I'm talking about children a lot lately. I'd better watch my step, those Righteous are a bit free with the 'paedo' accusations. I am, in fact, a paedophobe. I don't like them. They are fast and unpredictable and have more energy than a ton of plutonium. It's like being among rabid wolverines. They make too much noise and they ask too many questions. So, a career working with children was never going to be for me and never will. I don't want to suffer from second-hand children.
Subrosa harks back to the days of 'quiet time' in schools and how it's now coming back, relabelled as 'Yoga diversity outreach noise cessation education' or some such crap. When I was at school, quiet time cost nothing. It was the politically correct version of 'Shut up you little sods, give me ten minutes to breathe' and it required no non-jobs at vast expense, just a teacher at the end of their tether who knew how to keep a class quiet for a while without getting stabbed.
Personally I'd go for the lead pipe approach but I'm betting they don't cover that in teacher training these days. I don't think lead pipe is easy to come by any more either. I could dust off that 1.5-inch ring spanner, I suppose.
So I am not child-friendly and neither is my house (the 'no children' signs are a bit of a giveaway there) but even so, the story JuliaM reports has me going in several directions at once.
A tearoom bans little children at certain times of day. They have to go into a special room, out of the way.
Well, I don't like them running about while I'm trying to have a coffee and a smoke but I can't have that any more anyway. So I no longer visit tearooms, so the kids can have them as far as I'm concerned. As with pubs, I'm banned from every one in the country so it is hard to muster any sympathy for these parent/children noise and vomit combos when they've really only experienced in one place what smokers experience everywhere, every day.
After all, we smokers are banned from everywhere, soon to include private cars and homes, and these children are the excuse used to force that on us. Even if we don't have any and don't allow any in. So the children and their parents get banned from somewhere. Makes a nice change. Even though they aren't actually ejected from the premises as smokers are, at least they are getting a little taste of how it feels.
On the other hand, as a smoker I know how they feel. It's not nice being told that everyone else finds you offensive even when nobody's complained... well, nobody's complained ever, in your whole life, before. All of a sudden, you're vile and disgusting and decent people don't want to even see you around. Even so, it is really difficult to muster up any kind of sympathy here. These children, I say again, are the perennial reason used to hammer smokers into subhuman status. Their parents include those who say things like 'I don't want a filthy smoker anywhere near my child'. Of all the groups that could have had the experience, these are pretty high up the list.
It wasn't that big a deal for them, really. This was not a country-wide ban enforced with fines and snitchlines and NHS-approved violence against perpetrators of child-rearing. Nobody is forced to go outside to have a child, nobody has moved the maternity unit to a less-than-50%-enclosed box outside the hospital grounds. This was one single venue which restricted child access for a few hours a day, and provided another room for them. If it bothers them that much they can just go to another tea room. There are still some that allow children.
To hear them rant and wail you'd think they had been banned from every venue in the land unless they stub out that child and swear to never have another one, ever again. You'd think they had been in court accused of child-rearing in their works vehicle, on business premises or in an enclosed public place. No. All they face is a restriction in hours at one place, and just hear them howl their indignation.
These are the people who call smokers 'selfish' for wanting some places to go. They are the ones who believe that second hand smoke causes everything from acne to septicaemia and that even looking at a smoker will turn their child's skin purple and make their eyes pop out. They are the ones happy to pour guilt on smoking parents if their child dies of SIDS even though there is not one shred of evidence to link the two. Oh yes, there is no spite too low for a Righteous parent to pour on a smoker. For the cheeldren.
Restrict their choice a little bit and now see what you get. They squeal like a pig that was watching the wrong hillbilly. 'It's outrageous. How dare they? We demand all places admit us at all times. We have Rights'.
Sectioning off a particular group and making them non-persons is now standard procedure. It doesn't feel very nice when it's you, does it? Did you really think it would stop at smoking? Did you think it would stop at obesity? Drinking? Salt? Oh, then where did you think it might stop?
The answer is simple. It never stops.
Get used to it. Smokers have.
13 comments:
next of course will be - in those places that have a "separate room" for the children - the offensive children wail and smell is seeping in through the electrical outlets, they need to be leashed outside; and then of course it will be the old "fifty feet from the entrance" and so on and so on. This is all so easily predictable and yet it continues like some global mind-disease completely impervious to common sense and restraint.
I must confess that I too find I have little to no sympathy for these same pricks who had no problem using their children to manipulate public policies against smokers and demonize at least 20% of the population.
Perhaps a "child in public tax" should be created - wherever one drags their little snot-dripping noise machines into public stores a 10% child in public tax will be added to the total of their purchases and if nothing is bought a nominal fee of five dollars per child for the privilege of just looking around.
It's not quite the analogy for smokers that it might seem, though.
It wasn't a total ban, only for part of the day:
"...welcome in the cafe between 9am and 2pm on Monday, 9am until 12.30pm on Tuesday, Wednesday and Fridays and noon until 2pm on Thursdays."
If only that leeway was allowed to smokers!
Turning word: whingyr
How does it do that?!?
The irony of my local with a beer garden is that its packed with smokers and the other smokers who have procreated and bring their brats.
The parents are obviously used to the racket and being clambered all over, but me out for a quiet pint and some smokes are not so accustomed.
Perhaps I should warn them against exposing the cheeldren to carcinoma, and keep em out of the sun and inside eating burgers in the sodding patio extension that serves as a "family carvery".
Mind you Nanny would soon intervene and I'd get a stern rebuke for frightening the parents and cheeldren or just barred from the pub, well not the pub, because I can't drink and smoke inside it anyway...
Now I've nothing against children, as long as they fuck off with their parents at the end of the day, or the burgers...
The article was great, as usual, LI but this ...
"They squeal like a pig that was watching the wrong hillbilly"
Genius! :)
Storing away 'paedophobe' for my own future use....
Is there an equivalent available for intense dislike of parents with or without buggies?
I'm already using that 'paedophobe' word just to see the reaction I get from people. There's usually a look of utter rage, then bewilderment… and then it finally dawns on them what is meant. Priceless.
Circa 1970, Tcheuchter, his father & uncle out for a walk come across a large branch ripped from a tree.
Tcheuchter: Now what could have caused that?
Uncle: Children.
Tcheuchter (disbelief in voice - it was a very big branch): Children? Children?
Uncle: Children. The most destructive force known to man.
They don’t like it up ‘em, do they, Mr Manwaring? What a shame some of these, no doubt firmly anti-smoking, spawners don’t read your blog, Leggy. If they had, they’d have known – as you have been saying for years – that eventually the Righteous always, without exception, end up turning on each other with one pumped-up self-important group demanding that their rights are more important than another pumped-up self-important group.
I doubt if they’ll see this for the direct result of the anti-smoking mentality that it clearly is, though – so limited is the mentality of NIMBYism – although it’s heartening to see that plenty of commenters on Julia’s blog have been swift to make the connection.
Paul - I'll stick with 'child-hating bastard'. It's quieter.
Richard H - 'passive children' can only be weeks away now. They've been used for everything they can be so now they are expendable.
Julia - yes, they are only booted for a little bit of time. But see them howl!
Anon - the games are harder to play with smoking parents. However, as soon as they say something like 'I know it's a filthy habit...' game on.
Dick P - thanks. I thought I might be getting too far into specialist interersts there. So, do you prefer Large White, Landrace or the cross? Or perhaps we should discuss this on the Sooo-eeee forum.
PYB, Paul - careful with that word. The morons have already beaten up paediatricians.
Tcheuchter - your father was right. Children are the only destructive force we aren't allowed to try to stop.
Anon - no that connection never seems to occur to them.
Still look on the fucking bright side, outdoor SHS/ETS and burgers and chips and all that alcohol the progenitors consume, err outside, the rays of the sun, vitamin deficiencies from not enough sun exposure, moles, warts, uncle tom cobbley and all will surely despatch them sooner than a still-born child due to errr, obesity, smoking, drinking, having sex, or wanking too much.
I'm at lose as to do to protect my immortal body, or the cheeldrens.
Maybe we should all just fuck off and die?
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