It takes a village. Or a book release party.

Spawn and her half-brother are an excellent study in this. I made it clear at an early age that the grown ups do cool things, and if you want to go do those cool things, you've got to learn how to behave in those environments. She fell asleep on piles of coats in the winter, and the omnipresent blanket for sleeping in the summer and soaked up everything from music to fine dining to movies to Ren faires. Whatever adult had her (she was in the go a lot with my dad and stepmom) watched for the crankies but they very rarely appeared.

The stepson was raised elsewhere, and very differently, largely in the segregate the children and when you do take them out in public, don't even think about expecting them to behave because that would stunt their creative little souls manner. He lives with us now, and we're going to be undoing that damage for a while yet. Picture being basically an adult but never having been shown how a responsible one behaves. That kind of parenting makes me so angry that I literally shake. It's also why I commend the parents I see doing it well in public every time I can.

And the image of your mom dancing with toddlers made me smile, and renew my plotting for making it out for a Circus some day.

I completely missed the dirty looks, but really appreciated your announcement and the post.

As a parent who spends a lot of time with a child, and sometimes have higher tolerance than my neighbors, I'd like to own that sometimes I don't catch Josh acting up right away.

If any of you notice this and let me know in a gentle way I'd really appreciate it.

We got to take Josh to World Con, and I got asked to leave the room (with Josh) once. In this case it was not particularly gentle, but once I got out of the room, and calmed down about the speaker's tone I recognized that it really was the better choice for Josh.

So we really appreciate the welcoming, and please call us on it when our being welcome is causing you to feel unwelcome.

Someday our kids will tell their friends that their folks used to drag them out to play music in bookstores and at cons late at night and their friends will say, 'oh my gawd that's so cool!!did you love it?' And our guys will say something like, 'uuhhh... it's just the way it was, I guess it was cool, we just went along and listened to the music and played video games' and maybe someday when they're going gray they might tell some kid somewhere how cool it was to get dragged along to the music get-togethers and book parties, and those kids will say things like, 'you know SEANAN McGUIRE??? SERIOUSLY?? HOW AWESOME IS THAT???'

So yeah, thanks for welcoming our guys along. I hope you know they love you.

And to the (very few) fen who told us a number of years back to take our dancing twin toddlers away from the filk rooms during cons, may you be treated the way you choose to treat little children and their well-meaning parents.

I had a similar childhood of running around, pretending to be a horse or a flying superhero, and I, too, fell asleep just about anywhere. My dad took me *everywhere*.
Hence, I am in favor of kids being in many places the average American may not think they should be. How else will they learn? Life is so much better when you can go places and do things.

That said, I am also in favor of children who know how to behave when it is needed (because their parents taught them), as well as parents who know that they may need to be elsewhere if their child needs a break, and that said break should be accomplished without fuss and without blame.

After having read the comments I am once again reminded that a couple of awesome t-shirts will be showing up here some time in the next few weeks. That is not a complaint, merely a happy moment. :)

Thank you for this post. (And, sorry it's taken me so long to write this!) I can't begin to tell you how much this post meant to me.

I, too, grew up going with my parents to cultural (and political) events. I love seeing kids in the crowd, so long as their parents are clued in enough to make sure they aren't becoming nuisances. (And I don't think of laughter or other happy sounds as a nuisance!)

I had hoped to bring my toddler to the book release party because she adores music and can sing along with most of the Wicked Girls CD (for some definition of "sing along," anyway...maybe I should say she hums and makes up her own words?). I think she would have loved it. In the end, however, her nap schedule got all screwy and I knew that she would be a Melty McMelterson, and that wouldn't have been fun for anybody so she stayed home with Dad. My guest brought her preschooler, however, along with lots of distractions like crayons and stickers. Thanks for making us welcome.