Public Behavior
I’m sitting at an IHOP restaurant, and I hear a harmonica. What a fabulous sound to hear in public in the middle of the day! It’s not a “good” player; it’s just someone having fun blowing on the instrument. I look around for the source of the joyous sound, and I spot the little boy just as a woman leans over to him and snaps “You can’t do that here! I’m going to have to take it away!” The harmonica disappeared, and I felt a little bit sad for its absence.
Why “can’t” the child play the harmonica in a restaurant? The general reason is something about politeness and “acceptable” or “appropriate” public behavior. Who decides these rules, though? Where are they written? How many people actually agree with them? There’s a huge body of information that relates to what you’re supposed to do or not do in public, but there’s no oversight for these rules and it can be hard to examine them or change them.
Now, I can imagine that some people would be annoyed by a child playing a harmonica in public. How will you know whether those people are even present? I wanted to hear the harmonica. What if the other 18 people in the restaurant did, too, or at least didn’t really care one way or the other? What if this child was squelched for a reason that didn’t really exist? Assuming that you care about the opinions of others on this matter at all, do you have to choose between possibly bothering some people and possibly controlling the kid for no good reason? Is there another option that makes room for something other than automatically following the unspoken rules?
The other 18 of us were sitting at 6 tables, which isn’t so many. What if the kid went around and asked us if we minded if he played his harmonica? If we all said no, he could happily play without his adult companion stressing out. If some of us said that yes, we minded, he could not play, and his adult person could be confident that her desire for him to stop playing related to the actual preferences of the other people present.
To me, this seems like a great solution. However, I can imagine some of the objections. One, people might not be willing to tell a child that they don’t want him to play. And two, people might not want to be bothered by a question about something that “everyone knows” you shouldn’t do in public. I scoff at both of these suggestions. Number one says that people aren’t capable of being honest toward a simple question about their preferences. That sounds like their problem! And number two means that people expect other people to be psychic, constantly alert to any aspect of their behavior that might upset anyone else. What a ridiculous expectation to have of the people around you!
I would prefer to take the solution a step further. Rather than be prohibited from an activity that his adult guessed might be annoying to someone present, and rather than ask permission for his potentially annoying behavior, I think the kid should just play away. If someone is annoyed, I’d rather the responsibility fell to them to either suck it up or to ask the child to stop, and then attempt to negotiate a resolution.
People generally doing what they want and straightforwardly speaking up about their preferences sounds to me like a much better way of going about things than all of us running around trying to remember at all times the immense list of possible irritants to other people.
Doesn’t that sound like a better idea to you?
PS - The child in question just hopped up to stand on his seat, and the adult in question leaned over and hissed, “Christians sit!” A few more issues going on there than whether or not the kid can play his harmonica in public, huh?
This post has 6 comments
June 23rd, 2009
I agree with you 99% of the time, but not in this case. I find badly behaved children a nuisance, but more importantly, parents who feel that little Johnny is ENTITLED to do whatever he wants whenever he wants… deplorable. There are acceptable childish behaviours, but on the whole, I think it’s very important to teach children to be cognizant of the people around them and to not be distubing or annoying. Sure, he has a right to kick the seat in front of him on a plane, but the person in that seat has a right to not only have a kick-free seat, but shouldn’t have to ASK for that.
It’s hard to come up with a standard of “acceptable childish behaviour” but I think on the whole, too many parents think that little Johnny’s harmonica playing is delightful, when in actuality, it is not. There are plenty of places for kids to be kids… their home, for example. Public places should have certain standards. I commend the mother for quieting her rowdy kid. Most parents don’t.
June 24th, 2009
i enjoyed your post from june 18th titled “Eat Food.” this post began, “I’m sitting at an IHOP restaurant,.”
tsk tsk.
June 25th, 2009
@apathetic Haha. That’s what happens when I load up posts in advance. This post actually occurred prior to the Eat Food post, I just post-dated it. Ooops!
June 25th, 2009
@Jo There are two different directions from which I’d like to address your comment.
One is about the behavior of children specifically. For some reason, children get a lot of hatred from many adults. Where one might not be annoyed at, say, an old person walking “too slowly” though the line or a mentally disabled person speaking “too loudly” in public, when the behavior is coming from a child, suddenly people get very indignant. Children are a different type of person, to be sure, with different behavioral characteristics, but they are also people, and have just as much right to be out in public as any other kind of person. You say, “There are plenty of places for kids to be kids… their home, for example.” Why should children be restricted to being themselves only in their homes or pre-approved “kid spaces”. Public spaces are for the public - of which children make up 20% - and it’s strangely discriminatory to wish they would either not be there or would hide their state of being. Why not say, “There are plenty of places where I can have my environment be just as I like it… My home, for example,” rather than striving for the unrealistic expectation that classes of people that you don’t like won’t be present when you go out into the place designed for all classes of people?
My second issue is just about behavior consensus in general. I clearly stated in this post that I really liked the harmonica playing and was sad when it stopped. You say, in response to people who think the harmonica playing is delightful, “In actuality, it is not.” You state that as if it’s a fact. What you mean is that you, personally, disagree, since the playing is clearly delightful to some people. In this example, at least two people - me and the kid - LOVED the music. If you had been present in the restaurant, there would be at least two people - you and Mom - who didn’t love the music. You can’t just state that it isn’t delightful, objectively.
I argued that, “People generally doing what they want and straightforwardly speaking up about their preferences,” was a better way of determining public behavior. You sound like you would prefer the current standard, which is all of us trying to remember a long checklist of things that MIGHT bother other people and making sure not to do them all, even if we have guessed wrong. Have I interpreted you correctly?
While I, too, would love to never be annoyed when I’m out in public, when I make explicit the values involved, it becomes clear to me that being annoyed is preferable to the alternative. I would rather that people feel free to express themselves, that people feel generally non-controlled, and that people do NOT feel responsible for guessing my desires than for me to always be free from annoyance.
June 25th, 2009
Lots to ponder!!
First off, let me just say that I have a bad habit… I lovelovelove loud music. Like cranked to 11. I love it so that my ears bleed. I also like 80s hair bands, heavy metal, like Journey and old Van Halen. I fully 100% understand that this, generally speaking, is fairly socially unacceptable. I might like it, but it’s fair to assume that most people don’t want to hear my music at my volume. I *only* listen to this music at this volume in my car on the highway. I do not listen to it like that at home, and I certainly would understand if my neighbours came a-knocking if I did. Further, public places are supposed to be for the benefit of all, or at the very least, the majority, and my love of loud Van Halen should not trump the majority’s dislike of it.
I suppose a Van Halen concert would be the one time this does not apply. I would assume an IHOP is a place where this would be unacceptable.
I grew up in a VERY passive family that never spoke up when they didn’t like something. They never felt they had the right to. They felt like other people’s desires were more important than their own. I sort of developed this way by osmosis, and it was years later, through a lot of therapy and Al Anon and such that I realized I have the RIGHT to [bleed, lol, speak, think, fill in the blank], and my desires are JUST as valid as everyone else’s. I don’t have to sit by passively and hope the racket quietens, the drunk passes out, the kid stops playing the harmonica… I can ACTIVELY state my desires, and I can also live in a world where there is some semblance of basic courtesy being extended to everyone. I abide by it, and so do the others. We respect each other’s boundaries — boundaries of sound, touch, sight. I don’t have porn as my screensaver because some people don’t want to see that. I don’t blast my arena rock in the parking lot because some people don’t want to hear it. There is a ‘common sense’ approach to what is acceptable and what is not. I don’t think I tiptoe around or spend a lot of time worrying about what other people might want or not want. I use my common sense, but moreover, I abide by the “do unto others” attitude, and I don’t inflict upon others what I would not inflict upon myself.
I agree completely, btw, with you — it was very presumtuous of me to say that the harmonica playing was not delightful. I should have said “not delightful to me, or most people I know”. I’m sure Helix blasting at top volume is not delightful at top volume to most people, although it is to me.
I have learned in my lifetime to speak up, and express when other people’s behaviour is annoying me. It’s sad but true that one ‘no’ trumps a roomful of ‘yesses’ but that’s how it goes. Due to one person’s allergy to perfume, no one in the office can wear it. If one person didn’t like the kid’s harmonica playing, even if everyone else did, it would have to stop.
I guess I just feel that although I’ve developed into the kind of person who can speak up for myself, I KNOW and sympathize with people like my parents or the person I used to be who CAN’T. They suffer in silence, and although I often think “grow a backbone and speak up”, I do try and not inflict my racket on people who might not be comfortable with conflict and wouldn’t know how to tell me to quiet down.
July 9th, 2009
kudos to Jo for working in a Helix reference! No Rest for the Wicked! Iron Eagle soundtrack!!!
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