House of Eratosthenes

Permit me an unhinged rant about the young family at the next table over. Last night was my sweetheart’s birthday, and I was delighted to see we had a seat with no waiting even though we didn’t have a reservation. Cool! And it was right up front. Just after ordering the appetizer, we were graced with the company of a young couple, about thirty, with the loudest entourage of of little tax deductions you ever did see. Right across the aisle. Why does this keep happening? If it is truly a random occurrence, the odds against it happening the way it’s been happening…must be staggering. But somehow they always know where to seat us, who to put next to us, and when.

To be clear, “loud” only applies to the 67% youngest amongst the junior lineup. The oldest, around five or six, mentally checked out with the able assistance of his tablet. And I do mean checked out…completely…no chiding at all from the parental units about speaking properly to the waiter when ordering, nothing like that at all. Could’ve replaced the oldest kid with a leather dummy, or a big pillow. The middle was a girl who was, like most girls that age, allowed to laugh and sing and yell and make whatever sounds she liked, as loud as she liked and as long as she liked, without so much as a hint that this is out of place, inappropriate, or even uncherished. Boys that age are admonished to use their “library voices,” I think, still, but she proceeded to cheerfully dominate the sound space the entire time. The two year old had discovered the joys of being self-mobile and proceeded to run up and down the aisle. Three times, the family patriarch excused himself to go collect. Momma did not so much as flinch. Yeah, that told the story…husband is in business clothes, wife is in the “You don’t expect me to keep this house together and look pretty too, do you?” uniform. Going out to a nice restaurant to give momma a break. Mercifully, they finished the meal lickety-split. But they spent more time picking up their stuff on the way out, than they did actually eating. Interestingly, all three whelps had to be hounded about where their iPads were. That’s worth a lifted eyebrow at the very least. All three have iPads? I see. How many will require medication before they can pay attention to their teachers?

Talk with your eyes closed, smell your own farts The service we got from the wait staff was off-the-charts excellent, which is why we keep going back. It seems to be getting just better and better all the time. And, with dessert, and the check, we get a survey card. Oh, no…

It’s not even a dilemma. I have to mention it. There seems to be a feeling in the air, from where it comes I do not know — families with kids can be put anywhere, it’s a universal fit. This cannot continue uncorrected. Yes, I’m serious. I feel awful about it.

But my real puzzlement is with the family. Lobster ravioli, parmesan-crusted steak, grilled cheese sandwich, kids don’t give a shit. They’ll prefer a box of animal crackers for $1.89 or whatever. After a hearty meal of fish sticks. We opted to keep things pleasant. That means, we showed no balls at all. No need, nothing was really ruined — this time. We got a chuckle out of it. And delighted in entertaining a fantasy: I pick up their check, and when they ask why, we say if you can’t afford a sitter you must need every nickel.

Tempting. But it’s wrong to spend real money to feel smug. There’s a reason we don’t have a Prius…

What has happened? Has babysitting become yet another job real Americans won’t do? We have so many retail establishments that exist solely for the purpose of giving kids a wonderful time, places completely unlike anything that existed in my youth — and yet I continue to see these whelps hauled off to other places, places that have nothing whatsoever to do with whelps. It is an enigma and, I think, perhaps a foretelling of something that is about to turn out in a way we won’t like.

“That’s worth a lifted eyebrow at the very least. All three have iPads? I see. How many will require medication before they can pay attention to their teachers?”

Okay, I gotta take umbrage at that, on so many levels. Suggesting kids are “over engaged” or “under engaged” with their environment (damned if you do, damned if you don’t…. call us when you figure out the microscopically precise margins which qualify as “normal”, professionals ), assuming that kids who are active/inactive are the equivalent of kids who behave poorly, Blaming kid’s bad behavior or poor learning on technology rather than upbringing, and then suggesting a mind altering drug as a cure for it…. Do you believe any of these things? I would assume not, yet you’re propagating those narratives all the same.
- rhjunior | 04/26/2012 @ 09:46
It’s not like a generation ago. If the kids don’t engage socially, these days they’re automatically diagnosed with a spectrum disorder. That might seem like an overstatement, a lot of people will say it’s an overstatement…if you back them up into a corner about it, eventually they’ll ‘fess up, yeah, if the kid’s learned a behavior of letting everyone else jibber-jabber and retreating/staring/daydreaming, he’ll be gutter-balled and the prescription for a psychotropic drug will come soon after. They’ve gotten so free and easy with it lately, they’ve started to police their own about it, but only after things got way, way out of hand.

Meanwhile, everyone seems to ignore the plain fact that kids are just being disciplined differently. Fiddling with something & letting everyone else chatter, during a family dinner outing? It would’ve been completely out of the question in my day. Dad might’ve put up with it until the second “um, what…?” and then the hellfire would’ve rained down, inspired in no small part by fiduciary fuming over eighteen dollar Black Angus bill for a party of four. NO, we wouldn’t have gotten away with it; YES, in spite of that, back in my childhood if the Autism diagnosis party was as out of control as it is now, I certainly would have been hooked on something, maybe two or three different things. And no, I don’t think it’s right that all kids have to have one. I can see the temptation, heck, I don’t even see anything wrong with it if it’s treated as a toy like anything else.

But I’ve written on this before — nowadays, there seems to be a doctrine at work that something awful is taking place if the kids have to tolerate old-fashioned boredom, even for a minute. Nobody says that, but that seems to be the rule. Not only can I not subscribe to this, but I see how it’s causing a lot of problems. How are you going to learn to just pay attention to something that isn’t entertaining you — if you never, ever have the necessity of building that skill? And yes, it is a skill.

This is why I sometimes call it the “No lifeguard worth a damn under forty” generation. That’s what’s being lost; the ability to watch something that isn’t changing state, waiting for it to change state.
- mkfreeberg | 04/26/2012 @ 11:14

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Seriously, Why?Thursday, April 26th, 2012

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Thursday, April 26th, 2012