Is society becoming more hostile to children?

[MsFrumble]

Why does society feel like it’s becoming increasingly hostile to children? And why is voicing anti-child views or politics becoming more acceptable—or is it not, and there’s just a lot of online noise about it?

I’m not talking about choosing not to have children, that is obviously fine and good.
But there does seem to be a growing tendency to feel it is okay to openly describe children as at best an inconvenience and at worst a blight; to argue they should be excluded from public spaces unless they behave like adults or are tightly controlled; and to view children as “adults in training” rather than as distinct individuals with their own needs and rights.

Children are a highly vulnerable group, with no power and distinct rights in law—the right to play, education, protection, and so on. We were all once children, and unless you take a fairly nihilistic view, most people would agree that how we treat them matters because they are the future.

The material reality / politics around supporting kids is also quite grim: exorbitant nursery fees, schools under pressure, health visiting and early years support underfunded, maternity care in crisis, a lack of youth services like centres for teenagers etc etc

So why does society feel so anti kid?

For kids to learn that - you shouldn’t shout and run amok in a restaurant - they need to experience a restaurant. Ideally you start with a cafe and not the Ritz, but the adults in the cafe are also going to need to accept that a bit of kiddish behaviour is BOTH normal, and part of learning, slowly, over time and as they get older and mature, how to sit and chat and wait.

But many adults are taking children to restaurants and letting them run amok without telling them not to. And they also see other children running amok with no one telling them to stop. If no one tells them not to how are they learning not to? That doesn’t really make any sense. If it’s just maturity, then it isn’t learning through exposure really is it? It’s just maturing.

If you never took a child to a restaurant until they were 10, and then before you went told them they needed to sit still the entire time, I’m pretty sure they would. I didn’t go on a plane until I was about 7 or 8. I knew how to behave on it because my mum told me. Even now in my 40s there are many things I haven’t done. But I know how to behave if I was to go to them.

So I really don’t believe that the only way children learn how to behave in situations is by experiencing them only.

Actually my parents were strict about table manners at home. We were expected to sit at the table from an early age, use a knife and fork correctly not eat with mouth open etc. Despite being working class, it was thought essential to have manners.

But why should kids be excluded from eating out until they are 10? And why, by extension, should mothers, who realistically bear a lot of the childcare responsibilities?

I didn’t say you should just take kids to a restaurant and just expect them to learn by exposure. I said taking them is “part” of learning. I also said, start at a cafe not at the Ritz and why in earlier posts I talked about taking crayons, chatting to your kids, taking them for little walks - helping them learn to deal with excitement and boredom.

You learn partly by doing / experiencing, partly maturing and partly by being told.

If we didn’t let kids do anything until we were sure they were old enough to do it perfectly when told to, with no support from adults, and without causing any disruption, kids would be pretty messed up. No riding a bike or trying to learn to read till you are 7. No attempting to get dressed until 6. No using the potty until you are also old enough to wipe your bum at 4. No visiting granny until you are old enough not to say “rude” things like, when you are dead can I have your fossil collection, (a gem my four year old recently came out with). No leaving the house until you’re old enough not to point at strangers and say things like, why is that man so fat, did the wind blow that man’s hair away, that man did a fart.

I’m not saying they should be excluded at all. But you said in order for kids to learn they need to experience a restaurant. They don’t though. They just need to be taught. That’s all I’m saying. Because if you take them to a restaurant and other kids are all running about all over the place you still need to teach them not to do what others are doing. So learning by experience isn’t a thing in those situations. What they’ll be experiencing is the wrong thing. I’m not always sure taking kids to “family friendly” restaurants where all other kids are running about is useful. Because you’re contradicting what behaviour you actually want. I want you to sit still in restaurants but right now in this one you can run about (or are watching other kids running about and they are wondering why they can’t).

I do think society becoming less child friendly and there are lots of reasons for that - but one of them is all parents being tarred with the permissive parenting brush.

My kids behaved in cafe from toddler age onwards - if they didn't we left and they didn't get anything. When we ate out we picked places and times and how the kids were and expected they'd behave and acted very quickly if they didn't. We sometime had to deal with trantrum and upsets in public and did best we could and most people were lovely.

What we didn't do was endless excuse poor behavior as them just learning or being kids. If your at a cafe or restaurant you sit - you may get colour pencils or some distraction but you don't run around no matter what other kids are doing. You can run round parks and play grounds - but you walk holding hands on bisy streets and staying close and you behave - if you don't say on train on day out then we don't get the bus we walk back every time till you do learn - I can't get off the train early and others may get fed up but I tried and I would always try and mitiagate any impact from their behavior ie move them to coridor if possible and tell them off.

My teens seem to think they had a happy childhood - they think we're in middle of their mates for strictness.

If they don't sit still in a restaurant they leave - if they go on scotter in shop they lose the scooter for a while and get told off - if they throw balls inside they lose the ball - they get in back later with rules gone over but if it happens again it's gone longer. What you don't do is allow them to run round the restaurant just this once till they are older and magically learn - probably from others getting fed up with them and reacting.

I dont think anyone has said kids shouldn't learn to ride a bike at a certain age or go in a restaurant if they are under 10.

There are places, or times its unsuitable or possibly unsafe to try to learn to ride a bike, through a crowd of people isnt ideal (for the rider or the other people) nor in the supermarket!

And most kids, by the age of about 6, I would think could probably cope with sitting down in a cafe or restaurant (for half an hour etc) without running around or shouting. (Just like at school, playtime and lunch time are ok for running around, carpet-time isnt) Or choose a pub with a garden or bouncy castle if they are likely to need to run off steam

Well I suppose if they see other kids running around in a way that is inappropriate and see them being reined in, that is a good learning. If they see kids not being reined in, that is also a good learning - because they are seeing that some people misbehave and also that different families and different situations have different rules.

Your kids seeing other kids being allowed to do something they are not, is a HUGE part of parenting. Dealing with questions like - why is Jack allowed - TV, sweets, a later bed time, to eat nuts, extra time in exams, to wear that to school, sleepovers, a phone, not to wear gloves, a games console, Barbies etc and I am not? Is constant

And like it or not, opinions do differ massively on what parenting is good / acceptable.

Personally I find it WAY worse if I or my kids see kids who are calm and biddable in restaurants, because they have been handed their parents phones, than if I / they see kids who are being noisy. I think giving your kid access to an addictive dangerous device before they are 13 in order to keep them quiet at a restaurant table, is way way more damaging and worse parenting than allowing noise

But it's not an either /or, is it? If they are taught at home that sitting quietly at the table is the appropriate way to behave that's all that is required. Countless generations have done that without the need for a phone or tablet to amuse them.

Definitely this

Exactly. There's no need to reinvent the wheel.

We do the same now

Children learn from their siblings, from their parents. You don’t often have to learn how to behave in a cafe. You take the manners you have already learnt with you. You know not to stand on the chair and scream out. You know not to throw food. You don’t and are not allowed to do it at home. Which is where learning starts.

Plenty of adults don’t sit quietly at tables in restaurants though. They get drunk, laugh raucously, gossip loudly, are hard of hearing, argue, come in huge groups, leave their phones on etc. I don’t see why, if you’re making a reasonable effort to get your kids to behave - aka, a bit of chat and movement is fine, a walk around is fine, but not running and screaming - you can’t take them to a family friendly restaurant.

Europeans are fine with it, they accept kids as part of society

Most of those behaviours you list are not admirable. And plenty of people would complain about swearing, inappropriate conversations etc.
And drunkenness and such behaviours tend to happen late at night.
They do not excuse the parents of children who do not allow them to learn how to behave appropriately.

And that’s fine, you’re an adult. You can chose to avoid the possibility of kids, if the risk of encountering behaviour you can’t tolerate bothers you.

Kids can’t chose to never get upset, tired, ill, need a wee at a bad moment, get bored etc. Even the best parented, calmest kid will have a cry on an airplane or be ill or tired or overwhelmed sometimes. They shouldn’t be excluded from society or shamed as a result, we were all once kids, and kids are all going to be the adults of the future.

I am not pro badly behaved children here, I am saying it is upsetting when people take a blanket negative approach to children because they have some experience of bad behaviour.

I don’t assume all adults are awful and only hang out in soft plays, because I’ve encountered some badly behaved adults

And I think you misjudge people. I don’t think there is a negative blanket approach to children.

There is a reaction when they are behaving badly depending on the degree. Or when too much is expected of others to tolerate. When it is outside the norm.
There is a reaction too when people think the child is old enough to know better.
And certainly a reaction when a parent is seen to do or say absolutely nothing.

Often I think people will feel sorry for the child. I feel sorry for a baby who bellows all the way in a flight because their ears hurt, routine is a mess. The baby doesn’t understand. I also do feel sorry for fellow passengers. I feel sorry for a child allowed to run amok who hasn’t yet learnt when doing so is not okay, but they are of an age when really they should have done. In societal norms the child is behind.
I feel sorry for a child whose parent doesn’t say the word no. And give the child direction and guidance.

I guess what people are saying is that they aren’t shaming kids for their bad behaviour - they are instead saying that the behaviour reflects on the parents and their parenting (assume no other factors at play).

So the ill will to kids you describe is more a case of people not liking certain behaviour and tolerating it as the children can’t control and if the parents are trying to teach them. But not tolerating it when it’s down to a lack of parenting. There isn’t this ill will to children. You could argue it is ill will to bad parenting.

I haven’t seen any posters taking a blanket negative stance on all kids. Instead I have seen posters all comment that it is down to parenting.

I don’t think many people assume all kids are awful. What you might see are people that are fed up of undesirable behaviour and parents doing nothing, so choose to avoid child popular places. That’s not about the children, that’s about the adults.

Posters who are saying kids are more badly behaved than when they were children how old are you?
Because when I was a kid bullying was rife, kids were obsessed with setting fire to things like bins throwing stones at passing cars throwing stones off of bridges. I’m only in my 20s granted but I know people in their 60s who say they were really naughty as children. I’m now a teaching assistant and the kids I work with are far more well behaved than what I remember from my school days.

So just how old are you if you seriously think kids were naughtier back in your day?

Well, the adults are badly behaved because they weren't taught manners as children.

This thread seemingly started out as genuine curiosity and now I am sensing it was a way to defend unruly children with sympathy from like minds.

Control your kids.and we'll love them just as generations have for millenia.

Using the excuse that they're "vulnerable" is a load of tosh. No one is hurting children just because we don't want to hear them scream or disapprove of them being feral.

Bratty kids and enabling parents have never been endearing.

The situation remained low conflict because of the way you handled it. If someone approached the teenagers more aggressively, they would probably be met by a more aggressive response.

I haven’t read the whole thread but as an older woman, back in the day we took our kids here there and everywhere but we didn’t take them to places that were by their nature not child friendly, now it seems that parents want to take their children everywhere that adults go even if the kids are bored and restless and act out as a consequence. I do have young grandchildren who I see a lot so I’m not completely out of touch with children.
e.g going out for a meal we would go to more relaxed places where there would be plenty of other families, and my kids would be expected to sit at the table not get down and run about, wait for their meal and eat nicely, even my son with ADHD could manage that or if he was having a bad day we just wouldn’t go. We didn’t take them to high end restaurants, complain that there wasn’t anything the child wanted to eat on the menu, let them run arround while we smiled indulgently and then leave a huge mess behind us.
Same for cinema or theatre we would go to family friendly productions, they would be expected to sit in their chair and not scream or kick the seat in front of them, we wouldn’t take them to inappropriate shows that lasted hours and hoped that they would behave, but not bother to take them out if they didn’t and let them spoil other people’s enjoyment.

But I’ve seen so many posts about “poor parenting” when actually it’s been a baby or toddler crying on a plane or a pre schooler have a tantrum in a public space. These things are nothing to do with poor parenting, they’re just age appropriate behaviours!

Are you sure you've seen people complain specifically about situations like babies crying on planes in the context of poor parenting? Seems unlikely, for the very reason you cited.