quiddities and agonies of the ruling class - a rolling new york times thread

i don't think anyone in the article was saying they want their kids to never have ice cream?

i still think these parents' kids are gonna end up with fucked up eating habits/relationships to food.

Umm, yeah, what n/a said.

And if you're a realistic/sane person in charge of a child, there will come some point at which they want ice cream and you have to deny it to them. If omnipresent ice cream trucks mean you spend half your day doing this, it will probably start to get annoying.

And I'm assuming that ice cream trucks, like anything else that sells food in a city, have to get some kind of license or approval from the city. Which means that if they're hovering and ubiquitous all around the few NYC spaces you can take kids, and that starts negatively affecting people's quality of life, it's perfectly sensible to say hey, we need to license fewer of them or regulate their operations or something so it's possible to take a kid out of the house without the whole afternoon being an ice cream battle.

Oh wait, sorry, the main woman quoted was pissed off at the unlicensed ones and figured she couldn't do crap about the licensed ones -- I mean geez, she is basically asking for enforcement of existing rules so she less often has to deal with an I-want-treats tantrum, which c'mon, is not too hard to understand

And if you're a realistic/sane person in charge of a child, there will come some point at which they want ice cream and you have to deny it to them. If omnipresent ice cream trucks mean you spend half your day doing this, it will probably start to get annoying.

But isn't a significant aspect of parenting denying things to one's children that they want? I mean, it isn't like they're gonna want ice cream every minute of the day. There's a finite amount of ice cream a kid can eat.

yeah i can maybe understand drugdealin' / hygiene / air pollution concerns but banning ice cream trucks isn't going to stop kids from incidentally eating processed food, throwing tantrums, or annoying their parents.

I guess I'm arguing more on the principle than on the specifics ...

in the summer, the park near my house constantly has at least 2, sometimes 3 unlicensed ice cream trucks. that play christmas carols. i have yet to hear anything about this dire threat to our children from the neighborhood association or anyone else

give em the fucking cone

No one quoted in the article seems to object to ice cream on health grounds -- they object cause when kids see an ice cream truck they want ice cream, and if that happens every five minutes it is going to get kinda tiring.

Yeah, Sarah, part of parenting young kids is going to involve having to say "no, you can't have that" a lot of the time. But that can be kind of a hassle, and if vendors are constantly introducing that hassle into your day, you might kinda want to do basic civic stuff to reduce it, right? Like getting rid of unlicensed ones, or making rules about how close they can set up to playgrounds, or any number of little quality-of-life rules. It's not about denying kids ice cream, it's about creating a pleasant environment where there's not someone on every corner trying to sell your kid something you need to regulate.

It just seems like better parenting to me - unless the kid is lactose intolerant or something - to set rules about it, like "you can have ice cream from the truck once a week." or if it's really hot and miserable ... or if you do your chores, etc.

but the thing is, American culture is all about constantly wanting to sell you and your kids something.

yeah and that's annoying!

how else am I going to hear jingle bells 20 times in july

xp - definitely ... I guess what irks me about this story is the implication that the parents don't have anything more serious to worry about, and the associations of this type of behavior with other behaviors that I see as more dysfunctional.

it's about creating a pleasant environment where there's not someone on every corner trying to sell your kid something

why do you hate america

you can have ice cream from the truck once a week." or if it's really hot and miserable ... or if you do your chores, etc.

Doubting you were ever actually 5 years old. That's just silly.

I mean, look, it's not a "better parenting" issue -- you can set rules and stick to them, but young kids are young kids, and when the ice cream vendor comes by they may get distracted and tug your sleeve and whine and plead or throw fits. Whether you're an awesome, patient parent or not, this may annoy you. (Exactly the same way it's annoying if you tell them no candy and then a relative goes pushing candy at them and making you be the patient no-fun bad-guy about it.) It just makes your day less nice, you know? And so if there are already rules about vendor licensing and whatnot, why wouldn't you say hey, can we enforce these? Because these vendors are always around making my day less pleasant. I don't think that's laziness, it's just quality of life.

xpost - okay sure, I would agree with you that this is a pretty pleasant thing to have way up on your list of worries. there are a bunch of parents in that neighborhood, though, and one main park to take them to, and if you happen to be a stay-at-home parent, well, this would be something that might annoy you every day, all summer. It's better than being poor or sick or living around crime, but hey, if that's what's wrong in your life...

I wish there wuz a rule so hot dog vendors would be forced to grill instead of boil those fuckers

xp - laurel - when I was five, and watched Saturday morning cartoons I had a natural desire for all the cereals advertised on cartoons, and my mom made the rule that she wouldn't buy me cereal where some form of sugar was the first or second ingredient. Basically, I'm just saying, that if a parent sets guidelines like those you quoted, they have a stronger vantage point to argue from than just "because I said no."

some rumpie-levels of ice cream h8 goin on here, disappointed tbh

xpost - but they are still, in your own terms, "arguing," which is less pleasant than if your kid just kept playing with the other children

(although I will say that yes, there really should come some point of late-summer ice-cream omnipresence where the drill is down and your kid has figured out whether or not you're buying)

xp but my point is, that the kid is probably gonna be arguing and wanting something ... like if it isn't the nearby ice cream truck, it's going to mcdonalds or wearing a particular shirt or something.

no, no no, nabisco. parents need to set limits for their kids when it comes to sweets, this is 100% a parenting issue. part of being an effective -- forget about awesome -- parent is not giving in to whining and pleading and throwing fits. kids are bombarded with so many sugar/junk food temptations -- not just from rogue ice cream vendors but TV commercials -- that parents just giving into them with convenience sake...well, you've read the statistics about obesity. teaching your kids healthy eating is more important than ever. i know that sounds corny, but it's true.

when you think about what was going on in NYC parks/playgrounds a couple decades ago, ridding the world of ice cream vendors is laughable.

she is basically asking for enforcement of existing rules so she less often has to deal with an I-want-treats tantrum . . . they object cause when kids see an ice cream truck they want ice cream, and if that happens every five minutes it is going to get kinda tiring.

See but the problem is they're raising the kind of kids who throw an I-want-treats tantrum every damned time they hear the bells on the truck, even though they've already been explicitly told "No." These kinds of children are commonly referred to as "poorly-behaved," and it's almost always the fault of parents who can't set boundaries. My sister and I didn't have super-parents by any stretch of the imagination, but we didn't behave like that, and neither did most kids I knew.

don't these people have better things to worry about, you know, like what pre-school their little max and sasha are going to get into

Re telling kids "no" -- Hahah, you don't really know me if you think I'm going to disagree with that. But kids have no concept of time passing or of the fitness of things, so "you can have ice cream once a week" is like the farthest thing from a reasonable explanation. Expect pretty much moment-to-moment whining, crying, and wanting, when the ice cream is being waved in front of their face, metaphorically, by the music playing all the time.

You guys, on a certain level it's not fair to keep the desired thing right in the forefront of a kid's mind all the time. You can tell them no, but then you have to redirect them somehow and get them engaged in something else. And with those jingles playing ALL THE TIME, kids are going to have really varying levels of ability to get re-engaged elsewhere. Any of you parents could tell the rest of us that even a good kid has bad days!

i went 2 a fine pre school thank u very much

xpost - haha yeah see Sarah I think you're off there. kids want ice cream when you roll up offering ice cream. if nobody mentions ice cream, they might not even think about it. they might go on happily playing with their friends. they might behave badly later, or whatever, but it's one less issue.

coleman we're not talking about giving in to whining or fits, we're talking about how some parents would rather keep certain areas more temptation-free so as not to have to deal with the issue so often in the first place -- that's really less about your relationship with your child and more about your relationship with your environment!

yes, Laurel puts it really nicely -- it's completely understandable to me that a parent might resent having the issue constantly dangling right in front of the kid's nose. again, not solely a matter of teaching them to deal with it, more a matter of the environment.

god bless these renegade ice cream 'pushers' -- doing the lord's work against the bloomberg/goop.com axis -- only when the life expectancy & cardio fitness of ruling class spawn is dragged into the death zone will the people be free -- hail hail

kids do learn. if you say no consistently they will get it. these parents are fucking losers.

Hahahahaha. Tracer, you'll get yours soon enough....

You can tell them no, but then you have to redirect them somehow and get them engaged in something else. And with those jingles playing ALL THE TIME, kids are going to have really varying levels of ability to get re-engaged elsewhere.

-- yeah, that's the crux of it, it's a real challenge ...I guess the issue is whether it's a reasonable/healthy impulse to restrict that part of their environment. The omnipresent ice cream truck, in and of itself, isn't inherently an unreasonable/unhealthy thing to want to restrict. The notion of wanting to restrict anything and everything that is gonna lead to these sorts of conflicts is what I find delusional and unhealthy.

i have kids, the parents in this article are retarded

nabisco I just think the energy expended towards maintaining a temptation-free environment would be spent better and far more effedtively spent seeking to influence one's own child's behavior. These people are lazy or entitled, it's not up to them to decide how or when the rest of the community's kids consume ice cream.

these kids get taken to the playground every day? Fuck them!

sorry, this is parenting 101 type stuff

learn how to redirect yr children ffs

ehhh look i'm sympathetic in my paternalist liberal way that city regulation of ice cream trucks ought to be enforced for any number of health and quality of life reasons... but christ yeah the notion that anything a little bit irritating to you and your Special Little One on your day out in the park means that the arm of the state has to come in and do something, uhh, stfu

probably a contradiction there i guess

The sound of ice cream trucks constantly cruising makes me want to stab a person with a million toothpicks, and it doesn't even make me want ice cream. And I LOVE ice cream! So I guess I'm hypothetically sympathetic to that situation, but not to the parents as they're quoted here. They sound like a bunch of dicks.

I was a pretty stubborn, argumentative kid, and came to accept my mom's rules about cereal-buying. I think at some point I discovered that Rice Krispies (or Frosted Flakes or Corn Pops, one of the three) actually had sugar as the 3rd ingredient (which meant it was ok). My mom was shocked, but rules were rules, so I got to have Rice Krispies a lot.

I pretty much agree with m coleman on this--everything else in life is so great & perfect that you can worry about the ice cream truck in the park? you know, the music is there to get the kids attention! that's the way it's always been; it is a part of american culture. and if your best argument is really "it's annoying when my kid wants ice cream" maybe you should have waited to be a parent? like obviously i am not a parent & don't intend on being one for a while but like, if you can't deal with your kid asking for shit, how are you going to live with your children? asking for shit is part of being a kid. wanting gumballs from the machine at the supermarket, wanting cheap squirt gun at the pharmacy, wanting everything and being unable or unwilling as a child to understand things about money, health etc.

Life cereal was my major legislative score. don't know how i did it.

it's not up to them to decide how or when the rest of the community's kids consume ice cream

I don't get this: they're part of the "community," right? And the community/city already decides who can sell ice cream and how, right? So they already decide this.

But if they're in a minority and the rest of the people that use that park are cool with the ice cream trucks ...

... then nothing will happen and hooray for democracy?

btw guys don't hate me but I recently considered complaining about the food cart that sets up on a narrow bit of sidewalk and blocks the whole thing so I can't walk my dog through -- I am not against food, I just find it annoying

uh is policing ice cream vendors a high-priority task of civic money & resources?

plenty of nice clean streets in PYONGYANG

well sure, democracy rules. but as quality of life violations go, i think food vending in new york is very loosely enforced, so this seems selective, if not hypocritical. like I'm sure many of these parents get lunch at their favorite unregulated taco truck or halal chicken cart.

when you think about what was going on in NYC parks/playgrounds a couple decades ago, ridding the world of ice cream vendors is laughable.

and of course a sign of progress,