alt Hacker News>and playing smug semantic arguments like that doesn't help.
How is it semantic? They go outside and now they are running in a giant parking lot. They go a bit further and now you're a bad parent for not keeping an eye on your kid. Tell them to sit down and play on a tablet and you're also a bad parent.
There's no winning here.
>you wouldn't tell someone in the library not to hush them.
I don't consider a mall the equivalent of a libary in this situation.
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If you let your kids run around in giant parking lots I would argue you are a bad parent. That seems like asking for an accident.
> Tell them to sit down and play on a tablet and you're also a bad parent.
Yes. If this is the alternative to playing in parking lots that comes to your mind first, I really wonder what kind of experiences you had.
> There's no winning here.
Ever heard of parks?
Why is everything so black and white?
Do kids need more places to run free, yes.
Should they be running in mall food courts, no.
Just because this trend of kids having less free play outside doesn't excuse parents of these kids from taking any space they want. Any reasonable person can see there are still boundaries, are we just disagreeing on what those are? Kids still can't/shouldn't run at swimming pools, it's been that way for decades (just an example).