The etiquette of child-rearing

The Ealdormere list has turned into a heated debate of etiquette, courtesy and respect in the current middle ages. While I will admit to being relatively unconcerned about how I'm viewed with respect to those things in the SCA as of late (my friends accept me as I am, and frankly, most of the other participants are annoying or insane so I don't really give a shit what they think), it has got me thinking of those subjects in the modern world... specifically with respect to babies and children. Also I was reading a dining etiquette column that addressed all sorts of stuff and kids came up more than once.

So here's my issue... I like to eat out. It is one of the few things my husband and I can do together that takes him away from his computer screen. I intend to breast-feed my child. I'm not sure how best to go about doing this. Many people insist that you should avoid nicer establishments, but that seems like BS to me. Like I should be reduced to eating at chains and "family dining" places because I happen to have a dinner guest that is eating off-menu. That said, I agree that one should not bring a fussy or crying baby (or child) into any dining establishment. Quiet = welcome, fussy = time to go home to bed, no matter what the average price of an entree. Then there's the issue of where and how to feed.

Some people think you should always take it to the restroom. Aside from the issue that most restrooms don't have any seating other than the toilet, and some establishments are so small that the restroom is a single-stalled affair, which if you were in there would prevent other patrons from actually using the facility, there's also the issue that this is still a human being. We don't expect anyone else to take their meal in the toilet, so why must a baby? Then there's the issue of my food getting cold at the table while I wait for my baby to eat. That seems a little less than ideal.

Others insist that anywhere is alright as long as you cover up. Again, I'm not sure I'm comfortable with this. No other patrons in the restaurant are being presented with a blanket to put over their heads while they eat when their dinner arrives. I can see this being a good thing in say January in Ontario where it might help to prevent chills. But I'm scheduled to deliver in August in Texas. The thought of smothering my little one under a blanket isn't exactly appealing.

Others think it is okay if you are in a booth in the back corner of the restaurant where no other patrons can see you, but also insist that it is in poor taste and insulting to your dinner companions. I like this booth idea, but I also understand that it may mean waiting ages for a table, and some restaurants just don't have any booths in them, or not any that are high enough to provide any kind of privacy anyway. And how would you feel if you were out to dinner with me and I decided to feed my child?

On the particular dining page where I was reading a debate on this subject, a large number of people were of the opinion that either the baby should NEVER be brought out in public and should be left with a babysitter for the few hours it takes to go to a restaurant. Or that public, restaurant feeding should always be done from a bottle, out of courtesy to the other patrons. Should the potential discomfort of strangers that have not discovered the marvelous ability to avert their eyes trump my desire to not bottle feed my baby and not fork out for and locate on short notice a babysitter for a spontaneous (as most of my dining experiences are) meal out? Is my labeling all these people "strangers" and thus reducing them through my language to unimportant my way of rationalizing bad behaviour? Or is society's demands that babies be treated differently than other humans when they eat and the breast always be identified as obscene really unreasonable? Is saying "if you don't like it, don't look" a childish response to their discomfort?

All these considerations also apply to other public situations I may find myself in... out at the park, the mall or on the beach. If I was at a private party at someone's house I would probably ask if there was a quiet room I could retire to. At somewhere intensely kid-centric like Disney World I'm sure they have facilities for this sort of thing. But there just isn't that much privacy in most public places. And even if you can get to an isolated spot, it may not be safe to do so.

Does anyone out there have any thoughts on this?

Regarding the breast-feeding post

I feel a need to thank the non-parents who spoke up. It's not just because they are in the group that is most likely to voice a complaint as Medb suggested (because I'm not entirely sure that is the case), but because I know that in this day and age, many parents are accused of being too permissive with their little bundles of joy, of expecting everyone else to be as excited as they are, and being completely self-centred. I want to make sure I'm not becoming one of those parents, and input from both the "don't yet have kids" and the "not ever planning to have kids" camps is very helpful in trying to avoid that fate.

Also, I appreciate all the supportive comments. I hope that this is either an indication that it *is* socially acceptable nowadays (aside form being a legally protected right) or that the kind of people I generally choose to associate with are accepting at least. I really hope it's a North-America wide acceptance and not something that ends at the border and will make me feel like a leper down here.

Craigslist rant: airfreshners

I occasionally read "best of craigslist". It's better than most humour books written by comedians, and has the bonus advantage of being free. This post had me laughing so hard I was crying. Not the first few paragraphs, which were frankly full of purile young male humour, but this last bit where he finally gets down to the business of criticizing air freshners.

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I need something that smells good and these products are clearly marketed to not-me, so I simply choose the ones with the most innocuous sounding names. "Fresh Breeze" and one that had apples in the name are the ones I finally settle on. Their little plug in things so they are constantly working, which is good, because I don't want to spray myself in a cloud of what could be DDT, for all I know. I plug in Fresh Breeze and walk away. I Leave my basement suite for a couple hours and go do whatever the hell it is I do when I'm not at home.

When I walk back in my front door, old Mr. Airwick has a little surprise for me. While I was galivanting about the town, he was busy making my entire apartment smell like a 90 year old prostitute. The smell is so thick, it isn't even a smell - it's a taste. And let me tell you, air fresheners taste worse than they smell. In fact, a blind taste test is likely to reveal that the taste of your average air freshener is indistinguishable from Windex. Needless to say, every window in the house is opened and the door is propped open. 15 minutes later, all is okay. I look at the top of the little device and see that there is, in fact, a knob that adjusts the rate at which it heats the fluid that spreads the smell. It was on the second lowest setting. Needless to say, when the thing burns through liquid like that, said liquid is not going to last very long. On the lowest setting, it lasted 3 days. I wasn't sad to see it run out; The rancid over-the-hill hooker smell actually made me nostalgic for the smell of my own excrement.

Apple would have to be better. Afterall, who doesn't enjoy the smell of fresh fruit. I'm picturing maybe a nice waft of cinnamon apple pie greeting me at the door like a warm hug. What I got was far less pleasant. I open my door after the apple scent has had time to permeate every cubic inch of space (on the lowest setting, of course). I'm instantly bombarded by an olfactory assault, the likes of which I could barely fathom. This was not apple. This was was more like apple-juice thrice filtered through the failing kidneys of a starving third-world boy. It's rare that a fragrance makes me consider huffing bleach purely for the paralytic effect it is bound to have on my sense of smell. Needless to say, random-apple-flavour thing was even less successful than lady-of-the-night-circa-1920 thing. I've gone back to being awash in a sea of my own vaporous poo.

Two lessons to be drawn from this:
1) Hetero-friendly names would be a boon.
2) Smells that aren't liable to drive people to suicide would be a step in the right direction.