Adults Only, Please.
In a nation with a very low birth rate, and many incentives given by the government to reproduce as many German babies as possible, one cafe in Germany stands alone, fighting against the ever-pervading sound of a child’s scream.
As reported in Der Spiegel, March 5th, 2010, Cafe Niesen in Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin has established a child-free area in its spacious cafe. Although located near a zoo and a park, [adult] regulars were apparently beginning to complain about the overwhelming amount of babies, strollers, and dissonant noise coming from the children brought there by their parents. The cafe now has this special section, and even a separate entrance for adults into this “Only for Adults without Children” area.
There has been a great deal of controversy over this, Social Democrat Stefanie Winde, declaring this as “not acceptable….we are a society that is having fewer children. We need to be more tolerant.”
Although not to the scale of racial discrimination occurring in much of Germany, this is a very interesting instance relating to the German encouragement to have more native babies born in the country, juxtaposed to the apparent revulsion adult patrons of quiet establishments have against loud and developing children. What is a country to do, where the growing and future generation of leaders is being segregated from the rest of the nation, via cafe “adult-only” rooms?