quiddities and agonies of the ruling class - a rolling new york times thread

http://frostyfreds.com/images/frostyfred1.jpg

but people still take their kids to Taco Bell ...

I think the parents in that article only serve organic gluten free tacos prepared by the nanny/housekeeper.

i totally agree with these parents

yall think this is fun and games until u live in a family neighborhood and u hear the mfing jingle btw 2pm and 6pm every day

for the sake of argument, how is this different from parents being pissed about companies like mcdonald's advertising during saturday morning cartoons (something that i can understand, personally)?

just "tradition"?

yeah if i was a parent in a neighb frequented by these ding dongs i would probably get mad pretty quickly, unless i was trying to kill my children slowly w/ trans fat and shit

http://gawker.com/5341401/ice-cream-man+hating-food-nazi-sells-fried-candy-bars-in-her-brooklyn-restaurant

i dunno, i don't these parents as reprehensible as people highlighted in other NYT stories above; they seem pretty reasonable

don't find these parents, obv

i agree

I don't find them "reprehensible" ... I just find them delusional.

why?

ice cream men, fuckin vultures i tell you

xp - because they want to impose an unrealistic level of control over their environment and their children.

look at them, out in public spaces, on hot days, with their cold refreshing treats

won't anybody think of the children??

eh it doesn't seem 'unrealistic' to me but i don't really care enough to get in an argument about it.

I think it's unrealistic to try and prevent kids that want ice cream from getting ice cream.

ha ha

i can't make a sweeping generalization about all the concerned parents in this article because they seem to each have their own reasons, but taking the fight to city hall because your kid gets upset when you deny him ice creams is all sorts of nonsense

xpost yes that

I mean, it's kinda like those fundamentalist parents that complain about their kids being exposed to nudity and sex, and demand that society/culture do everything in its power to do so.

I don't know that it's unrealistic, actually -- to be honest I think the ice cream people know full well not only how they affect kids, but also that there's a level of triggering that kid-response where you're going to start to annoy and put out parents, and that there might come a point where parents start to hate and resent you and find you annoying and predatory. Some of the people in the article seem pretty rational about saying ice cream is fine, but there's a point where you're ringing the kids' bells all day long and it's not cool anymore.

I can completely understand that, and I don't think there's anything unrealistic about trying to exercise control of it -- the same way people exercise control over everything else in their environment, like noise levels or where you can take your dog or where hot-dog vendors can set up.

I think it's unrealistic to try and prevent kids that want ice cream from getting ice cream.

^^ this is a joke, right?

No, I'm serious. There are things that kids are gonna want to do, whether out of innate tastes and desires or the culture they exist in that aren't particularly harmful, that a realistic/mentally healthy parent should accept. I'm not arguing that they should allow their kids to have ice cream whenever they want, but it's better to teach your kid healthy ways to exist within society, than to try to keep them apart from it.

i don't think anyone in the article was saying they want their kids to never have ice cream?

i still think these parents' kids are gonna end up with fucked up eating habits/relationships to food.

Umm, yeah, what n/a said.

And if you're a realistic/sane person in charge of a child, there will come some point at which they want ice cream and you have to deny it to them. If omnipresent ice cream trucks mean you spend half your day doing this, it will probably start to get annoying.

And I'm assuming that ice cream trucks, like anything else that sells food in a city, have to get some kind of license or approval from the city. Which means that if they're hovering and ubiquitous all around the few NYC spaces you can take kids, and that starts negatively affecting people's quality of life, it's perfectly sensible to say hey, we need to license fewer of them or regulate their operations or something so it's possible to take a kid out of the house without the whole afternoon being an ice cream battle.

Oh wait, sorry, the main woman quoted was pissed off at the unlicensed ones and figured she couldn't do crap about the licensed ones -- I mean geez, she is basically asking for enforcement of existing rules so she less often has to deal with an I-want-treats tantrum, which c'mon, is not too hard to understand

And if you're a realistic/sane person in charge of a child, there will come some point at which they want ice cream and you have to deny it to them. If omnipresent ice cream trucks mean you spend half your day doing this, it will probably start to get annoying.

But isn't a significant aspect of parenting denying things to one's children that they want? I mean, it isn't like they're gonna want ice cream every minute of the day. There's a finite amount of ice cream a kid can eat.

yeah i can maybe understand drugdealin' / hygiene / air pollution concerns but banning ice cream trucks isn't going to stop kids from incidentally eating processed food, throwing tantrums, or annoying their parents.

I guess I'm arguing more on the principle than on the specifics ...

in the summer, the park near my house constantly has at least 2, sometimes 3 unlicensed ice cream trucks. that play christmas carols. i have yet to hear anything about this dire threat to our children from the neighborhood association or anyone else

give em the fucking cone

No one quoted in the article seems to object to ice cream on health grounds -- they object cause when kids see an ice cream truck they want ice cream, and if that happens every five minutes it is going to get kinda tiring.

Yeah, Sarah, part of parenting young kids is going to involve having to say "no, you can't have that" a lot of the time. But that can be kind of a hassle, and if vendors are constantly introducing that hassle into your day, you might kinda want to do basic civic stuff to reduce it, right? Like getting rid of unlicensed ones, or making rules about how close they can set up to playgrounds, or any number of little quality-of-life rules. It's not about denying kids ice cream, it's about creating a pleasant environment where there's not someone on every corner trying to sell your kid something you need to regulate.

It just seems like better parenting to me - unless the kid is lactose intolerant or something - to set rules about it, like "you can have ice cream from the truck once a week." or if it's really hot and miserable ... or if you do your chores, etc.

but the thing is, American culture is all about constantly wanting to sell you and your kids something.

yeah and that's annoying!

how else am I going to hear jingle bells 20 times in july

xp - definitely ... I guess what irks me about this story is the implication that the parents don't have anything more serious to worry about, and the associations of this type of behavior with other behaviors that I see as more dysfunctional.

it's about creating a pleasant environment where there's not someone on every corner trying to sell your kid something

why do you hate america

you can have ice cream from the truck once a week." or if it's really hot and miserable ... or if you do your chores, etc.

Doubting you were ever actually 5 years old. That's just silly.

I mean, look, it's not a "better parenting" issue -- you can set rules and stick to them, but young kids are young kids, and when the ice cream vendor comes by they may get distracted and tug your sleeve and whine and plead or throw fits. Whether you're an awesome, patient parent or not, this may annoy you. (Exactly the same way it's annoying if you tell them no candy and then a relative goes pushing candy at them and making you be the patient no-fun bad-guy about it.) It just makes your day less nice, you know? And so if there are already rules about vendor licensing and whatnot, why wouldn't you say hey, can we enforce these? Because these vendors are always around making my day less pleasant. I don't think that's laziness, it's just quality of life.

xpost - okay sure, I would agree with you that this is a pretty pleasant thing to have way up on your list of worries. there are a bunch of parents in that neighborhood, though, and one main park to take them to, and if you happen to be a stay-at-home parent, well, this would be something that might annoy you every day, all summer. It's better than being poor or sick or living around crime, but hey, if that's what's wrong in your life...

I wish there wuz a rule so hot dog vendors would be forced to grill instead of boil those fuckers

xp - laurel - when I was five, and watched Saturday morning cartoons I had a natural desire for all the cereals advertised on cartoons, and my mom made the rule that she wouldn't buy me cereal where some form of sugar was the first or second ingredient. Basically, I'm just saying, that if a parent sets guidelines like those you quoted, they have a stronger vantage point to argue from than just "because I said no."

some rumpie-levels of ice cream h8 goin on here, disappointed tbh

xpost - but they are still, in your own terms, "arguing," which is less pleasant than if your kid just kept playing with the other children

(although I will say that yes, there really should come some point of late-summer ice-cream omnipresence where the drill is down and your kid has figured out whether or not you're buying)

xp but my point is, that the kid is probably gonna be arguing and wanting something ... like if it isn't the nearby ice cream truck, it's going to mcdonalds or wearing a particular shirt or something.

no, no no, nabisco. parents need to set limits for their kids when it comes to sweets, this is 100% a parenting issue. part of being an effective -- forget about awesome -- parent is not giving in to whining and pleading and throwing fits. kids are bombarded with so many sugar/junk food temptations -- not just from rogue ice cream vendors but TV commercials -- that parents just giving into them with convenience sake...well, you've read the statistics about obesity. teaching your kids healthy eating is more important than ever. i know that sounds corny, but it's true.

when you think about what was going on in NYC parks/playgrounds a couple decades ago, ridding the world of ice cream vendors is laughable.

she is basically asking for enforcement of existing rules so she less often has to deal with an I-want-treats tantrum . . . they object cause when kids see an ice cream truck they want ice cream, and if that happens every five minutes it is going to get kinda tiring.

See but the problem is they're raising the kind of kids who throw an I-want-treats tantrum every damned time they hear the bells on the truck, even though they've already been explicitly told "No." These kinds of children are commonly referred to as "poorly-behaved," and it's almost always the fault of parents who can't set boundaries. My sister and I didn't have super-parents by any stretch of the imagination, but we didn't behave like that, and neither did most kids I knew.

don't these people have better things to worry about, you know, like what pre-school their little max and sasha are going to get into