Posted on 09/02/2011 10:32:22 AM PDT by Kaslin
Older people almost always seem to think they had it tougher than “kids today” do. So some older folks are striking back against the privileges enjoyed by today’s young people. And this doesn’t bode well for the future of society.
Consider a recent story out of Pennsylvania. “The owner of a small restaurant outside Pittsburgh is banning children under the age of six, saying they regularly disrupted other customers’ meals,” the Wall Street Journal reported recently. “I’ve decided someone in our society had to dig their heels in on this issue,” the owner (a former teacher, luckily not of grammar) told reporters.
Well, it’s his restaurant, and if he wants to turn families away, that’s his choice. And he doesn’t seem to be facing a lot of pushback. The Journal reports that receipts at the restaurant are up, and notes: “A poll on the website of a Pittsburgh TV news channel found 64 percent supported the under-six ban, compared with 26 percent who said it was a bad idea. About 10 percent said they didn’t care. More than 10,000 people voted.”
Meanwhile, CNN columnist LZ Granderson opines that this restaurant is on the right track. “I don't know about you but I would gladly support an airline or restaurant that didn't make someone else's yelling, screaming, kicking offspring my problem,” he writes. “If you're the kind of parent who allows your 5-year-old to run rampant in public places like restaurants, I have what could be some rather disturbing news for you. I do not love your child. The rest of the country does not love your child either.”
Maybe I’m eating at the wrong restaurants. I’ve had more flights and meals disrupted by unruly (drunk) adults than by uncontrolled children. Still, it seems obvious that many Americans have no patience for the idea that “children will be children” and are instead embracing the wisdom of the Middle Ages: “children should be seen and not heard.”
Ah, but they will be heard from eventually, and we may not enjoy hearing what they’ll have to say. As journalist Michael Barone noted recently, Americans will soon depend on today’s youngsters to pay for the country’s lavish retirement promises.
“[U]nder Social Security, as with most public pension systems, current pensions are paid for by current workers. As lifespans increase and birth rates fall, the ratio of pensioners to active workers falls toward one-to-one,” Barone warns.
“That’s not enough to support the elderly in anything like the style to which they have been accustomed, unless tax rates are sharply increased. And sharply higher tax rates, as Western Europe has shown over the last three decades, reduce long-term economic growth. That’s the problem, often abbreviated as ‘entitlements,’ facing our political system.”
Still, many of today’s political leaders oppose slowing the size and scope of federal entitlement spending. In May, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told the Washington Post she would fight to ensure “no benefits cuts” in Medicare. “It is a flag we’ve planted that we will protect and defend. We have a plan. It’s called Medicare.”
As for Social Security, “Two decades from now, I’m willing to take a look at it,” Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid told MSNBC in March. “But I’m not willing to take a look at it right now.” Earlier in the year he declared that changes to the program were “off the table.”
Keep in mind that, because parents are having fewer children, each of those youngsters is on the hook for a steadily-growing share of the federal budget deficit. “Our social insurance programs have slowly created a massive and immoral shift of wealth and obligation from today's middle class to future generations,” Stuart Butler of The Heritage Foundation warned in 2007. “Medicare alone now has a $32 trillion unfunded obligation -- a tab that is being passed to our children and grandchildren. Medicare and Social Security together now constitute an unsecured ‘mortgage’ of $170,000 placed in the crib of every newborn American.” The tab Butler cites has only increased in the last four years.
When the time comes to pay that “mortgage” off, however, some of today’s youngsters might decide to change the laws instead. “If, for instance, Congress were to adjust the formula by which Social Security cost-of-living increases were calculated or change the age of eligibility, future federal liabilities would shrink by trillions of dollars instantly,” John Steele Gordon noted recently in the Wall Street Journal.
The lesson? We can either put our own fiscal house in order by reducing the amount we’re promising in entitlement benefits to future retirees. Or we’d better be nice to today’s children, since we’re counting on them to be nice to us when they’re running the country in the decades ahead.
I AM nice to my own children. little hooligans running around a restaurant are not MY children.
what a maroon.
I don’t follow your reasoning. The issue isn’t the presence of children as such, it’s the presence of out of control children, whom we presumeably are not allowed to discipline. Due to today’s political correctness, you are not allowed to touch another person’s child, so only the parents are allowed to discipline a child in a public place. If parents don’t do the job, the rest of us have to endure an obvious lack of discipline. We do treat children as fellow human beings, while also believing that children should not be allowed to run around out of control.
It sounds like you think that if children are disciplined, they will carry that grudge to adulthood. I just don’t follow that reasoning.
I’m not sure about age discrimination as such. Bars can and do ban people under 21 because alcohol is served. So there are limits under which you can discriminate based on age in that manner.
He probably isn't. He may be going "nice" restaurants that also host bachelor/bachelorette parties, post-golf tournament dinners, business convention dinners and other events that the well-heeled and overserved like to celebrate on school nights.
I'd also point out that the most distracting children in restaurants are generally groups of teenagers. High school football team brunches are always good for lots of cursing and thrown objects.
I am with the restaurant manager. What he says is correct.
the reason is that kids are not raised the way they were 50-60 years ago. there is a picture of a black woman sitting in a chair with her three kids at a welfare office from the late 1950s/early 1960s and the kids are just sitting there and standing there. When I was young and growing up I got yelled at and shrugged and tugged on to behave and sit still in public places. Todays’ parents beg and try to coerce their children to ‘please stop’ and ‘please don’t do that’ and ‘ooh play with this’ and appease the kid hoping the kid will do what they want.
I totally understand where the restaurant manager is coming from. If parents knew how to raise kids properly like our grandparents and for the older gen-xers, our parents, did, and weren’t trying to be friends and coax good behavior out of the kids instead of a little well-placed corporal punishment - instead of the kid running the family - I’d say the manager was over-reaching. But he is so not over-reaching at all.
It doesn't make a lot of sense but it makes the author feel smart and important.
So if you criticize her I'm going to lump you in with people who kill reporters. -sarc
They are banning kids because of their associated behavior problems. Things they actually do.
It is far better than having to wait until the kids go nuts, and then asking the whole family to leave because they can’t control their kid, and they’ve already messed up everyone else’s dining experience.
Restaurants refuse service to unruly customers, customers who can’t behave, have kids who can’t behave and won’t stop misbehaving. Heck they even refuse to serve people who don’t follow their dress codes, or have no shoes or shirts. They have the ability by law to do this.
HUH?????
Restaurants are public accomodations and they cannot discriminate on the basis of age.
I don't know where you live, but that is just not true. Many establishments do not permit anyone under 21.
While it may be a place of public accommodation, it is still private property and the proprietor retains the right to refuse service to anyone.
What I find hilarious (other than the fact that many of the applauders of this child ban labor under the delusion that they are also Christians), is that many of those complaining about the presence of children are the same people who whine about not being able to blow smoke on other people while they're eating.
I don't complain about children, but respect the right of the owner to choose his or her clientele based upon his/her preferences for the clientele. Something you people who whine about those owners who prefer to permit smoking within their establishments do not respect, while supposedly claiming to be Christian.
So banning all children, well-behaved or not, is "reasonable"?
It sounds like you think that if children are disciplined, they will carry that grudge to adulthood.
We're not talking about discipline, we're talking about contempt.
If you tell a child that he needs to behave or he can't stay, that's discipline.
If you tell a child he is not welcome under any circumstances, that's contempt.
That he will remember, and he should.
Bars can and do ban people under 21 because alcohol is served.
When it serves their purpose. Many bars depend upon the under 21 crowd, especially the female under 21 crowd, to keep their doors open.
The real reason for banning children, I suspect, is because the real money in a restaurant is made by the markup on alcoholic beverages.
Every seat occupied by a child is occupied by a customer who won't order any of the more expensive items on a menu and who will not order any of the alcoholic beverages that the resturants marks up by 200-300%.
Moreover, because most parents don't like to drive drunk, only one adult at the table will generally be drinking - and probably not as much as he would have otherwise.
This is exploiting a prejudice in order to make more money.
But it takes your village to raise their child...
But I'll leave that to others, thanks.
(and BTW I aborted no one and accept no responsibility for those that did)
And yes: if you want to cash Social Security checks on the backs of those children one day...
What I find hilarious (other than the fact that many of the applauders of this child ban labor under the delusion that they are also Christians)
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what i find hilarious is you and your stupid idea that the next generation will decide or wont decide to pull the plug on a bankrupt SS program based on a restaurant’s decision dating back to a time before they are capable of forming memories. idiot.
That is based on another law: the drinking age.
You can't ban those under six by invoking that law - it has to be everyone under 21. Could a restaurant ban any guests over the age of 60?
While it may be a place of public accommodation, it is still private property and the proprietor retains the right to refuse service to anyone.
Of course he does, but he cannot designate an entire class, race, or age group of people. If he wants to refuse service to a party, he has to do it on a case by case basis.
respect the right of the owner to choose his or her clientele based upon his/her preferences for the clientele
No such "right" exists.
If you open your doors to the public, you open your doors to the public.
If you want to run a private club with membership requirements, then you're going to have to do it on that basis, with all that it entails.
If these kids can’t sit and behave in a restaurant, what makes anyone think they’ll be responsible enough to hold a job to pay SS benefits in the future?
“Those guys are going to toss someone into the street! Bring the tar and feathers and most of all, your check book”.
You stated banning children was illegal under federal law, I proved it wasn't. Not all establishments that serve alcohol ban any age, some ban under 16.
You can't ban those under six by invoking that law - it has to be everyone under 21. Could a restaurant ban any guests over the age of 60?
I wasn't invoking the drinking age law, just proving your blanket statement to be wrong. I am also aware of restaurants/clubs designed for the under 21 crowd that do prohibit anyone over 21 (other than employees) and it is also perfectly legal.
No such "right" exists.
Yes it does, as I just proved.
If you open your doors to the public, you open your doors to the public.
Please see above.
If you want to run a private club with membership requirements, then you're going to have to do it on that basis, with all that it entails.
Not discussing private clubs here. Rather we are discussing the lack of respect given to the owners of these businesses and their rights. While an establishment may be open to the public, it is still at the invitation and with the permission of the owner that you remain on the premises.
Just like the Michigan businesses that are now banning legislators from their establishments for passing the smoking ban. It is perfectly within their right and perfectly legal to do so.
No, not at all. State laws may regulate who may be served where alcohol is sold but I'd have great fun with a restaurant that turned me away because I had a child with me. Hello lawsuit, good bye restaurant.
It may take a village to raise a child, but it takes a tank to raze a village.
So then you do NOT support private property rights?
EXACTLY. I remember a few years back some customers complaining about being seated at the table next to where a 6yo was sitting. The waitress explained the child was just fine and would cause them no problem, but they would have none of it and asked to speak to the manager. They did not want to sit near the child, who was reading a book and eating french fries. The manager explained the only other available tables were all inside.
Long story short, that 6yo is now 13 and still sits at that same table reading and eating her french fries whenever we go in there. The other customers, well they show up about once or twice a year and if they see us they go sit elsewhere.
There still are parents raising their kids to behave in public. I respect the decision of this establishment and have absolutely no problem with it.
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