Coffee shops vs toddlers

Thought I'd pass this along. I'm not sure what to think about the article [you'll need to complete free registration at NYTimes.com to read it], but it's worth reading.

On the one hand, I agree with the business owners and patrons who are frustrated by parents who seem to feel that the price of coffee and a muffin entitles them to community daycare (i.e., Here's my ill-mannered progeny, mind watching him while I drink this latte and read the paper? I'll be in the back). Even worse, in my mind, are the sit-down correcters --- those parents who call in plays from the sidelines rather than actually getting up from their coffee and paper to stop their child from kindling a small fire near the magazine rack.

On the other hand, some of the incidents recounted in the piece, particularly the one from the self-described feminist bookstore that asked a breastfeeding mother to leave, seem to defy both belief and common-sense.

Of course it's no fun to have to listen to a toddler crying while you drink your coffee. But it's also no fun to have to listen to some middle management investment banker master-of-the-universe-type declaim how drunk he was the night before on his cell phone. However, nobody seems to be putting up signs about this.

I worked for a while at a coffee bar, which is a great spot for observing the human condition. Among the more pernicious effects of the show Friends --- aside from the apparent nosferatu nature of the Joey character [this guy has been on TV almost as long as Cronkite at this point] --- would have to be the idea that coffee shops are places to spend a whole day.

In the world of television, this is pretty benign because it means a bunch of telegenic twenty-somethings hanging out and essentially extending dorm life into the "real world."

In the actual "real world," as anyone who has ever worn an apron and made espresso drinks for 8-hour shifts can tell you, what this translates to is a kind of day camp for the socially retarded, who come, spend $1.50 on coffee, dismantle the entire Sunday Times without purchasing it, and generally prove Newton's first law.

I'll take unruly toddlers over these people any day.