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by ramraj07 1062 days ago
Children and their parents exercising their freedom to do whatever they want is disturbing to you? Because some predetermined definition of “having a childhood” is not being met? I’m not arguing that this is the best use of their time, but neither is anything else within bounds of normal decorum.
2 comments

> Children and their parents exercising their freedom to do whatever they want

Aside from the dubious assertion that the children and parents want the same thing, this is reduced to the point of absurdity. You can disagree with the parent's opinion on the subject, but you should at least formulate that disagreement in the context of the subject.

I would argue that the children are explicitly not free to do whatever they want, which is what is disturbing about it.
I dunno, when I was a kid I didn't want to play sports but my parents kept signing me up for teams. Is that "disturbing"? I also didn't want to eat my vegetables or go to bed on time. A _lot_ of what kids do isn't going to be what they would have chosen for themselves, and that's ... parenting I think?
Is it just the word “disturbing” you take issue with? Maybe it is too strong. Is “weird” okay? Because if I’m being honest, I have never in my life seen a cafe “filled to the brim” with students doing school work, and I live near several large universities. It would indeed be weird to see that, especially so if the students were in high school!

Maybe not disturbing, fine. But very weird.