The general decline in standards today

[LizzieMaine]

Yes indeed, one party rule is not a modern innovation. Wasn't until Mr. Muskie came along that that changed.

 

[sheeplady]

I always try to give parents a big benefit of the doubt if out and about, especially if they are trying or look flustered. Sometimes your angel that was perfect in the car starts to get anxious that their delicious food is not coming because it is slow, and no snacks or toys will entertain him/her, so there is a bit of loud noise until you can get them calmed down. Also, I consider the venue. While food throwing and screaming is never acceptable, I honestly expect lots of kids and kiddish behavior in a place like Friendly's, less so in an "adult" establishment.

With our daughter, we tend to only go to places that are kid friendly or that she REALLY likes. For instance, my daughter really likes Ruby Tuesdays. As in, it is her FAVORITE restaurant EVER because of the salad bar. We can expect perfect behavior from her there, because *salad bar.* I swear she loves it.

***********************************************

As far as the children issue, given the fact that there are myriad of ways to get kids if one really wants children, I think one can safely assume that a couple that is childless chose that path. Even if adoption is closed to you because of health conditions; there is always the option of fostering. While the child may never be legally yours if the parent's rights are not severed, many families have long term fostering arrangements with children up until adulthood. And many children are eventually legally adopted out of foster care into the families in which they live.

I understand the pain of infertility for couples that really want children; I truly do. I am very sorry that anyone ever has to face that.

I am not saying that adoption or fostering is easy. I think it is much harder than having your own. But on the other hand, if a couple REALLY wants children in general (as opposed to biological children), there are avenues for having children.

 

[Edward]

What I hate is when I'm out eating somewhere and some 2-4 year-old in the next booth is staring at me. It really creeps me out.

Me too. I put it down to having seen The Omen at an impressionable age.

I hear that one quite a bit..."you don't have kids in school there, why do you care?" Because I'm paying for it.

"Madam, your child's behaviour concerns me greatly, for one day I shall be in a nursing home, paying for him to wipe my a**e...."

Interestingly, not many parents are thrilled even when you say of someone else's child: "Well, you can have a degree of sympathy with that Woodward girl...", but then I've always acknowledged that my sense of humour veers towards the dark.

 

[LizzieMaine]

One thing that's important to keep in mind is that it's only really since the postwar era that children have been particularly welcome in restaurants at all. In prewar America, restaurants were almost exclusively an adult environment, and didn't cater to families with children at all. The downtown lunchrooms, cafes, and diners dealt primarily with the workday lunch crowd, and if one was located near a factory it got heavy patronage from shift workers looking for a late supper or an early breakfast. The "tea rooms" were the sole province of the middle-class "ladies who lunch" crowd. Roadhouses were for couples looking to have some casual nighttime fun, usually with alcohol involved. Dinner houses, which were the main type of upscale restaurants, catered largely to "occasion" customers, who were going out to dine and dance in style. A child would be no more welcome in the average dinner house c. 1939 than a dog. And urban hotel restaurants and night clubs were exclusively adult -- children were generally barred from the premises by official policy.

You might see children more often in the type of roadside restaurant that catered to travelers. These were often attached to a motor court or a tourist camp, or might be affiliates of a chain like Howard Johnson's. These types of restaurants were designed for people who needed to grab a quick, simple meal on the go, and the whole experience was geared to *eating* rather than *dining.* Nobody stood at formality in a place like this -- often the meals revolved around fried seafood or fried chicken, which could be eaten quickly with the fingers -- and noisy kids would be considered just part of the atmosphere.

The other type of restaurant where you might expect to find kids on a regular basis would be the downtown drugstore soda fountain/lunch counter, which were commonly frequented by children after school and on lunch breaks from school. These were unsupervised kids, and usually were so absorbed in consuming whatever sugar-laden product was on the agenda for that day that they weren't likely to get into any trouble.

It was the postwar era that saw the explosion of "family restaurants," which were very much a trend catering to the baby boomers and their parents. One of the things I like to accumulate is restaurant menus of the Era, and I've never seen anything even resembling a "children's menu" on any of these until the sixties. I'm looking right now at the Manhattan yellow pages for 1944, and of the twenty full pages of restaurant listings, I don't see a single place, among all the Bars and Grilles, Chop Houses, Gypsy Tea Rooms, Tap Rooms, Sandwich Shoppes, and Banquet Houses, that specifically includes the phrase "Family Restaurant" in its name. That's obviously not definitive in determining the kinds of places these were, but it does suggest that the family crowd was not something that was widely or actively sought at that particular time.

 

[1961MJS]

"Madam, your child's behaviour concerns me greatly, for one day I shall be in a nursing home, paying for him to wipe my a**e....."

GAWD, I have to tell everybody to remember this one. I LOVE it. My kids are 27 and 24, and act slightly better at restaurants than they did when they were 4.

Later

 

[HudsonHawk]

One thing that's important to keep in mind is that it's only really since the postwar era that children have been particularly welcome in restaurants at all. In prewar America, restaurants were almost exclusively an adult environment, and didn't cater to families with children at all...

This was the norm in my family all the time. My parents rarely ate out, and when they did the idea of taking us kids along was laughable. I can count on one hand the times we all "went out to eat", and most of those were probably when my grandparents were visiting.

 

[LizzieMaine]

There's an interesting scene in Herman Wouk's 1946 novel "The City Boy," the tale of a middle-class Jewish boy named Herbie, who lives in the Bronx in 1928 with his family. The story, which is based largely on Wouk's own childhood, includes a scene in which Herbie, who is twelve years old, is taken out to a restaurant meal by his father, who has decided it's time for his boy to learn the ways of the grown-up world. The waiter is cold and unwelcoming, and poor Herbie ends up eating a meal of boiled haddock because nobody will take the time or trouble to explain the menu to him. It's evident from the way this scene plays out that this is the very first time Herbie has ever seen the inside of a restaurant, and that his presence there is intended a rite of passage into adult life.

 

[ChiTownScion]

One thing that's important to keep in mind is that it's only really since the postwar era that children have been particularly welcome in restaurants at all.

I was a boy chorister in a choir of some renown, founded in 1904. There was a lot of emphasis on how we conducted ourselves in public and maintaining a proper image as professionals. We'd usually dress in coats and ties whenever we travelled, and discipline was maintained by our director who was a tyrant. We always stayed at better hotels (2 to a room- no more) and dined in better restaurants. Under pain of death, we never so much as stole a bath towel or broke a water glass when we stayed in a hotel or resort.

And none of this originated in the mid- 1960's when I was in: it went back to the time of the First World War when the choir toured the nation for six months as part of a fund raising tour for war relief and Liberty Bonds. From what I read and heard, they appeared as part of a vaudeville circuit in cities and small towns across the United States, travelling by Pullman and being tutored by school teachers who signed up for the tour.

A number of the boy sopranos were from some pretty rough South Side Chicago neighborhoods, so there was nothing particularly upper or middle class about their origins. They may have sung like angels, but they could act like little thugs and curse worse than street hoodlums when adults were not within earshot. More than one appeared on stage in concert with black eyes and swollen noses after fist fights. Nevertheless, we were always expected to be courteous and well behaved when we dined with the group. It was an interesting alternative to a normal childhood.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Obviously, though, groups of touring entertainers were experiencing a way of life far different from that of the ordinary American family. Those strict requirements were likely in place due to the reputation of touring kid acts in the early twentieth century -- actors ranked just above vermin in terms of the way they were viewed by hotel managers and restaurant proprietors, and kid performers had to be watched very closely to ensure that they didn't pick up any of the habits known to be common on the road. Ultra-strict discipline would have been absolutely necessary, not just to ensure the performers were welcome in the better hotels and restaurants, but also to keep the Gerry Society off the backs of the proprietors of the choir.

 

[Fading Fast]

There's an interesting scene in Herman Wouk's 1946 novel "The City Boy," the tale of a middle-class Jewish boy named Herbie, who lives in the Bronx in 1928 with his family. The story, which is based largely on Wouk's own childhood, includes a scene in which Herbie, who is twelve years old, is taken out to a restaurant meal by his father, who has decided it's time for his boy to learn the ways of the grown-up world. The waiter is cold and unwelcoming, and poor Herbie ends up eating a meal of boiled haddock because nobody will take the time or trouble to explain the menu to him. It's evident from the way this scene plays out that this is the very first time Herbie has ever seen the inside of a restaurant, and that his presence there is intended a rite of passage into adult life.

Great connect to the thread - nicely done. More broadly, Herman Wouk is a treasure of time travel or GE cultural reality as his novels captured so much nuance of the period. I started on "Winds of War" an worked my way through about half his novels, up to and including a wonderful little novel on the Higgs Boson, "A Little Hole in Texas." He's had an impressively long career. Next to "Winds of War," the "Caine Mutiny" is a fantastic novel of his. Also, "Aurora Dawn" is a neat early Wouk novel where you can see him still developing as a author.

 

[Harp]

it was Andrew Wyeth's favorite movie, and its esthetic played an important role in the development of his artistic style. Our local museum, which largely exists for the greater glory of all things Wyeth, has so far resisted my suggestion that they sponsor a screening. Their loss.

Wyeth always recalls Whitman-In the labor of engines and trades and the labor of fields I find the developments.
And find the eternal meanings. What museum is this please?

 

[LizzieMaine]

Farnsworth Art Museum and Wyeth Center in Rockland -- it's right across the street from the theatre. It's a big complex spreading over several buildings downtown, and has an impressive collection of works by N. C., Andrew, and Jamie. It can be recognized in the summer by the gigantic EAT sign on the roof, which as I always have to explain to visitors, is actually a sculpture by Robert Indiana, not an indication that Wyethburgers are sold in the gift shop.

I used to often see Andrew standing in line at the local hot dog stand, and Jamie and his brother Nicky are occasional patrons at the theatre. There's a lot of Wyethana sites around this area, including the famous Olson house of "Christina's World" fame, which is just a fifteen-minute drive from here.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Great connect to the thread - nicely done. More broadly, Herman Wouk is a treasure of time travel or GE cultural reality as his novels captured so much nuance of the period. I started on "Winds of War" an worked my way through about half his novels, up to and including a wonderful little novel on the Higgs Boson, "A Little Hole in Texas." He's had an impressively long career. Next to "Winds of War," the "Caine Mutiny" is a fantastic novel of his. Also, "Aurora Dawn" is a neat early Wouk novel where you can see him still developing as a author.

Aurora Dawn was a lot of fun, and Caine Mutiny was one of my grandfather's favorite books. I read "City Boy" in the eighth grade and immediate fell in love with Herbie. He's a goofy little schlemiel, but he's got a good heart and wins out in the end.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

I took an art class in high school and our final was about Andrew Wyeth.

 

[pawineguy]

Farnsworth Art Museum and Wyeth Center in Rockland -- it's right across the street from the theatre. It's a big complex spreading over several buildings downtown, and has an impressive collection of works by N. C., Andrew, and Jamie. It can be recognized in the summer by the gigantic EAT sign on the roof, which as I always have to explain to visitors, is actually a sculpture by Robert Indiana, not an indication that Wyethburgers are sold in the gift shop.

I used to often see Andrew standing in line at the local hot dog stand, and Jamie and his brother Nicky are occasional patrons at the theatre. There's a lot of Wyethana sites around this area, including the famous Olson house of "Christina's World" fame, which is just a fifteen-minute drive from here.

They have done a remarkable job at his "other" home in Chadds Ford (Birmingham) PA, in preserving his family home, studios (both his and his father's), the Kuerner Farm, and by expanding the Brandywine River Museum. Well worth a visit if anyone who's a fan is anywhere near the Philadelphia area.

 

[Harp]

Farnsworth Art Museum and Wyeth Center in Rockland -- including the famous Olson house of "Christina's World" fame, which is just a fifteen-minute drive from here.

Thanks Liz, I seem to recall Martha Teichner had a CBS Sunday Morning piece on the museum, many years ago.
The portrait Christina's World hung inside my fifth grade classroom. Brings back memories.

 

[Jack Vincennes]

Great connect to the thread - nicely done. More broadly, Herman Wouk is a treasure of time travel or GE cultural reality as his novels captured so much nuance of the period. I started on "Winds of War" an worked my way through about half his novels, up to and including a wonderful little novel on the Higgs Boson, "A Little Hole in Texas." He's had an impressively long career. Next to "Winds of War," the "Caine Mutiny" is a fantastic novel of his. Also, "Aurora Dawn" is a neat early Wouk novel where you can see him still developing as a author.

When I was an underclassman in college I read a lot of Wouk. "Margerie Morningstar" taught me a lot about women.

 

[Stearmen]

Once and for all, the general decline in society did not star recently! It started when men stopped wearing Breeches and started wearing Trousers!

 

[Dennis Young]

You don't have much historical background, do you? Code words. Sort of like a reference to a fellow who wears a red necktie, or a Jellybean. This stuff needs to be understood in its historical context. When you've read a couple of decades running of turn-of-the-century magazines and immerse yourself in the popular culture of the day, which was very different from either post-war or late pre-war popular culture you will better understand.

I majored in History in College. You read into that article what you like.
This is an article that was written 100 years or more ago. Something tells me though that the author of the article would have no problem using the term homosexual or gay if that’s what he meant. (Actually he probably would have used the term ‘queer’).
I referred to the type as ‘sissy’ because that’s what I meant. If I’d meant gay, I’d have said gay. I’ve no problem with that. But I used the term ‘sissy’ for a reason.

 

[Dennis Young]

Once and for all, the general decline in society did not star recently! It started when men stopped wearing Breeches and started wearing Trousers!

Lol Or the Mullet.

Yeah, it was all their fault. lol