Leash that kid!

For years, people have treated their dogs as children; now it’s the other way around. Notes on the New Doggishness.

K.W. Jeter

Plus there's the embarrassment factor. Not that you're embarrassed, of course, but you don't want to make somebody else feel worse than they already do. After all, it's not their fault, is it? Not really—maybe it's some kind of juvenile Tourette's Syndrome that causes their kid to make those weirdly rhythmic barking and grunting noises. You see it in the paper all the time, and on the television news programs—there's an autism epidemic going on, it's getting worse rather than better—maybe this is part of it.

Maybe the parents are bravely doing the best they can, taking the kid out in public and attempting to socialize him—maybe it's all part of therapy. They probably don't want to bother anyone anymore than you want what was a relaxing evening turned into something like outtakes from the Exorcist remake. We all try to be understanding about those less fortunate than ourselves—let's count our blessings, right? So we just carry on as best we can, talking and laughing and having a sip of wine, as if that relentless bark ... bark ... bark weren't carrying on behind us.

But curiosity gets the better of you, and you sneak a glance over your shoulder at their table. It's a set of parents with a kid, all right, but the parents are way more successfully ignoring the noisy kid than you are. Then again, they must get a lot more practice—and there's not really anything wrong with the kid that you can see, other than that he's a rotten little monster, smugly pleased with the effect he's having on every adult within earshot. And you can see that he's perfectly capable of acting normal when he wants to, turning off the barks when some adult bothers to pay attention to him.

Actually, if there's anybody who needs therapy—preferably administered with a baseball bat—it's the parents. Because what really turns a little switch in your head, the one that ticks your blood pressure a notch higher to the boiling point, is that you can tell—can't you?—that the barking kid's parents are actually getting off on annoying everyone in the restaurant. They're wrapped in that invisible armor: the unspoken law that there will be unpleasant consequences if anybody dares to say anything about the public behavior of somebody else's children.

For those who are not megarich or pre-rehab, head-shavin' celebrities sheltered from the consequences of their actions, the only real way to inflict serious damage to the social fabric is through your surrogates.

You might not be able to run around trouserless and poop on the grass, but your dog can—wild, free spirit that he is. Most people don't train their dogs for the simple reason that to do so would pretty much defeat the whole purpose of having one in the first place. The best example might be England's Sloane Rangers, the posh upper-class stratum of society from which Diana Spencer was airlifted for her tour of duty in the royal family. The money in the bank is more than matched by an interlocking system of social conventions, a set of self-imposed rules going back generations, more rigid and unforgiving than anything you'd find outside of the super-max lock-up at Pelican Bay. Except for the dogs, that is. Unlike the Queen's corgis, the household canines of the Sloane Rangers are notorious for being pampered, overindulged, furry slobs, both undisciplined and fiercely defended from any reprimand or criticism from mere commoners. Noblesse oblige comes to a grinding halt when a Sloane's dog is involved.

As dogs are to the British upper crust, so have children become for an increasingly wider swath of Americans—at all rungs of the economic ladder.

It's been accepted for some time now that kids are the ultimate fashion accessory, indicating that the owner has the financial resources to procreate. And, of course, there's always an element of one-upmanship that kicks in, driving the urge for movie stars to go adoption-shopping in exotic locales—there's nothing more satisfying than taking a high moral stance in public, while also rubbing your bankroll in other people's faces. But if it were just a matter of conspicuous consumption, mere vulgar wealth-flaunting, then the appeal would be limited; people could satisfy their acquisitive urges at whatever level suited them, from Wal-Mart to Cartier, and not have to deal with the eventual surly teenager swiping the family car. So it's not the economic show-off factor that's driving this new mutation in juvenile obnoxiousness; something else is going on.

It's a conspiracy between the kids and their owners—sorry, I meant "parents"—to control public spaces the same way that somebody with a snarling pit bull at the end of an about-to-snap leash can. Of course, we're not talking about your kids, your nieces and nephews and grandkids, all of whom are absolutely well-mannered and adorable when they're in public. It's those other people's kids.

The ability of people to inflict their will on others is becoming increasingly limited. With the passage of the Nevada Clean Indoor Air Act, you can't even lighting up a foul-smelling stogie to annoy a room. There are still other ways of accomplishing that—getting really drunk and loud is always popular—but the absolute gold standard is letting one's kids devolve into lower life forms. It's a form of urban terrorism that leaves its victims with relatively few options.

Of course, some public spaces can always make themselves less public, which might well have been the rationale behind one high-end Vegas casino-hotel's "no strollers allowed" policy. But elsewhere, for the rest of us, there's always that squeamishness that kicks in about even talking, let alone complaining, to people we don't know. We always hope that a few sharp glances in their direction, plus some comments that are pitched just loud enough, will do the trick, especially when all the other annoyed patrons in the restaurant are doing the same thing. Few are fearless enough to go up to people and politely ask, "Excuse me, but why is your child making noises like an animal?"

But that's the thing that's so uniquely effective about using your own children to screw with other people, to show them that you're running the show here, that this formerly public space is now your space, at least for as long as you and your yapping brood are there. Because they're kids, after all—right? Moral righteousness is the ultimate psychological armor. So those people aren't at fault for letting their kids bark like dogs; you're the grinch, you uptight, thin-skinned bastard, for being bothered by it.

Of course, we're not talking about getting bothered by the shrieks and laughter of kids just having a good time, which admittedly can get a little piercing. Most people shrug that off. No, the New Doggishness, to give it a name, goes well beyond that.

And, in fact, there's more than obnoxiousness involved. There's always that threat of violence, isn't there? I dare you to say anything to or even about my kids. C'mon, pal, make my day. Just as road rage is fueled by the notion that when we're in our cars, we've transformed ourselves into some higher life-form—all chrome and custom paint and tinted windows, exquisitely sensitive to slights and insults that we'd let slide in our mundane, non-automative existence—"kid rage" also stems from the conviction that parenthood puts one above the law in some way.

A publicly obnoxious child once was considered an embarrassment, shaming the people who were supposed to have taught him better, rather than a taunt and goad to everybody else. This is Child as Threat, the glowering statement to the world that anything—mere criticism, or even an annoyed glance—might trigger the parent's inner Rottweiler, and then the situation can get really ugly, really fast. Even if you were to win the confrontation, so much for the nice quiet evening out. The hyper-defensive parent is the victor, no matter what, having demonstrated some weird, self-bestowed moral superiority.

The one who loses the most is the kid. The more you like children in general, the sooner you remember the hard truth, that every puppy grows old enough to be let off the leash eventually, and then the world is full of dog catchers.

Just as the cages at the animal shelters are stuffed with dogs that, through no fault of their own, wound up unloved and even unlovable, there are plenty of human cages as well.

The children who grow up to land in those cages—whether they've committed legal crimes or crimes against social compatibility—suffer most. They may never get over their early education in obnoxiousness, believing what their parents inadvertently taught them: that somehow they could inflict their behavior on others and not suffer any consequences.

Most kids are smart enough to figure it out eventually. But there are always those who don't, who wind up gazing out of their pens the same as their canine counterparts, wondering how they got there. Didn't I do exactly as I was taught? Aren't I exactly what you made me?


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