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<BLOCKQUOTE class=replbq style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid">> November 9, 2005<BR>> At Center of a Clash, Rowdy Children in Coffee Shops<BR>> By JODI WILGOREN<BR>><BR>> CHICAGO, Nov. 8 - Bridget Dehl shushed her<BR>> 21-month-old son, Gavin, then clapped a hand over his<BR>> mouth to squelch his tiny screams amid the Sunday<BR>> brunch bustle. When Gavin kept yelping "yeah, yeah,<BR>> yeah," Ms. Dehl whisked him from his highchair and out<BR>> the door.<BR>><BR>> Right past the sign warning the cafe's customers that<BR>> "children of all ages have to behave and use their<BR>> indoor voices when coming to A Taste of Heaven," and<BR>> right into a nasty spat roiling the stroller set in<BR>> Chicago's changing Andersonville neighborhood.<BR>><BR>> The owner of A Taste of Heaven, Dan McCauley, said he<BR>> posted the sign - at child level, with playful<BR>> handprints - in the hope of
quieting his tin-ceilinged<BR>> cafe, where toddlers have been known to sprawl between<BR>> tables and hurl themselves at display cases for sport.<BR>><BR>> But many neighborhood mothers took umbrage at the<BR>> implied criticism of how they handle their children.<BR>> Soon, whispers of a boycott passed among the<BR>> playgroups in this North Side neighborhood, once an<BR>> outpost of avant-garde artists and hip gay couples but<BR>> now a hot real estate market for young professional<BR>> families shunning the suburbs.<BR>><BR>> "I love people who don't have children who tell you<BR>> how to parent," said Alison Miller, 35, a<BR>> psychologist, corporate coach and mother of two. "I'd<BR>> love for him to be responsible for three children for<BR>> the next year and see if he can control the volume of<BR>> their voices every minute of the day."<BR>><BR>> Mr. McCauley, 44, said the protesting parents were<BR>> "former
cheerleaders and beauty queens" who "have a<BR>> very strong sense of entitlement." In an open letter<BR>> he handed out at the bakery, he warned of an<BR>> "epidemic" of antisocial behavior.<BR>><BR>> "Part of parenting skills is teaching kids they behave<BR>> differently in a restaurant than they do on the<BR>> playground," Mr. McCauley said in an interview. "If<BR>> you send out positive energy, positive energy returns<BR>> to you. If you send out energy that says I'm the only<BR>> one that matters, it's going to be a pretty chaotic<BR>> world."<BR>><BR>> And so simmers another skirmish between the childless<BR>> and the child-centered, a culture clash increasingly<BR>> common in restaurants and other public spaces as a new<BR>> generation of busy, older, well-off parents ferry<BR>> little ones with them.<BR>><BR>> An online petition urging child-free sections in North<BR>> Carolina restaurants drew hundreds of
signers,<BR>> including Janelle Funk, who wrote, "Whenever a hostess<BR>> asks me 'smoking or non-smoking?' I respond, 'No<BR>> kids!' "<BR>><BR>> At Mendo Bistro in Fort Bragg, Calif., the owners<BR>> declare "Well-behaved children and parents welcome" to<BR>> try to stop unmonitored youngsters from tap-dancing on<BR>> the 100-year-old wood floors.<BR>><BR>> Menus at Zumbro Cafe in Minneapolis say: "We love<BR>> children, especially when they're tucked into chairs<BR>> and behaving," which Barbara Daenzer said she read as<BR>> an invitation to cease her weekly breakfast visits<BR>> after her son was born.<BR>><BR>> Even at the Full Moon in Cambridge, Mass., a cafe<BR>> created for families, with a train table, a dollhouse<BR>> and a plastic kitchen in a carpeted play area, there<BR>> are rules about inside voices and a "No lifeguard on<BR>> duty" sign to remind parents to take responsibility.<BR>><BR>> "You run the
risk when you start monitoring behavior,"<BR>> said the Full Moon's owner, Sarah Wheaton. "You can<BR>> say no cellphones to people, but you can't say your<BR>> father speaks too loudly, he has to keep his voice<BR>> down. And you can't really say your toddler is too<BR>> loud when she's eating."<BR>><BR>> Here in Chicago, parents have denounced Toast, a<BR>> popular Lincoln Park breakfast spot, as unwelcoming<BR>> since a note about using inside voices appeared on the<BR>> menu six months ago. The owner of John's Place, which<BR>> resembles a kindergarten class at recess in early<BR>> evening, established a separate "family friendly" room<BR>> a year ago, only to face parental threats of lawsuits.<BR>><BR>> Many of the Andersonville mothers who are boycotting<BR>> Mr. McCauley's bakery also skip story time at Women<BR>> and Children First, a feminist bookstore, because of<BR>> the rules: children are asked not to stand, talk
or<BR>> sip drinks.<BR>><BR>> When a retail clerk at another neighborhood store<BR>> asked a woman to stop breast-feeding last spring, "the<BR>> neighborhood set him straight real fast," said Mary<BR>> Ann Smith, the area's alderwoman.<BR>><BR>> After a dozen years at one site, Mr. McCauley moved A<BR>> Taste of Heaven six blocks away in May 2004, to a busy<BR>> corner on Clark Street. But there, he said, teachers<BR>> and writers seeking afternoon refuge were drowned out<BR>> not just by children running amok but also by<BR>> oblivious cellphone chatterers.<BR>><BR>> Children were climbing the cafe's poles. A couple were<BR>> blithely reading the newspaper while their daughter<BR>> lay on the floor blocking the line for coffee. When<BR>> the family whose children were running across the room<BR>> to throw themselves against the display cases left<BR>> after his admonishment, Mr. McCauley recalled, the<BR>> restaurant
erupted in applause.<BR>><BR>> So he put up the sign. Then things really got ugly.<BR>><BR>> "The looks I would get when I went in there made me so<BR>> nervous that I would try to buy the food as fast as I<BR>> could and get out," said Laura Brauer, 40, who has<BR>> stopped visiting A Taste of Heaven with her two<BR>> children. "I think that the mothers who allow their<BR>> kids to run around and scream, that's wrong, but kids<BR>> scream and there is nothing you can do about it. What<BR>> are we supposed to do, not enjoy ourselves at a cafe?"<BR>><BR>> Ms. Miller said that one day when her son, then 4<BR>> months old, was fussing, a staff member rolled her<BR>> eyes and announced for all to hear, "We've got a<BR>> screamer!"<BR>><BR>> Kim Cavitt recalled having coffee and a cookie one<BR>> afternoon with her boisterous 2-year-old when "someone<BR>> came over and said you just need to keep her quiet or<BR>> you need to
leave."<BR>><BR>> "We left, and we haven't been back since," Ms. Cavitt<BR>> said. "You go to a coffee shop or a bakery for a rest,<BR>> to relax, and that you would have to worry the whole<BR>> time about your child doing something that children do<BR>> - really what they're saying is they don't welcome<BR>> children, they want the child to behave like an<BR>> adult."<BR>><BR>> Why suffer such scorn, the mothers said, when clerks<BR>> at the Swedish Bakery, a neighborhood institution,<BR>> offer children - calm or crying - free cookies? Why<BR>> confront such criticism when the recently opened Sweet<BR>> Occasions, a five-minute walk down Clark Street,<BR>> designed the restroom aisle to accommodate double<BR>> strollers and offers a child-size ice cream cone for<BR>> $1.50? (At A Taste of Heaven, the smallest is $3.75.)<BR>><BR>> "It's his business; he has the right to put whatever<BR>> sign he wants on the door," Ms.
Miller said. "And<BR>> people have the right to respond to that sign however<BR>> they want."<BR>><BR>> Mr. McCauley said he had received kudos from several<BR>> restaurant owners in the area, though none had<BR>> followed his lead. He has certainly lost customers<BR>> because of the sign, but some parents say the offense<BR>> is outweighed by their addiction to the scones, and<BR>> others embrace the effort at etiquette.<BR>><BR>> "The litmus test for me is if they have highchairs or<BR>> not," said Ms. Dehl, the woman who scooped her<BR>> screaming son from his seat during brunch, as she<BR>> waited out his restlessness on a sidewalk bench. "The<BR>> fact that they had one highchair, and the fact that<BR>> he's the only child in the restaurant is an indication<BR>> that it's an adult place, and if he's going to do his<BR>> toddler thing, we should take him out and let him run<BR>> around."<BR>><BR>> Mr. McCauley said
he would rather go out of business<BR>> than back down. He likens this one small step toward<BR>> good manners to his personal effort to decrease<BR>> pollution by hiring only people who live close enough<BR>> to walk to work.<BR>><BR>> "I can't change the situation in Iraq, I can't change<BR>> the situation in New Orleans," he said. "But I can<BR>> change this little corner of the world."<BR>><BR>> Gretchen Ruethling contributed reporting for this<BR>> article.<BR>><BR>> Because of an editing error, an article on Wednesday<BR>> about rules for children and parents in restaurants<BR>> and other businesses misstated the site of an incident<BR>> in which a woman was asked to stop breast-feeding in a<BR>> store in Chicago. It was not the Women and Children<BR>> First bookstore but another business in the<BR>> neighborhood. The article also misstated the<BR>> bookstore's policy for children who break rules for<BR>> story
time. Parents are asked to take them away from<BR>> the reading area; the children are not ejected.<BR>><BR>><BR>> http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/09/national/09bakery.html? <BR>> ex=1131944400&en=f276d61b16497954&ei=5070<BR>><BR><BR></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><p>
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