The first time South Korean MP Yong Hye-in left home after giving birth to her son in 2021, she was battling postpartum depression and her husband wanted to cheer her up with a walk. But when they went to a nearby cafe, they could not enter. Cause; It was a “child-free zone”.

OUR South Korea has about 500 places where children are not allowed, not counting places like bars and nightclubs, according to an estimate by the Jeju Research Institute, a think tank.

Last week, holding her 23-month-old son in her arms, Yoon vowed from the floor of parliament to declare the practice illegal.

In an effort to ensure silence for their visitors, many owners of restaurants, cafes and other places in America, Australia, Italy, Korea and other countries impose special restrictions on their visitors, up to a ban on children under the age of 4 from entering. , 7 or even 18 years old.

Not so long ago, the news that the famous restaurant Nettie’s House of Spaghetti in Tinton Falls, NJ, was no longer accepting children under the age of 10, went viral.

On social media, the restaurant said, “We love kids. We love them very, very much. But lately it’s been very difficult to place the kids with Nettie. Between the ups and downs of the noise, the lack of space for feeding, cleaning up the crazy mess, and being responsible for the kids running around the restaurant, we decided it was time to take control of the situation.”

Seattle restaurateur Tim Ptak, whose Hudson restaurant doesn’t allow children, said in an email that he’s received positive reviews.

These practices are met with anger and praise. Proponents say business owners have every right to. The other side claims that children are stigmatized and deprived of basic rights. The debate touches on broader questions about who is responsible for caring – and sometimes tolerance – for the next generation.

The birth rate has been steadily declining around the world for the past 70 years, changing demographics and social life. Heike Schnazel, a professor at New Zealand’s Auckland University of Technology, told the Washington Post that children are sometimes seen as “lifestyle choices” rather than part of a healthy society.

In South Korea, one of the countries with the lowest birth rate, signs forbidding children began to appear about a decade ago, following complaints on social media about parental misbehavior in restaurants.

Hugh Yu, professor of sociology at the University of Portland, argues that “permanent gendered expectations about parenting reinforce the notion that women should take care of them at home.” Restricting children’s access to public places discourages people from reproducing.”

However, many believe that there are better ways to solve this problem. A professor of child studies at Rutgers University said: “A drunk adult yelling at his partner in a restaurant is far more annoying than a crying toddler.”

He and othersexperts argue that such a policy violates international human rights law, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of common grounds.including age. They don’t protect children, but “protect the supposed right of adults not to interact with them,” he says.

Source: Washington Post.