Lounge act

On Saturday I suddenly became a lounge act. I got a taste of what singers in bars, cheap restaurants and on cruise ships feel like.

I was asked to give a talk to a group of parents on birth and breastfeeding. So I duly prepped up, did a powerpoint presentation, got KH to drive me over and showed up.

The place was already noisy and full of kids and babies - that's ok because it was a parents' gathering. Kids were running about in the next room, toddlers toddling up 'on stage' (a tiny raised platform) where I was speaking, babies were being nursed etc. All that was fine with me. I have five kids - I know what its like to have many kids around. But my beef is not with the kids - its with the parents.

So picture this: no clear seating so I had parents sitting at far ends of the room, clusters in the middle etc. One particular cluster in the middle was very busy talking among themselves. They were the organisers! It was very disconcerting for me and I think, distracting to the rest too. Because not only had I to fight for attention with the roaming toddlers, I had to speak above the noise (at one point, the mike finally died too) and to have this group having a tete a tete right in front of me was really really distracting. I could see some other parents intently listening, but I'm not sure if anything significant really went through, thanks to the whole distracting atmosphere. It was hard for me to connect.

sigh.

Hence the lounge act analogy. Where singers perform to an audience who were mostly distracted, eating, talking, flirting etc. I was speaking to an audience largely running around, scrambling for their kid, talking among themselves. Finding a rapport among the audience? Forget about it.

Whether one is invited to speak in a professional capacity or as a parent, the least the organisers could do was to ensure that there was a modicum of crowd control/discipline and better organisation. And certainly, I don't think it was too much to ask for some quiet from the adults while a talk was going on! That is only being courteous and respectful of the speaker. What kind of behavior are they modelling for their children?

I was troubled by this. I had taken the time to prepare my presentation, taken the trouble to come to the event, but I left feeling perturbed in some way. When I shared this with KH, he shook his head and related what his French colleague had shared. This lady had flown from France to the US to give a presentation. But throughout the presentation, the Americans were busy eating, talking and networking at their tables! She was naturally indignant. Who was listening to her presentation? But when she raised the issue with the organisers, she was told it was a 'cultural' thing. This was the American way and it was normal!

Yikes.

I don't know if you consider Saturday's brouhaha to be typical 'parental' behavior - letting their kids run loose, busily yakking among themselves while someone was giving a talk. But I can tell you this: its not MY idea of parental behavior at all. Its just lax and rude behaviour. Culture or not. Parent or not.