Yes, your child is annoying

Kids can be really annoying.

As much as I love kids and want some of my own in the not-too-distant future, I’m the first to acknowledge this fact. It doesn’t matter if they’re crazy toddlers or sweet grade-schoolers or adorable little babies, at some point (usually when they’re throwing temper tantrums) they get annoying.

It’s especially annoying when they’re not yours. You just can’t love a kid enough to forgive him or her for screaming three feet away from you when you don’t know them well. And freakouts in a public place — on a plane, in a restaurant — are enough to drive anyone mad.

It drives restaurant managers crazy, too. In fact, one of them was so irritated, she decided to ban screaming children from her establishment. Brenda Arms of Old Salty’s in Carolina Beach, N.C., hung a sign on the door that said, “Screaming children will not be tolerated.”

Arms said that she won’t ban children, but she will ask their parents to take them outside until they’ve stopped screaming. Her decision has outraged parents of autistic kids, who have a tendency to scream as part of their disease and can’t control it for the same reason.

I completely sympathize with her. Screaming children at restaurants are annoying, especially when the parents won’t shut them up.

But I’m not sure I would take the step of posting the sign. There are plenty of annoying people who go out in public. Adults can be plenty loud. And throwing fits isn’t the only way to be obnoxious — I’m 20, and I’m sure my mom told my sisters and me at some point this summer that whatever inside joke we were cracking up at during dinner needed to be toned down. Everyone has turns being ridiculous in public.

That being said, I realize screaming children are their own brand of annoying. I don’t have a problem with a manager asking parents to remove them until they’ve settled down. It does disturb other patrons. That being said, managers should also be able to ask adults to stop being so loud, because that disturbs other patrons, too.

The sign singled out one of the largest, annoying classes of people and obviously upset people with children. But to parents of the average screaming child, I ask: Why are you bringing your children to a restaurant?

Sometimes, parents really cannot help that their children are being children. For example, children have the right to travel, the same as the rest of us — whether it’s visiting relatives or taking a family vacation, and parents can’t exactly take their children outside to settle down when they’re on a plane.

But restaurants are another story. If you know your child is likely to not sit through a meal, there’s a very simple solution: don’t bring the child to an adult place.

We’ve done Friday night dinner with my grandparents for years, but when I was a 4-year-old without the patience to sit through a meal, we stopped going out for dinner and stayed in instead. My grandparents still wanted to see me, but it was better to order in than have me trying to escape and run around the restaurant.

More people should take a page out of my grandparents’ book. If you know your kid can’t handle a restaurant fancier than McDonald’s, don’t come, or at least don’t bring the kid. Want a meal with the child? Order in — food tastes as good when someone picks it up as it does at the establishment.

If you really want to go out with your significant other, hire a babysitter for a couple hours. You’ll be doing your fellow patrons — and the teenager watching your kid — a favor.

And if you really, really want to take your kid out to dinner, have the courtesy to remove yourself and your child to the restroom or outside when he or she starts screaming.

It’s not a slur on the kid — most kids go through a stage where they don’t do well in public. Recognize this and take steps to make the nuisance to people around you as small as possible. And yes, as much as you love your kid, screaming children ARE a nuisance. If it was some stranger’s kid, you’d be peeved about the noise, too.

I don’t think children or screaming children should be banned. But I do think parents should be courteous enough to think about their fellow restaurant-goers and take steps to make sure their child  (or their teenager, grandparents, or whoever is being loud at the moment) doesn’t disrupt everyone around them.


E-mail: hanns@indiana.edu