“Why’d you just stand by, doing nothing?” Because of my appearance. I have to tread lightly in social situations because people tend to view me as a “criminal type” right out of the gate.

What a shame.

In my eyes, behavior suitable for a restaurant is:

Child care is a pretty inflammatory topic, I guess. There’s a lot of “us vs. them” mentality floating around. One look at your “chosen team” and the rage starts flowing.

Then as far as I’m concerned (which is basically none, since I’m not any kind of authority figure), you could take your child to wherever. Well-behaved children are perfectly fine in my book.

A well-trained dog is always welcome at my table.

Thank you. Never once did I truly blame the child in any of these cases; they’re not really people yet, they can’t help it when they act like little turds. It’s the parents.

If the parent brings a child into an alcohol-serving sushi restaurant at 11PM on a Saturday night, it’s hardly unreasonable to find that off-putting.

It can be, if you want it badly enough.

People seem to be under the impression that I treat the children badly or... I dunno, give the parents mean looks? I don’t. I just get mildly irritated and resign myself to put up with it until I leave. If reacting to my surroundings makes me a thunderdick, then I’m happy to welcome every conscious person in the human…

This seems to be happening a lot, but I should clarify: I’m not saying “no children should be brought into public spaces”. I’m saying “if the space is suitable for children, well-behaved children are fine to stay but badly behaved children should be corrected or taken out by their parents”. I’m not entirely sure how…

You tolerate assholes? I don’t. I expect them to leave just like I’d expect a parent with a terrible child to rein them in.

Thank you!

Glad to hear your cat’s pulling through.

You’ve got more patience than I do. Respect.

I never intended to say that it made me angry, though I can definitely see why you may have inferred that (I often write in overly belligerent tones because it’s simply more fun that way). Just that I would prefer not to have a wailing child nearby. Is that so strange to say? When offered negative input, I prefer not…

“Children don’t hold most of us hostage, so no, we don’t have Stockholm syndrome.” My statement was tongue-in-cheek. Wasn’t meant to be taken seriously.

And I can offer you nothing but gratitude in return.

I wouldn’t expect them to be banned. I just feel that society as a whole could be more clear about the expectations of behavior in public in order to prevent some of these kinds of problems. “Special snowflake” parents are terrible. Of course, fixing it would require getting through to said parents, which... well, I…

Could be, but if it’s true, it’s certainly not my fault. And I don’t really see how it’s “sad”, since not liking children is in no way harming my quality of life.