often write online the following imperative statements: kids are messy, kids are rude, kids are disgusting, kids are noisy, and hundreds of other descriptive adjectives. This is what Americans see in their day-to-day life. It does work as the best birth control method. If this is all they see, not knowing that this behavior is abnormal and with the minimum of consequent (with an accent on “consequent”) effort every rudeness attempt can be eradicated, they will be abstaining from procreation in even larger numbers in the future.

Parents should not be surprised that seeing the disastrous results of their inordinate kid-worshiping incarnated in their disrespectful, entitled, and self-centered child, people opt out of parenthood. Instead of pointing their blaming fingers at the childfree, they should reconsider their own behavior, correct their failures, and show the younger generation entering their reproductive age that a child can be taught respect, politeness, and cleanliness.