Well, I guess this is one way to reduce the number of environmentalist whackos

I did not know that there were a lot of people involved in the "childfree" (not childless, God forbid) movement.

Send in the assmonkeys

Behold the latest environmentalist fad: going childless

Jonathan Kay,
National Post Published: Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Last Tuesday, I wrote a column for this space entitled "At a restaurant near you, the war between Daters and Breeders." It was one of those airy, self-indulgent pieces of cultural commentary that otherwise self-important op-ed pundits publish every few months to "show their human side." (See: I eat in restaurants with my kids --just like you!)

My basic point was that restaurant diners shouldn't go hard on parents whose kids emit the odd yelp at dinner time. I know, I know -- not exactly Pulitzer material. But I can't solve the Middle East conflict every week.

Besides, vapid as it was, the column hit a nerve: In the days following publication, I got a flood of e-mail feedback. The messages came in two flavours: (1) Brief, appreciative comments from fellow parents, often punctuated with smiley-faced emoticons; and (2) searing, cuckoo-pants rants like this one from a certain Gaby Kaplan:

"Mr. Kay, I hope we never have the misfortune to have your family ruin a nice restaurant near us, because I could hardly resist the compulsion to empty ice water into the faces of both you and your broodsow of a partner. Attention, Mr. Look-My-Sperm-Works, your job as a parent does not end at ejaculation: Would you please show the rest of us the Get Out of Courtesy card that they gave you when your wife grunted out your first replicant? Polite parents do not assault diners with their loud brood of assmonkeys."

Click on the title to read more.

What always amuses me is that movements that encourage having just one child or none are eventually doomed because these people are not reproducing themselves. Of course, many people who think that way are placing themselves in positions of influence over children. That is why we need to "teach our children well."

As for noisy children in restaurants...I have had the misfortune of being disturbed by ill-behaved kids in a restaurant. I have also had the experience where a table full of loud adults were very disruptive to the diners around them. It seems to me there is a lot of public rudeness around, not just from parents but from adults in general. When did we stop being concerned about how our behavior affects other people?

---Katie