As this article nicely summarizes, a trend appears to be taking root across different consumer-oriented industries to ban children under a certain age.  The rationale appears to be that children who cannot (or do not) behave are a disturbance and an ultimate deterrent to other paying customers.  Businesses, which are naturally focused on their bottom line, are also thus naturally inclined to remove whatever impediment they see that inhibits that bottom line.

I don’t have a problem with that line of thought.  I do have a problem where, as here, that rationale is imperfectly executed.  For as many poorly behaved children as there are in restaurants I can also find one obnoxious adult who is unfairly screaming at her waitress or talking really loudly on his cell phone because he thinks so highly of himself that he wants the whole restaurant to know his business.  I can also find a table of 5 teenagers haranguing their waitress because one of them wants to tell her that his friend likes her.  All of this disturbs my dining experience.  Where are the bans on those types of patrons?

Do you know what else I can find in this hypothetical restaurant?  Children whose parents respect themselves and those around them enough to make sure that they sit quietly and respectfully and eat their meals and say “please” and “thank you” and don’t throw a supreme hissy fit just because there’s no more chocolate ice cream.  Children whose parents will remove them promptly and preemptively when they see a tantrum coming on because they don’t think that a) the world revolves around them; and b) other people should just shut up and deal with it.  Children who will one day be prepared to go out into the world as functional adults because their parents had enough sense to teach them common things like how to behave in public.

I’m not saying that there aren’t poorly behaved children in public places.  We’ve all witnessed them, and obviously if there weren’t significant numbers of them businesses wouldn’t be driven to impose these drastic measures.  But, unfortunately, all of the children who can behave, as well as their parents, are the collateral damage that’s racking up in the wake of children who don’t behave and the parents who don’t make them.  There’s clearly a rational basis for this rule, but I question whether or not it is sufficiently narrowly tailored to achieve its stated purpose without unfairly putting others in its crosshairs.