American culture is profoundly unfriendly to children

So there's an article in the Times this morning about how some bars in park slope are banning strollers. And it's interesting, because rather than sticking to the narrow point that strollers have gotten very large and take up too much damn space in small city stores and restaurants, the whole thing gets blown up to some kind of "how dare parents take their kids out to bars?" and "Parents these days don't want to give up their hipster lives just because they have kids," and the child-free people get involved and bitch about how they don't want to hear crying babies when they're out having beers. And oh, a generation ago it would never have been a problem, because people would never have thought it was appropriate to take your kids out to a bar. Oh, those self-absorbed refuse-to-grow-up modern parents.

The whole debate really strikes me as so incredibly parochial and also a bit twisted. When we took Ari to Spain with us two years ago, we dragged him all over creation, till all hours. (Well, all hours that we could manage, which was pretty much till 11 pm) (Yes, he inhaled secondhand smoke. We are evil, evil people.) We weren't bizarre weirdos, either. Just people with a kid. And other people with kids also took them out with them. And there weren't specially segregated kiddie places, and kid restaurants, and kid menus. Kids out in the world weren't treated as a nuisance or an imposition, but as people, sometimes charming, sometimes annoying, sometimes difficult or tired or adorable or silly or quiet or loud. We found the same thing in New Zealand. And in St. Martin. (Those are the three foreign places we've traveled with Ari; we are going to France with the kids in May, so we'll provide an update after that).

Anyway, so if you don't travel with your kids outside of the country, you might not realize just how much American culture just doesn't like kids. American culture is great at selling stuff to kids, and using kids to sell stuff to parents. But actually respecting kids as actual members of the community? Not so much. We do our best to make sure that the only grownups our kids come into contact with are family, teachers, childcare providers, coaches, and members of the child-related product industry. Adults without kids, especially men, have barely ANY opportunities to interact with children in the course of their daily lives. Then, of course, when and if they do have kids themselves, they are utterly unprepared to understand how to interact with these small people. Everyone loses.

Children learn to exist in community from older children, and from adults in the community. Likewise, adults learn about caring for and interacting with children by, strangely, having opportunities to watch others care for and interact with children, and to do so themselves. We segregate children not only from all adults save those who have some authority and responsibility for them, but also, for large parts of their days, from children of different ages from whom they might learn and to whom they might teach.

the whole thing is bizarre and unhealthy.

Nevertheless, I do think it's reasonable to carry your kid in a sling if you're going barhopping. Or at least use an umbrella stroller, and you know, ACTUALLY FOLD IT UP WHEN YOU PARK IT.