The Kids Are Alright
October 19, 2009
“Kids don’t belong in Las Vegas!”
“This is an adult playground!”
“I caught a psychotic clown furiously wanking off in my hotel room closet!”
“My entire trip to Vegas was ruined because I saw a child!”
Even though I’ve long since put away my clown suit, most of us still hear these statements on a fairly frequent basis, and in theory, a new legislative amendment may make it “worse”.
As I write this, a County Commissioner is making a push to allow casinos to provide temporary childcare on their properties.
Precise numbers are difficult to obtain, but according to research cited by the American Association of University Professors, 87% of women reproduce, and 81% of men reproduce.
According to research cited by me, the discrepancy between the two numbers can be easily explained by Shaquille O’Neal working overtime to impregnate 6% of the nation’s females. The man is, if nothing else, a philanthropist.
Aside from purely sociologic curiosity, these numbers mean something even more important to Las Vegas as a whole. They mean that the vast and overwhelming majority of visitors to Vegas have children, even though for the last several years, we as a city have done everything possible to deny this fact.
We’ve tried taking the “if you can’t find someone to watch your kids, stay home or go somewhere else” approach, but a strange thing happened.
People started staying home or going somewhere else.
According to last week’s Las Vegas Sun:
“Cardinal Health is one convention that took its business elsewhere. The estimated loss to the local economy from its move to Denver in 2010 is more than $5 million. Tara Schumacher, spokeswoman for Cardinal Health, said many people who attend its conventions “bring their entire families,” so child-care services to them are “a really important component of our site selection.”
Apparently club-hopping, beer-swilling, child-haters have been given the opportunity, but to date they have done an inadequate job making up the family-friendly revenue difference … especially as it pertains to conventions.
“Rex, you are biased because you have kids. Stop advocating that the rest of us put up with society’s brats while we are on vacation. We can’t take Roofilyn, steal police cars, and kidnap Mike Tyson’s tiger with kids around.”
Fair enough, but this is not the reason I am taking the position.
I actually detest all kids except for my own. I would rather climb a barbed-wire fence using only my testicles than go to Chuck E. Cheese. I don’t find other people’s kids cute or endearing. I would prefer not to be around them at all. As a matter of fact, I am slightly suspect of any male who claims to “love being around kids”. I do not believe that this is normal XY chromosomal behavior.
I’m equally suspicious of women who make the opposite claim. Female hatred of children is an aberration of evolution perpetrated by a movement which has been making women miserable since the 60′s. Whether they admit it or not, most women eventually realize this, but by the time they are 50 years old, alone, and holding conversations with their pets … the damage is irreversible.
If you are dating a woman who says that she doesn’t like kids, congratulations, you’ve got yourself a boyfriend.
I digress.
The fact of that matter is that I only take my kids into casinos during the day, and I always take them in and out in the least intrusive way. I know most shortcuts around the casino floor as well as the locations of most rear elevators, and I use them. I take the kids to family-friendly areas of properties all the time, but I don’t sit at the bar or the blackjack table with them, nor do I use strollers.
As a fellow patron who doesn’t like to be around random sprogs, I make a conscious effort to adhere to time and place appropriateness with regards to family outings.
I also try not to make a humongous production out of it when an inconsiderate visitor occasionally violates the rules of common sense.
I was annoyed a few months ago when a lady parked a stroller next to the Fetish Pit at the Las Vegas Club, but this was an unusual occurrence and I think most people’s “kids are everywhere” stories about Vegas are grossly overstated or embellished.
I’m here almost 24/7, and it’s very rare that tourist kids interrupt my gambling, drinking, or female ogling endeavors.
We made breeders feel unwelcome for the better part of a decade, and they have called our bluff. Instead of leaving junior behind, they are simply going somewhere they can take him.
It probably comes as no great surprise that the plan has its vocal critics and has become the subject of debate.
Some people have opined that casino-care would brainwash children and send the message that gambling is a good thing, but I don’t think this argument is valid.
Almost every American openly advocates public education (which is inexplicably far less evil than public medicine).
Ever since the government began promoting feminism to double its tax receipts and to make sure that no child had a mother at home to actually teach them, the vast majority of people in the USA have been utilizing public babysitting services on a daily basis.
“Rex, you’re a wingnut conspiracy theorist. What happened, did you run out of aluminum foil?”
First of all, I never run out of aluminum foil. If a fresh hat is not made daily, it becomes weakened by gamma rays from the NSA’s giant orb in the sky that we have been taught to call “the sun”.
Second, much like a broken clock, even a screwball is right every now and then.
In a 2008 ruling against a parent’s right to home school, a California judge said, and I quote:
“the primary purpose of the educational system is to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation as a means of protecting the public welfare”.
In other words, slaves who can read cause trouble on the plantation, especially if they don’t read the right things.
Practical learning is incidental to public education, because the primary purpose of schools is to indoctrinate little Johnny that Amurrca is number one regardless of our policies, and to give them a place to go while mommy and daddy work to pay their taxes and interest.
In my opinion, casino childcare is probably no better or worse than these schools.
Sure, babysitters hired by the house may teach little Johnny that gambling is fine and that stripping is an admirable profession, but is this really any worse than convincing him that Al-Qaeda is hiding under his bed?
Lifting the casino childcare ban would address the practical realities of Las Vegas tourism, and it would also make it easier for 85% of the nation’s population to come to the city.
I do not think it would warp kids, I do not find it morally objectionable, nor do I think it will lead to an epidemic in which kids would overrun casino floors citywide.
Of course, I fully realize that some of you may still have doubts. Perhaps the evidence I have presented so far is not compelling, and you still want your Vegas vacation to be uninterrupted by the presence of minors.
Fortunately, I planned for this eventuality.
For those of you who still are not convinced that casino-care is a good idea, I hereby offer the most potent weapon in my arsenal of rebuttals:
MILFS
Most of them are young, many of them are hot, and you already know that they are open to the possibility of intercourse.
Sure, casino-care may introduce more children to the Las Vegas experience, but with every cloud comes a silver lining.
MILFs in Las Vegas
MILFs in Las Vegas
The motion carries.
Written by jinx on October 19, 2009 at 11:02 am
Have to agree with your sentiments here, I’ve never understood those that seem to have their vacations ruined by seeing a child. 1. Ignore it 2. walk away from it 3. stop worrying about it.
I also agree on the men and liking children philosophy. I like my kid, and my nieces or nephews aren’t bad, but I really could care less about anyone elses kids and don’t particularly like them. I can tolerate them, but don’t particularly like them.
Written by SPRUNT on October 19, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Casino childcare may give us the opportunity to catch up to Japanese math scores in our schools. Just sayin’….
Written by tully on October 19, 2009 at 5:33 pm
Little bit confused. Many of the local casinos have offered childcare for years. Is it specifically disallowed on the Strip? Or is this a differentiation between permanent facilities, like a KidZone (or whatever they are called) and a temporary set up brought in for a specific event or convention?
It kinda surprises me that the family oriented places like CircusCircus and Excal don’t already have such supervised childcare facilities in operation.
Written by Rex on October 19, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Tully,
It is temporary childcare that is currently prohibited.
Permanent facilities are allowed, but are typically not in the vicinity of convention space.
Written by GeorgeX on October 20, 2009 at 10:00 am
I am guessing that the big casinos have mixed feelings about providing temporary childcare facilities due to the humongous potential liability issues.
I am all for it as I am a part time dad of a young son myself and I don’t have a problem with other people’s kids. They only draw back is that this can give some parents with gambling addiction issues an excuse to gamble even more and be more likely to lose junior’s milk money.