I dislike ‘family restaurants’. By which I mean those vast, open planish restaurants with folding menus longer than my arm, where everyone just spoons food in their mouths as they stare at huge television screens and where the din is worthy of a football stadium.

I have come to the conclusion that these places make children scream. Maybe it’s the effect of the chicken nuggets or the prepacked oven chips, but every time I find myself in these ‘family-friendly’ restaurants, there’s always band of high-pitched children crying for something or other.

Of course it’s normal for children to cry, and of course some children may have some behavioural issues. But what I am talking about are children with no issues at all – and you can tell because their parents scream as much as they do, adding more to the jolly white noise.

In any case, my point is this: with the creation of these ‘family places’ which include other spots such as areas with bouncy castles or ‘cages’ full of plastic balloons, it seems to me that children are increasingly being exposed to a life in a pink-coloured bubble.

For example, why is it that an orchestra concert entitled Disney Fantasia is choc-a-block with families (even though it was really expensive) and then at last Saturday’s International Spring Orchestra Festival you could count the children on one hand, even though the event was (rightly so) open to children too? Why?

Half of the Maltese children play an instrument – but are they only exposed to music during lessons? Is their heart too sensitive for Mozart? Will they be baffled by Bach? Is it too much for them to listen to a modern, amazing, off-the-beaten track of a young Maltese composer like Karl Fiorini? Do we have to cushion their ears with candyfloss Disney tunes?

Hopefully, our children will grow up to be more open-minded than us and we’d be giving birth to a much better generation

This is nothing but a commercial-driven manner of coddling children. As actor Ben Kingsley said this week when rejecting claims that the film of The Jungle Book is too scary for young audiences, “you are not preparing the child for the future if everything is sugar-coated in pink”.

During a children’s event at the recent exhibition of Antoine Camilleri at St James Cavalier there was, hanging on the wall, a list of things children should do by certain ages. By age six and seven, the list said, children should be able to mop floors, match clean socks, peel potatoes and fold towels. By age 10 they should be able to clean the bathrooms, vacuum rugs and prepare a simple meal.

When I discussed it with my girlfriends, we all agreed that yes, by 10, we all could do that and more… but none of our children really do it today. Why? We shrugged as we looked at each other, trying to find an answer.

Are we mollycoddling our children too much? Has the world become a scarier place? Are our children too busy with extra-curricular activities that there’s barely time for anything else? Are we, as parents, too overloaded, always doing chores in a rush and therefore getting our children to help us would take even longer? I suppose it’s a bit of everything. But the bottom line is that we are not preparing them for the real world, and I doubt we’re doing them any favour.

• Some culture-vulture events are for adults only. On Sunday we went to watch Edward Bond’s The Price of One, a modern tragedy of sorts, about how the spirit of the community in society is being eaten up and how that’s leaving us all living in a harrowing social madness. After some brilliant piece of acting, there was a Q&A by the British director, Chris Cooper.

In his answer to one of the questions, Mr Cooper remarked how when he was in Malta the first time he had heard of the Panama leaks. This instigated a snigger from the people in the audience which smacked of ‘Oh-don’t-mind-us-silly-Maltese-and-our-politics’. But then he continued: “Now it’s all over the world and it is the result of the way we are living.” He said that because there is no sense of community all we care about is our pocket even if it’s to the detriment of the rest of the community.

The audience was silent then, slightly uncomfortable, as if to say “Umm, erm, we’re not supposed to discuss politics in the theatre.” But that is exactly what art and culture is about! It reflects us back to ourselves, and if it doesn’t do that, then it’s not art.

Which is why we should expose our children as much as possible to varied cultural events: hopefully, they will grow up to be more open-minded than us and we’d be giving birth to a much better generation.

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