I don't like kids. Particularly in restaurants, movie theaters, airplanes & my house.
Gaaah, who am I kidding? I don't like kids anywhere, period. They are generally crying, wailing, throwing tantrums, misbehaving, destroying/messing up things around them, or acting like monsters. Not to mention they are major attention seekers. But more than kids, I can't stand parents who don't know how to/won't control their kids in public places.
Last weekend, we went for dinner to this nice restaurant where I had the most decadent dessert, but more on that after I'm done cribbing about kids.
There was a kid running around the restaurant while his parents were chatting away with friends at a table next to ours. He would often come and start running around our table. We tried scaring him away with angry looks but he just wouldn't leave us alone. And then he started poking his finger into our food!
So imagine you've gone to a really nice restaurant with your partner/friend/family/whoever and all you want is a quiet, sumptuous meal with lots of nice conversation and there's this random kid who comes over and starts poking his finger into your food! What would you do?
We turned around and asked the mother to get a hold on him, and this takes the cake - her reply was "shayad woh khana chahta hai, thoda khila dijiye na (maybe he wants to have some of your food, feed him some"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I just stared at her open-mouthed. When I finally managed to pick my jaw up off the floor, I told her that I wasn't there to feed her kid. Neither were the other people in the restaurant. And if she couldn't control him at a public place, she had no business bringing him to one.
At this point, the manager intervened and thankfully, he had the sense to point out to the harebrained woman that there were perfectly behaved little kids at other tables as well, so could she please look after hers as he wanted everyone at the restaurant to have an enjoyable meal, and moreover, the kid might hurt himself by falling/running into furniture?
I was impressed by this man.
While we are on the topic of kids, I got a little shock this morning.
I ran into two of my neighbors who have 1 year old kids. They were going to drop their kids off at school!!!
I asked them what kind of school exists for 1 year olds and apparently, it's a play school that starts at 9 and ends at 12. But isn't 12 months too young for a child to be going to ANY kind of school? And both of these women are stay-at-home moms, so why do they need to be sending their child to school anyway?
I tactfully enquired whether they thought the child was old enough to be sent to school and they blatantly replied that they do it so they can get some peace in the morning and get household chores out of the way, pack their husbands off to work and get their pujas & what not done.
I mean, this really pisses me off. Everyone has the right to "peace" but if peace is so important to you, DON'T.FUCKING.HAVE.KIDS.
When you decide to have a kid, you undoubtedly & unequivocally give up your right to "peace" at least for a few years. It's like people have this pressure to procreate and then the kid can go to hell.
Why do people have kids when they can't take care of them? Gets my goat every single time.
Phew! So now that we're done cribbing about pesky, annoying kids, let me tell you about the mindblowing dessert that I had at the restaurant. Chocolate fondant with crushed peanuts and butterscotch ice-cream with peanut and salted caramel. Oh man, it was orgasmic.
For non-food connoisseurs, the fondant was essentially a cupful of molten chocolate, baked so it was slightly crusted on top. It had crushed peanuts in it and I love peanut butter, Reeses peanut butter cups and peanut Snickers, so I really enjoyed it. The crushed peanuts gave the molten chocolate a slight crunch as well as a slightly salty, nutty taste. The butterscotch ice cream was equally good. It too contained crushed peanuts and was drizzled with a salted caramel sauce. You couldn't help but moan with every bite.
I'm not much of a picture taker (basically I'm just a lazy person!) so I don't have pictures of this mouth-watering dessert. But here's an idea of what it looked like. All that the picture below is missing are tiny bits of peanuts and a drizzle of salted caramel sauce :)
Picture courtesy: http://blog.5min.com/
5 comments:
Agree with you totally!!! And that is horrifying.. feeding the kid!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I actually cant imagine what I would have said..
Kids at work are worse!!!
@Moonshine - Kids at work!!!!! That's got to be a nightmare.
There's a woman here whose daughter comes to our office after school but she's slightly older (6-7 yr old), so she either plays with the reception staff or sits quietly next to her mom. Still, I'm not too supportive of bringing kids to work unless your office has a dedicated creche.
I think this is one of the most important points parents should ponder. A kid dancing around a table and poking others and parents allowing it is one of thousand incidents but that shows the mentality of we Indians - hota hai, chalta hai (this happens, it's OK). I would like to share here, I have lived in Sweden for nearly 3 years and my experience says the couples/parents undergo a very sweet training of how to handle a child (in public places) while the woman is pregnant or when the child is infant. One can comment positively on the nature of the child. That's the reason 99 out of 100 children doesn't cry in Stockholm where I lived. Now this is my experience I don't know what others have to say. What I feel more than the child the parents need training in cultivating the nature of a child. If the couple is alert so will be the child.
@Voice1000 - The child wasn't poking us, he was poking into our food!!
I agree with you completely - the onus of disciplining a child & teaching him/her manners rests with the parents. Children won't know how to behave at public places unless the parents teach them how to. And parents don't really need to undergo some kind of training to be able to do that - it's pretty intuitive. But as you said, it's the "chalta hai" attitude of us Indians that's to blame.
@Scarlett: Yep nurturing should be natural and on intuitions, but some couple sees this task daunting. I had a lengthy discussion on this with my sister after reading your comment. I questioned her whether parents should teach mannerism to a child for him/her to get disciplined or the parents should understand and cultivate the mind-set (as in nicely explaining) of the child for him/her to understand mannerism and then get disciplined? As there is vast difference between teaching and cultivating. I feel more you try to teach, as teaching here is finger pointing to a child and saying 'Do not roll on the floor, it's not good' or 'Do not run around in the restaurant', the understanding for a child zeroes to null. And submissive compliance is seen as orders from others. The subtle conversation between the child and his/her parents which should take place never does, as that will hold an explanation for the child why s/he should not do it. The evolution of the child only begins when parents talk to their child not shout. And slowly the child will get disciplined by his/her own understanding......?
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