Yong was in tears after being refused entry. “It felt like society didn’t want people like me,” she said in a phone interview. “It hurt.”
South Korea has around 500 no-kid zones — not including spaces where children are normally barred, like bars and nightclubs — according to an estimate from the Jeju Research Institute, a think tank. Last week, while holding her now 23-month-old son, Yong stood at a podium inside the national legislature building and pledged to render these policies illegal.
On Jeju Island, a popular tourist destination, the local council will vote this month on an ordinance that discourages businesses from having child-free zones.
The restrictions on youngsters are not limited to Korea. Policies at restaurants and cafes have sparked debate in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany and elsewhere. Several airlines, including Japan Airlines, Malaysian Airlines and IndiGo in India, have created options for passengers to choose seats away from young children or babies. Some libraries and museums also place minimum-age restrictions on visitors.
These policies are met with a mix of anger and praise. Supporters say business owners have a right to control their atmosphere. Opponents say they stigmatize children and deny them the basic right to exist in public space. The debate gets at wider questions about who is responsible for caring for — and at times, tolerating — the next generation.
Birthrates have been on a steady decline globally over the past 70 years, reshaping demographics and public life. Heike Schanzel, a professor of hospitality and tourism at Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand, told The Post that children are seen as a “a lifestyle choice” rather than part of a healthy society. This, she says, drives divisions that “need to be carefully managed as allowing more no-kid zones could only further aggravate fewer families who decide to have children.”
In South Korea, which has the lowest fertility rate in the world, this is especially relevant. Hyeyoung Woo, a sociologist who studies families at Portland State University, said by email that no-kid zones started popping up in South Korea about a decade ago, in the context of social media reports of inappropriate behavior by parents at restaurants, like leaving diapers out and letting children run around.
But what these zones really reflect is “persisting gendered expectations toward child rearing,” Woo says, by reinforcing “the notion that women should take care of children at home.” Limiting children from public spaces, she added, “further stresses the challenges of parenting” and discourages people from having children.
Woo also attributes the uptick in restrictions to a society that she says is “less accepting” of those who are not perceived as “normal,” making life difficult for parents and children, as well as minorities and those with disabilities.
However, businesses with no-kid zones counter that they are offering parents a break and perhaps even making parenting more manageable.
The Old Barracks Roastery, a cafe in Ireland that prohibits children, says on its website they hope to give adults “me-time” during which they can “take a moment of mindfulness.”
Tim Ptak, a restaurant owner in Seattle whose brunch spot Hudson does not allow children, said in an email that they’ve received positive feedback. They have another restaurant that is “very family friendly,” and “the beauty of this system is that it allows space for everyone, those with families and those who prefer adults only,” he said.
Some parents have also gotten on board. After Nettie’s House of Spaghetti in New Jersey decided to prohibit visitors under age 10 in February, citing “crazy messes” and liabilities, one commenter, who identified herself as a mother, wrote that she loves the policy. “It’s like an escape plan,” she said.
Still, many feel there are better ways to manage public environments. Businesses could instead ban loud and disturbing behavior, John Wall, a professor of childhood studies at Rutgers University, told The Post. “A drunk adult shouting at his partner in a restaurant is much more disturbing than a crying toddler,” he said. When children are specifically targeted, it tells them “they are second-class citizens, unfit for social company,” Wall added.
Wall and other experts argue that such policies violate international human rights law, which prohibits discrimination based on general characteristics, including age. They don’t protect children but “protect a supposed right of adults not to have to associate with them,” Wall said.
Ann Marie Murnaghan, a professor who studies childhood at York University in Toronto, wrote in an email that no-kid areas are an instance of “childism” or “the prejudice against children, that asserts that 1/3 of humanity (children) are a problem for the other 2/3 (adults).”
For Amy Conley Wright, director of the Research Centre for Children and Families at the University of Sydney, no-kid zones break a fundamental intergenerational pact that says we care for those who come before and after us. In a phone interview, she called them “very shortsighted.”
“People forget that they were babies,” she said. “Do you think you weren’t screaming at one point?”
