JayLi Ming, a newsreader in the 80s, suddenly found himself in the spotlight again without, strictly speaking, needing to do so. Instead, she appears to have unwittingly appeared on episodes of Supernanny that never aired on TV, giving advice to parents on how to raise their children. Or, more accurately, how not to do it.
Last week, Leeming took to social media to complain that a friend’s birthday lunch at The Pig in Bridge Place, near Canterbury, had been "a bit ruined by a screaming child”. She explained: “One kid was really threatening. He was often allowed to wander around and scream. The parents were unaware of the other customers.”
She told Times Radio on Saturday that too many mothers and fathers treat their children "like little princes or princesses. Many of them are allowed to run riot.” She added that children should be trained like dogs to behave when out in public. “Unfortunately, if you have children, it is your responsibility to teach them to be socially acceptable.”
This opinion has understandably proven deeply unpopular, perhaps not helped by comparisons to dogs and images of young people tapping their noses with rolled-up newspapers. Still, Liming is right.
One of the main jobs of parents is to teach their children not to be bad people. If you do this successfully, when they grow up and spend time with humans who love them unconditionally and forgive them for nothing, they will be able to make friends, have good relationships with their peers, and find a partner if they want. They will be comfortable with the reality that they are not the center of the universe and will be kind and considerate. In order to function well in society later, we need to let our children know now when they are selfish, irritable, or acting inappropriately.
Of course, for some neurodiverse children, sitting quietly in a restaurant is impossible, so obviously this does not apply to them.
This is not “seen and not heard.” We’re not making unfair demands, we’re just asking you to behave like everyone else on the train, at the cinema, or in the shops. No screaming when they are in the restaurant. Please take a seat. If they can’t manage it, we have to get out of there. Now more than ever, eating out is a treat, not a basic human right. There’s a particularly family-friendly restaurant full of kids willing to tolerate carnage and chaos, and everyone who goes there knows the deal. But in any adult facility, children who can’t follow the rules (and let’s face it, few toddlers can) should be avoided for the good of everyone involved.
What most people forget is that no one is more eager than parents to shut up their children when they cause a disturbance in public. They are fully aware of things their offspring may not notice or care about. Everyone in this room hates us. Such insights are much easier to understand when delivered gently by someone who loves you. So it’s up to mom and dad.
Any adult who listens to music loudly without headphones, doesn’t say thank you at a crosswalk, or puts his feet up in a public transportation seat where other people should be sitting was probably hooked on a restaurant as a child. Civilization For the future of civilization, it must stop.
It reminds me of a social experiment detailed in the Guardian by Hannah Ewens. He decided to politely suggest that people who play content out loud use headphones whenever he gets the chance. She reported that they generally responded well. “They take on one of two faces: either they look like they’ve woken up from a century’s sleep, or they look shocked at themselves, like they don’t know how they got to this moment.”
They did not actively try to upset their fellow travelers or were intentionally thoughtless and self-centered, and the thought that they were harassing anyone did not appear to have occurred to them. They weren’t "bad dogs,” just untrained dogs.
Ewens explained that one man immediately blushed and said, "Oh my God, I’m sorry. I was in my own little world.” That’s what we need to teach our children. It’s not just your own little world, it’s yours and mine, Jan Leeming’s world, and the world of about 8 billion other people. Please share nicely.
Polly Hudson is a freelance writer.