Editorial #306: Another Kid In Another Restaurant

Autism Politico notes that with the latest incident about a child making noise in a restaurant, the autism community is weighing in on the fracas.  People are taking sides about whether the business owner was correct in telling a two year old that her crying and/or screaming had to stop.

The problem is, of course, that there is no evidence that the toddler had autism, therefore autistics and parents of autistics ought to leave autism out of the equation and simply see the situation for what it is: Yet another kid making noise in a restaurant while parents allegedly didn’t do much to quell the child’s outbursts.

Some say the child was going on for forty minutes, and that the parents were asked to control the child as many as four times.  Others say the restaurant owner was nuts to begin with and this is just an example of her rudeness.

Here is Autism Politico’s opinion:

Forgive us, but in situations where a child is disturbing the rest of a business’s patrons, we don’t see why what some would call judgmental people with a sense of self-entitlement should get away with “bullying” a restaurant full of people.  Is it too much to expect to eat in peace and quiet in a restaurant?

What is a business owner to do in these situations? Lose customers because these parents cannot or will not control their kid?  And so business owners appear to be doing what many parents won’t do: Parent other people’s kids.

Perhaps if parents like these enjoy the noises their kids make, they should rent out the entire restaurant for the time they stay so that the rest of the patrons, who expect a good meal free from distraction, could actually have one during the other hours of the day.

But, some parents insist on being selfish, and they inconvenience everyone else in restaurants, thereby putting business owners in the position of having to do something.

The result is something the most of the customers appear to agree with and which most people in the general public also agree with: They generally support the owner.

You cannot blame poor parenting on anyone but parents who are parenting poorly.

Now let’s take a look at how autism hypothetically factors into the equation:

Autism Politico believes that the second an autistic person causes a disturbance, the disturbance should be addressed and stopped. After all, is the autistic person being helped to integrate in society if he or she is allowed to behave in a manner that may be seen by others as anti-social?

When we have so many autistic self-advocates wanting equality, shouldn’t we give them that equality by saying that we expect autistics to live up to the same rules and expectations that we have for anyone else with or without any kind of diagnoses?

Okay, maybe we should ignore autistic self-advocates, because it seems to Autism Politico that they are hypocritical.  For some odd reason, in this fight, most autistic advocates seem to be on the side of the parents.

But the point is, while it is perplexing that a child would prefer making noise to being quiet, when it is so much easier to stay quiet, the really perplexing thing is when adults who know better do nothing to stop the anti-social behavior when they should be doing something to stop it.

But as we have said…

You cannot blame poor parenting on anyone but parents who are parenting poorly.

Replies to this editorial are welcome.