Check it out here: http://www.tidystreet.org/

Now I’m imaging gangs of toddlers running around at 3am tagging up sidewalks…while drinking beers and smoking reefer while listening to underground hip-hop.

In South Croydon yes, but not Nunawading.

Well said!

This isn’t a child-hating attitude but that was an impressive leap. Bravo. I also gave two alternatives — let the kids draw on paper on the cafe’s tabletops or floor. This seems unreasonable to you???? If the cafe won’t allow toddlers to play in ~their~ space instead of a public thoroughfare are they also child haters?

I’d be irked if toddlers were playing on the freeway or in the street, stopping traffic or causing cars to slow down and swerve out of the way — is this also the child-hating attitude of a few anglo-german societies which don’t represent the human norm? Thank God I live in one of those societies because your kid’s right to play should not interfere with my right to get home and see my own family. Thank God.

I’m also guessing that most people don’t want children playing or talking during a movie that they paid $10-$12/ticket to see. Fortunately most parents have the good sense to hire a babysitter for a few hours instead of subjecting the other adults in the theater to their kids’ inappropriate behavior*. Thank God! Thank God they don’t insist on having them around all the time. Thanks, God!

Fact is, a society requires compromise from its citizens. Some are enforced — everyone drives on the same hand side of the road and between the painted lines instead of wherever they want, and others are just unspoken consideration for others — I won’t burp in your presence and you won’t fart in mine, even if both are perfectly legal and entirely natural acts. Thank God. Why should parents not be expected to be considerate of others if they have kids with them? This is not child-hating. I love music but I don’t want to hear yours at 3am. There’s a time and a place for everything.

Should toddlers be allowed to draw on any sidewalk? How about the sidewalk at the end of your driveway? So what if you can’t back out, kids will be kids, right? Who the hell are you to ask them to move? Should toddlers be allowed to sit at the top of an up escalator? Are you seeing now how it’s reasonable to keep toddlers out of people’s way? Are you seeing that it isn’t hatred to do it? Is it sinking in that this isn’t treating them like animals? Thank God. Are you beginning to understand that we’re talking about toddlers — TODDLERS! — who are fragile and easily damaged? You don’t keep your finest crystal vase sitting on the floor in the middle of your hallway, do you? Oh wait, now I’m comparing a toddler to a vase! Shame on me. Thank God.

By the way, is there an age limit to this attitude of yours? Would you feel the same way about teens sitting or lying on a sidewalk and you had to walk around them, or is it just the cute toddlers you want around all the time? Do cute teenagers get a pass while the ugly ones are just in the way? Do toddlers get a special pass because a parent can’t be expected to keep them out of people’s (and harm’s, potentially) way? Surprisingly a parent can, if they try and if they give a damn about others. Thank God.

Thank God,
A Child-Hating Anglo-German who does not represent the human norm**
AKA Norm

*Not inappropriate toddler behavior but definitely inappropriate theater behavior, except for G-rated fare, which is why any thoughtful parent keeps the two separate. Thank God.

I think it’s been that way for most of known history… I’m waiting for it to cease as well.

That said I think the real reasoning behind this is that the danger issue is a red herring. They just came up with some bullshit excuse to hide their real problem, they didn’t want these kids hanging out in front of the cafe. They didn’t want the screaming, yelling, and running around that comes with them. They wanted to kick them off the sidewalk by their cafe but they didn’t want to look like meanies or simply couldn’t due to it being a public space. So they talked to the town and made up a bogus safety reason that would bypass those issues.

If I were helping my grandmother walk down the sidewalk and we had to stray into the street to avoid stepping on a toddler it might cross my mind to ask the cafe or city council to move the toddlers off of the sidewalk. Why doesn’t the cafe just put paper on the tables and let the kids go at it with crayons?

Maybe the cafe should allow toddlers to sit in the aisles between their tables and draw on the floor instead of on the public sidewalk in front of the cafe? It’s not like the little darlings would be in anyone’s way, right?

I seem to remember laying as often as sitting on the sidewalk in front of my house or in the driveway when I used sidewalk chalk. Who would be at fault if an adult did step on a toddler who was sitting or laying on a crowded sidewalk in front of a business?

This does not seem to be as hysterical a reaction by the city council as the boingboing regulars are making it out to be. Toddlers have places to play but they don’t have ~everyplace~ to play.

Also, this was hilarious — “if anyone does get killed in all of this, at least the toddlers will be there to draw the chalk outlines” Thanks for the laugh, burritoflats.

Whitehorse Leader article

I don’t understand what the tenfold invocation of your invisible deity is supposed to suggest. Please don’t elucidate.

I can’t tell you how often that’s happened to me. Or was that Buffy? Oh well, it’s all the same.

@ RuthlessRuben
> I wonder when we’ll be so safe that we can’t leave our houses any more.

When this is life:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBS60WtYUr0

@ Bill
> Toddlers are a menace to society.

Truer words were never typed. This whole reproduction business simply has to stop. It’s killing us.

@ Sprayah
> Ban walking, problem solved…

Isn’t that a Bruce Willis movie (that ripped off a David Brin novel)?

@ Anon
> Might I suggest ‘A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Townspeople in Melbourne From Being a Public Safety Hazard, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public.’

Did you have any particular recipes…I mean plans in mind?

@ jjsaul
> Local paper’s article with photo of the villians:

> Whitehorse Leader article

I wonder if Colbert would do an international “Nailed ‘Em” segment. Sure, it’s not in America, but it’s on America’s planet :-)

@ BB
> This article makes me feel better. It proves that the US has not cornered the market on stupidity and ridiculous laws.

Nope. The Bell Curve is in effect everywhere and always. But if you ever find somewhere where it’s not, please let me know. I can pack quickly.

> Maybe about 10 feet prior, the kids could chalk- sketch out some warning signs about ‘toddlers ahead’?

Wouldn’t that violate child labor laws?

@ Anon
> When did children stop being human beings and start being pets and obstacles for “real humans” (adults)?

Children are human beings? Whoa! This changes everything.

@ Anon

> I suspect when we talk about “the nanny state” (and honestly I do it too) we are misrepresenting a nexus of attitudes and issues as a single cohesive force.

The Nanny State of Mind :P

> I don’t think the Monsanto Corporation and the Catholic Church are in any meaningful sense allies, for instance, although they are both spending millions of dollars in an attempt to take away your individual right to choose. Neither one will see the others’ success as a ‘victory’.

The Catholic Church supported feudal corporations. The Monsanto Corporation supports corporate feudalism. It’s like that old joke: ‘In democracy it’s your vote the counts; in feudalism, its your count that votes.”

Aaron

Is this writer completely lacking in imagination? Can’t visualize the difference between a kid standing and a kid drawing on the sidewalk (down on knees and elbows). Standing kid would be more likely to appear in my eyeline.

How crowded is this sidewalk? (My imagination is biased on the crowds I pass through daily, living in central Tokyo. May not be relevant).

Imagine, some lummox bringing suit

Lawyer: “My client was simply walking along the sidewalk when he was suddenly tripped by these tiny, gangster-style graffito “artists” scrawling on the public way! He tripped, fell into traffic and several minutes later was grazed by a minicab, leaving him all but disabled.”

Judge: “It sounds as if your client is lucky it wasn’t raining.”

Layer: “Why do you say that your Honor?”

Judge: “Because he might have looked up, gaped at the magic of water falling from the sky and drowned. Case dismissed.”