I was listening to the radio this morning, and they mentioned something about high chairs and booster seats being removed from the downtown location of a prominent restaurant chain.  The message being, “Kids are not wanted here.”  The restaurant chain itself isn’t particularly child or family oriented, but it’s also not extremely high-brow, nor is it a pub or sports bar.

Children don’t belong everywhere.  There are many activities and locations that are effectively (if not officially) adult-only, like bars and rock concerts.  And, even in places where children are welcome, parents ought to keep an eye on them, to ensure that they don’t get hurt, damage property, or injure others.

However, I think that a lot of people just don’t want to see, or more particularly, hear children.  They feel that they should be able to take a flight, go out to eat, attend church, and buy groceries without being subjected to mess and noise.  But is this really reasonable?  Is it really OK to say that children, and their parents, are not welcome in larger society?  Is it OK for businesses and community groups to establish themselves as pristine, adult-only enclaves, simply because they would rather not deal with children?  Absolutely not.

Sure, nobody wants to hear a baby cry, or clean up some kid’s mess.  And believe me when I say, nobody is more unhappy when my kid freaks out in front of others than I am.  Nobody is more embarassed, or upset, when she makes a mess on a restaurant floor.  Nobody, but nobody, is more anxious about how she will behave on an airplane.  But sometimes it’s to no avail, and babies cry.  Sometimes kids are too fast for their parents, and knock things over.  Sometimes, parents need to buy groceries, and the kids are cranky.  That’s life, and if you don’t like it, you need to get over it.  Really.

I think that it’s ridiculous that, as a culture, we feel that we need to be somehow isolated from the youngest portion of our society.  We do not have the right to exclude others on the basis of our own comfort and convenience.  We are not more important, and our rights are not more legitimate, because we are older.  Children (and parents) need the support of their broader society.  It does take a village to raise a child, and sometimes that means that you will be dealing with someone else’s mess.  By exercising patience and offering a helping hand, you are building good karma in the same way that you would if you do anything kind for another human being.  Would you be impatient with someone in a wheelchair accidentally knocked over a stack of magazines?  What’s the difference when a 2-year-old does it?  In many ways, toddlers have less control over their own actions than mobility-limited adults.

As for the restaurant chain, I imagine that their suburban locations will be negatively impacted by the decision of this one location.  After all, the one thing we families have going for us is our spending power.  If we parents are cash-strapped, it’s because we’re spending so much money on our kids, not because we’re sitting at home and pinching our pennies.  A smarter business would want to attract that money.