RE: babies at Pennsic

[Dominica Harlan <DHarlan@RodgersBuilders.com>]

Poster: Dominica Harlan <DHarlan@RodgersBuilders.com>

I really do think that any furtherance of this conversation should go on in 
private, but I do want to make one final public response to a few points.

I am amused by your statement that, in the future, you won't let your
child's well being impinge on someone else's fun.  I think someone who
knows you should print off that email, save it until you do have kids

[sigh] Why is it assumed that the young or non-parent have no idea what 
parents are experiencing? I've already spent the first part of my life 
taking care of my parents' four other, much younger children, one of whom 
is mentally challenged, and many years working with the mentally retarded, 
including taking them out in public. I already know what it's like to try 
to help *everyone* in your family/group have fun without causing others to 
feel as if you are interfering with their good time. It can be done and I 
personally know so or I wouldn't have inferred so in the first place.

... Young or old has got nothing to do with
it; we all want to have fun. The problem is that we all define "fun"
differently...

Exactly. That is why we must be tolerant of others' ideas of fun and make 
reasonable preparation for our fun so that it won't impinge on others' fun. 
The door is two way for we louder, later birds *and* those with kids or 
early schedules.

... that you thought it was an infringement of your rights to have to end a
party so that children could sleep. If that is not what you meant, I am
sorry for the confusion.  If that IS what you meant, I don't understand
your indignation.

Lady, parents who have children should not be camping with them next to 
adults in a non-Quiet zone. A big party held in a middle of a field (which 
is what Pennsic is) is held there so it won't disturb outside world with 
outside schedules -- very many times I've had folk approach a party to be 
quiet before midnight. And we weren't in a quiet zone. Yes, I do have the 
right to enjoy myself as I please at any time I please. When I'm trying to 
sleep off said party in the morning and the early birds are up banging 
around I don't ask them to be quieter, nor do I complain about the children 
tearing around camp and knocking stuff about.

What I grow tired of hearing is how an event geared towads ADULTS should 
cater more to children or to one group of adults with one schedue versus 
another group with a different schedule. Children are the responsibility of 
the adults they came with and no other, and that includes gearing their 
schedule and environment to fulfilling their needs within the noise and 
activity of the adults in their area. Adults with differing ideas of fun 
and appropriate times to have fun should be adult enough to just tolerate 
each other's definition without one group trying to regulate the other.

Your right to have fun at Pennsic or anywhere depends upon whether or
not it interferes with other's rights, and this line is fuzzy, although
laws and rules try to define it.  However fuzzy, those laws and rules
are necessary... Pennsic has been the site of real crime to an increasing 
extent, and to ignore that problem is not only to endanger those attending, 
but also to risk that we will not be able to hold future Pennsics as it has 
been held in the past.
Magdalena

This is a society of honor within a modern world where the concept often 
seems dead. Yes, within any given group of 10,000 modern people there will 
be a certain percentage of crime. No, making rules to try to restrict when 
and how folk will enjoy their vacation will not reduce that crime. In fact, 
the more rules there are to break, the more violations you have. As the 
increasing rules force war-goers to behave according to someone else's 
concept of honor and courtesy, honest/courteous behavior will no longer be 
voluntary but mandatory (which any psychologist will tell you takes away 
the fun of behaving well). And Pennsic will already be unlike the War it 
once was. Getting back to the original point, though, we all have the right 
to our fun and the responsibility to ensure that enjoying that right does 
not interfere with others' rights. We just apparently have different views 
on how that works when kids are involved.

Yours,
Kilmeny

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