Kids in the news

Stories like this one, on MSNBC this afternoon, both make me incredibly sad because they point to the low valuation society puts on its own future (via devaluing children) and guarantee youth ministers, child psychologists their jobs for many years to come:

"Across the nation, there are signs of a low-burning uprising against children supposedly behaving badly in public.
Eateries from California to Massachusetts have posted signs on doors and menus saying “We love children, especially when they are tucked in chairs and well behaved” or “Kids must use indoor voices.” In North Carolina an online petition was started last year to establish child-free restaurants — the petition loosely compared dining with children to dining with cigarette smoke."

I agree with the need for proper behavior in public; at the same time, I call for people to understand that children are messy, noisy and expensive and that's just the way it is.