Coworking and children

As noted, there are plenty of things to consider as we turn LaunchPad Coworking into an Austin reality. We’ve talked about the sound of coworking before — what does and doesn’t work as far as background sounds when working. Some of us prefer pure silence and others are okay with some back and forth chat, the distant sound of an espresso machine, and maybe even a little piped in music.

Crying babies and rambunctious kids though, are in a league of their own. We were recollecting one funny café sign that put it this way: Unattended Children Will Be Given An Espresso and a Free Puppy.

That made me laugh, but it also made me recall a sign I saw painted on the door of Chuy’s, back when my towering teenager was a but a toddler: No Crybabies. Maybe that was intended to keep melancholic, whiny drunks from sitting at the bar. But I admit I took it personally, a rather mean spirited suggestion that little kids weren’t welcome.

I can’t find a precise quote, but I remember hearing a story years ago about the writer bell hooks (she prefers her name in lowercase). Supposedly, during a lecture she was giving, a baby started crying and the mother got up to exit with her child. The writer was said to have stopped the mother, announcing, “Babies cry.”

I loved that sentiment — recognizing and embracing the realities of life, even if it makes us a little uncomfortable. Still, we’re putting together a workspace, not a venue for family friendly events, and so we’re having a Kids in the Café Only policy. This is not to suggest we don’t love kids. We love kids. It’s more about the sound thing and so, with that in mind, a (potentially) loud child falls in the same category as a full grown adult yapping at high volume into a cell phone. It just won’t be conducive to working.

Such a touchy subject though, this kid thing. Because while I always exercised my right to take my kid everywhere — he was going to concerts and readings and restaurants with me from the time he was one month old — I like to think I always made sure that, if he was having a bad moment, I had the good sense to take him elsewhere. I see parents who seem defensive of the attitude that kids should be allowed to run and roam and scream wherever, and those of us who are uncomfortable with it? Well that must be our problem.

As with all other areas of life — sex, politics, religion, what we wear, the food we eat — there just are no set boundaries. One person thinks something is fine and the person at the next table over finds this same thing wildly offensive.

It’s interesting to see how other businesses handle the issue. The Alamo Drafthouse movie theaters simply don’t allow kids under 6 to attend screenings. And they acknowledge that noisy adults can be as big a drag as noisy kids, so they have a policy to handle that, too, one that avoids patrons confronting patrons.

When I brought up the topic on a coworking list to see how other spaces are handling it, there were a lot of thoughts on the subject. In the end, I was most in agreement with a poster who noted that having policy upfront is not only an okay thing, it’s a good thing — not an attempt to shut people out in a mean-spirited way, but rather a smart way to set intent and to remember that you can’t be all things for all patrons, so better to have boundaries in place than not.