| on children at cons |
[Mar. 16th, 2009|06:04 pm] |
*disclaimer*. This is not a reasoned statement. This is a rant, based on my gut reaction. Do not try to discuss this logically with me. */disclaimer*
I've been catching up with lj, and I've just got back as far as angriest's post about children at cons. And while there is a lot of reasoned debate, I'm also feeling a lot of woman hate coming through, carefully disguised as 'this is not an appropriate environment for children'.
When eldest was born, I was on a con committee. I was also a single parent, with *no* family on this side of the country. I could not have handed zer off to anyone for more than an hour, had I even wanted to.
Pretty much similarly the following year. Eldest was a bit over a year old. I could have kept my child away from the con, but only by keeping myself away from the con. Which would also have meant not doing anything at the con (and I did stuff. organisation stuff, a bit of helping here and there. nothing much, the con would still have gone on without me, and maybe no-one would have noticed my absence except me, and the rest of 'my' committee).
While I now have a partner, and my kids are older, in some ways that still applies. I *do* organise for my kids to be elsewhere for much of the con (except youngest, who isn't yet ready for stay-overs at any except one place, and they are away for Easter). But SwanCon is part of my kids' lives. They look forward to it as well.
I work hard on not letting my kids disrupt other people's con experience (and my partner works a lot harder at it). Just because I'm not necessarily very good at it isn't a reason to kick me out of the con - I can think of other people who shit lots of people off. But one thing that is shitting me about this fight - almost no-one has ever said 'this behaviour of your child was inappropriate' or 'that was more disruptive than is acceptable'. I've had to judge it on my own. The most I've ever got from people is blanket statements that kids don't belong at cons. And I don't think that that is right.
I'm not interested in being part of the same fight every sodding year. I've been listening to callistra and mynxii talk about running a feminist based sf con in Perth, and right now, I'm so over the whole discussion that I'm tempted to just about gafiate, and walk away from Swancon, and maybe WASFF, and the lot.
I have stopped going to the smaller cons, because the whole juggling family and con got too hard.
And I am, to some extent, putting my money where my mouth is. I've been supplying kid entertainment stuff on and off for years. I ask the committees to make a space where kids won't be disruptive, and parents won't be ghettoised. I may not have been very keen on that (&*(& hotel on Hay street, but the balcony was wonderful - kids were able to play without being disruptive, and lots of people were out there socialising. Kids kept to one end, and people who didn't want to be around them were able to be at the other end, and as far as I could tell no-one pissed anyone off.
Last year, I thought we did well, in the end (once we realised that the room put aside for parents didn't work). The small room with the kids stuff was close enough to the action that parents weren't completely excluded, and it kept the noise in. My kids, who like to be indoors, had fun. (plus, we took them walking). I'm pretty sure that our kids, at least, got a fair bit more one on one time with both their parents and other adults than they would have had chucked outside in the garden - and while I'm wholeheartedly in favour of kids having adult-free time, they also really like to have the attention of adults focused on them (in a positive manner).
And people who complain about others' behaviour, and don't do anything about it - you are part of the problem. This goes for kids being disruptive, as well as the bug-eyed monsters of fandom.
I'm going to stop here, because I suspect that I could go on for several pages of incoherent ranting, and I'm not sure that it will be any more cathartic than it has been so far, and I'm not sure that anyone will get anything out of it (I'm hoping that some people will have read at least a little of it). |
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