I know some people in the restaurant business. The latest challenge for restaurateurs is coping with requests from dog fanatics, er, owners who want to bring their canines into human dining facilities. A friend of mine in Pittsburgh recently sent me a photo of a man who brought his dog into a dining facility without asking anyone for permission. (And the dog wasn’t a service dog.)
This is illegal in most states. Yet entitled dog owners often insist on dining in public with their pooches nonetheless.
At the same time, there is a growing prejudice against children—actual humans—in dining facilities. According to a recent article at FoxNews, 75% of diners now believe that restaurants should offer some form of “adults only” dining—no children allowed.
WTF?
I don’t have children; and at the age of 57 it’s unlikely at this point that I ever will. Nor am I one of those adults who gets giddy and silly every time I see a child. I see children as younger humans, no more, no less.
Yes, there are times when children fail to conform to the exact behavioral standards of adults. If you walk into a restaurant and there is a birthday party for five-year-olds at the next table over, don’t expect to have a quiet dinner.
But that is the exception rather than the rule. I see children in restaurants all the time, and only rarely are they disruptive. In my entire life (and remember, I’m 57 years old) I have had to ask a parent to control their unruly child in a restaurant exactly once.
In most cases, the presence of children simply isn’t that big a deal. And I reiterate: I’m a 57-year-old man who has never had children. I was an only child myself. If anyone is preconditioned to be allergic to kids, it’s me.
We’ve become just a little bit too precious—and our priorities are more than a little askew—if a significant number of us now seeks to ban children from public spaces.
And at the same time, the push to bring slobbering, excrement-dropping, panting dogs into restaurants?
This is insane.
(And just to clarify: despite the tone of the above paragraph, I have nothing against dogs, or dog owners, per se.
I do, however, object to neurotic dog culture as it’s manifested in the third decade of the 21st century. Like so much else in our society at present, dog culture has been taken to ridiculous extremes.)
-ET