to quote another famous czech, "you americans are so naive!" oh, i'm kidding. it's just been running through my head since i tried to explain the whole "oh the horrors of parents who drink" thing to Friar Tuck.
the beer garden, as i'm sure i've mentioned, is an outdoor pub with tables that border a playground. parents sit and talk and drink and smoke and relax. kids play and climb and run. it is understood that parents are not there to play with their kids, but are immediately available should a child need help. it is understood that most of the people sitting at the tables are adults capable of taking care of children and, one likes to hope, themselves.
there are different beer gardens, just as there are different playgrounds, and one garden (gated, no dogs allowed, smoking sometimes frowned on when seated at tables nearest the play area) caters to younger children. we upgraded to the big kid garden year before last, where the tables are slightly farther from the play area, where there's more room to run around and where there are even more people who aren't parents there. the kids sometimes have to divert games around adults playing petanque. some adults are rowdy. we call this "living in a city" and i recommend that people who can't handle adult rowdiness in a public area avoid public areas.
in the 10 years i've been going to beer gardens, and it has been a near-daily summer thing, i have seen actively bad parenting three times. two of those times, the parent was corrected by another patron. one of them, the family was asked to leave. so there is a collective kind of behavior here, there is a willingness to judge, there is social criticism and even public shaming for bad behavior.
it's just that there's not this pre-emptive strike, this someone might be stupid someday so we'll assume you're all stupid right now. there's a willingness to assume you know how to take care of yourself. which, given the option, i'd prefer to have the assumption be that i am, in fact, not an idiot. i have all the czech grandmas taking care of that for me, what with the way i let Squire Tuck run around nearly naked (coat with liner, pants, boots, hat... but no gloves! he'll FREEZE!) and the horrific fact that i don't bake cookies. but in a group of people my approximate age, the idea of defending my right to be an adult and have a child at the same time? no. thank you.
I know. I'm told that right after they went off camera Meredith Vieira said, "This would be a non-issue in Europe." Asshole American television.
Posted by: Mrs. Kennedy | January 31, 2007 at 06:36 AM
There are similar establishments in Austria, which however serve wine and cold cuts rather than beer etc, which if not the reason I moved here are at least a major perk, because I can sit at a picnic table in the fresh air and eat and drink (and eat) with friends while my children play nearby. As Mrs. Kennedy mentions, non-issue here.
Posted by: mig | January 31, 2007 at 12:50 PM
Patriarch -I'd buy that, except for the apparent total lack of hesitation to do an even more public smackdown (on television or the radio).
In my opinion, Czechs are about as culturally diverse and northern and southern Californians (to each other, I mean). That is to say, Czechs observe differences among their three regions, but to anybody else they all look and act pretty darned similar. Except Roma, but that's a whole nother kettle.
Posted by: tuckova | January 31, 2007 at 04:50 PM
The preemptive strike thing is very American, I think. For if Something is bad, America must band together to prevent It. (Or cause it, if it's war or climate change.) Our form of social control is not to help one another but to police one another. Preferably through the public service announcement and fear of threatened lawsuits.
Posted by: ozma | February 02, 2007 at 05:13 AM
As often as Europe has been invoked in this discussion, I have yet to see it evoked as sensibly and vividly as you have done here.
I'm not usually a fan of the public smackdown, but as you describe it here, it has to do with behaviour that has clearly crossed the line. In Canada, when that happens, we smile politely and then place an anonymous call to child services. And then we create ridiculous rules designed to keep all parents a good mile or two away from that line (under the assumption that they're too stupid to actually know where the line is themselves).
Posted by: bubandpie | February 02, 2007 at 02:54 PM