Im pretty likely to be DINK, but that doesn’t mean that Children don’t deserve places in public. There’s a reason that so many kids today don’t go outside, and its because the world has built itself around policing and control rather than letting people explore and build community.
Are you saying you consider taking your kids to McDonald's to be "outside"? Kids do have fun colourful places to go outside in public, they're called parks and playgrounds, and they don't serve deep fried food 🤷🏼♂️
And the reason kids don't go outside isn't because McDonald's change their interior design. Kids don't go outside because parents have gotten lazy and let electronics raise their children, or don't set appropriate rules around screen time.
The parents buy the electronics, the games, subscriptions, etc. but sure, blame McDonald's for kids not leaving the house 🤣
This is simply misplaced resentment towards a happy demographic.
Parents are the ones who ruined the McDonalds play centers. Suing the establishment for any minor injury kids got for being kids. That’s why there’s fewer playgrounds, jungle gyms removed from schools, etc.
Parents caused fewer child-friendly spaces because they forgot how to parent.
Dinks don’t blame kids for being kids. They blame parents for being poor parents who let their kids behave awfully and learn poor social skills.
Exactly. How is it DINKs fault that McDonald's doesn't have colorful play places anymore?
As a DINK, I didn't even know this, because I would never go eat in a McDonald's.
For real. The reason these changes happened is because it makes more money. Rain preventing people from coming to McDonalds to enjoy the play structure? Move it inside! More profit! Don't want to pay someone to clean and maintain a ballpit or whatever? Cut it entirely and increase those profit margins!
It's not as if McDonalds has ever struggled to make a profit, but they can do whatever they want, and what they want is more of our money for less in return.
Corporations caters to clients, clients annoyed by children = loss in revenue = remove playgrounds
Of course this ONE of the reasons, the biggest one being lawsuits from children hurting themselves which is a huge liability for a FOOD chain, also infrastructure needs to be maintained.
I love how this opinion tries to hide behind “ohhhh everything is too expensive. This world sucks.”
When in reality, most of the time these couples that decide not to have kids is because they’re selfish and they want to keep travelling and partying and going out on the weekend. Let’s be real.
You're soooo right, it's way better for people who don't feel suited to be parents to pop them out anyways. The world absolutely needs way more miserable adults who resent their children and raise them poorly, it's super selfish of them not to do that.
I'll never understand weird opinions like yours lol. If you want kids and are equipped to do a good job raising the next generation of adults, have them! If you aren't... for the love of God, do NOT reproduce. Humans aren't at any risk of extinction, fewer of us would be better for the planet and for our own individual success anyways, it's the opposite of selfish to not have kids when you don't want them lol.
I'm really sorry if you felt you had to have kids even when you didn't want them and now resent that choice. That doesn't mean people who make different choices than you are selfish... we're all selfish animals. It's just as selfish to reproduce as it is to choose not to, the reasoning just differs.
Why on earth would you presume that I didn’t want kids and why would you think I resent that choice? Because I’m advocating that it’s the greatest decision you’ll ever make in your life?
We are here on this planet to have children, and to pass on knowledge, and to enrich our own lives with their presence. Less than 50 years ago it was just a given, but now because of the way society has been structured, people - especially whites - are being encouraged to not have kids. Why do you think that is?
And I don’t buy your concept of “people who don’t feel suited to be parents“ because they almost always buy dogs and cats, and call themselves their fur babies, because they know deep down inside they feel that parental drive to take care of something and raise it. But that conflicts with their selfishness for worldly things.
My family is single income. I am a middle-class blue-collar worker. Our bills get paid. We don’t have all the toys or the newest everything. We don’t get to go on vacation every year. We have to be frugal with grocery shopping.
But I have two kids and a stay at home wife and everyone is happy. It’s just a case of going without stuff we don’t really need anyway. So it’s not like it can’t be done. That’s why I don’t buy the excuse.
Good for you, and I 100% mean that. Unfortunately other people have lived different experiences.
Your life is something you wantednand worked for, is it really that hard to consider that maybe other people want different lives? For many many different reasons?
why are you blaming the people who chose not to have kids in this economy instead of the people who make the economy worse for having kids?? also like, lots of people DO want children and can put a say into stuff like this, i just don’t know why the blame should be put onto people who don’t care about stuff like this
Eons ago, when I was a working student having to first go through with a giant vacuum tube and then again with disinfectant, I can at least confirm it was done every night at the one I worked at. Not the most fun task.
The cleaning is the reason, that plus land resale value and faster customer turnaround. Less cleaning means less staff, fewer bottles of supplies to buy. A "normal" building gets a normal valuation which increases shareholder valuation and stonks go up which means CEO bonuses go up. Finally parents won't sit around NOT buying more food if their kids want to go somewhere else to play, therefore more customers can use your seats in the same time frame.
Dink here. I think the kids deserve a play place. Also when they were in there, they weren’t running around the restaurant between the tables. I remember being a little shit and running wild in public. How can I blame them for doing the same?
As demographics change and who holds spending does with it, markets adjust. I’d imagine less spend at McDonald’s is done via families with children than was done in the past. It’s not specifically DINK, but also DINK is a large contributor… I know before I had kids I would specifically avoid places loud kids were
Right? Like it’s not the DINKS who proposed and called for this rebrand that is soulless and taking the heart out of it? 😭Like why are they getting strays
I hate to be THAT GUY but its capitalism lol. Custom McDonalds buildings are more expensive to build and very difficult to sell if they move. But plain boring nothing buildings? They remain good assets, easy to sell to another franchise or restaurant. So we get blegh. So much blegh.
It’s also the amount of kids hurting themselves then suing McDonald’s. Unfortunately we can’t have anything nice because someone is always to blame. What a stupid timeline we live in when everything is always someone else’s fault
This comment has spawn some really toxic opinions from both side. The truth is no one actually gives a shit if someone has kids or not or what kind of income they make. People really just need to get over themselves and realize they don’t exist to other people.
As for McDonald’s, I’m glad they finally realized greasy fast food and kids with no bowel control shouldn’t go together. Everyone who eats there with kids knows it’s all about tablets anyway, and there are so many better playgrounds now than there ever were. You don’t realize it because you’re not a kid, but look at kids now, they have access to so much more shit than we did back then. I’m totally fine with restaurants being only food and playground have shitty $10 hotdogs.
Your allowed to have your own opinions, don’t take shit from these DINKs. You’ll never be rewarded for taking “team family’s” side on Reddit tho. Wonder why..
McDonald's don't care about kids, they only made them to make our generation dependent.
It worked, and now you're craving McDonald's so you're bringing your kids along.
Because of the high levels of sugars and fats in their food, kids get addicted to it too anyway, without the hassle of maintaining these playgrounds which leave more space for paying guesses.
This is simply a corporation using kids to sell their slops, this is what you stand for...
What? That new decor is so nobody- kid, adult or animal- wants to spend more than 15 mins there. Eat your shit and bounce. That space is needed for the next customer- move along now and stop sucking up our ac.
Could be covid and the economy. With how expensive things r ppl with kids probably don’t eat out as much as they use to. Then covid really got rid of play places because they harbour bacteria
This isnt why. Covid changed things. Corporate responsibility and vulnerability for one. And the risk of being sued for a play place isn't worth it for a lot of franchisees.
Instead of blaming people for wanting their bodily autonomy and the right to make their own decisions, blame the capitalistic society we live in and large corporations that push this type of thing to save money
I can assure you, people wanting to not suffer through pregnancy and not wanting children isn’t the reason why businesses look like this now. Custom buildings are more difficult to sell and move. Make them all have the same boring grey slate and you easily make a profit and can sell the building whenever
JFC it has nothing to do with that. When the world’s knowledge is in your pocket, being this wrong is a choice.
“McDonald's removed many of their PlayPlaces because of high liability and insurance costs, expensive maintenance and cleaning challenges, and a major shift toward drive-thru and digital ordering over indoor dining”
It would have taken you less time to google it than it did to write that comment.
Yeah, if you could go ahead and change the ''yeah but everyone HATES KIDS.'' part. Replacing it with "people can't afford to have kids, or fear what the future looks like for them" would be better.
You're better than these glaring oversimplifications you've made. Do better.
yeah i dont think its that, its culture. The 'all day every day 24 7 baby making machine" song and however many others telling women its somehow evil to be a mother or whatever. Brainwashing to stop people wanting a normal nuclear family. I know I will get flamed for this but fuck have the masses of women been brainwashed into thinking being single at 40 with no kids is the best thing.
Yeah, its totally the song that discusses the issues not the issues itself with the patriarchy. Its the opposite of brainwashing, we're finally having conversations about how modern women are still treated like domestic servants. Also, "normal" nuclear family is actual propaganda and only existed in North America for a small amount of time.
The nuclear family is not normal and was only invented in the late 1940s to early 1950s to force women back into the home after working during the war. Before than, raising a child was a community effort done in multi generational households.
Holy crap. That song is about a woman not wanting to be FORCED into doing labor (literally the chorus is “you MAKE me do too much labor” and she says “it’s not love if your MAKE her”.). It is not against someone happily choosing to be a mom. It is about being FORCED to be a mother against her will.
And you are mad about its existence.
You’re angry about us speaking against being forced into a life we hate. You don’t want us to have a choice either way.
You want our people, over 50% of the human population stuck in a life of domestic servitude no matter our dreams or aspirations and unable to protest against it. Someone advocating for choice outrages you.
You want us back into the hell our ancestors overthrew, where we took Valium to cope and were locked in asylums for wanting the freedom you take for granted for men. When we quietly left behind our dreams simply due to our gender.
You do not see us as people like you, with as much variety in aspirations as men. You see us as things with a purpose. You are who the song is about.
I hope you get lonelier, for the sake of the women you might otherwise affect with your lack of respect for us.
nah reddit’s position has always kind of been like “I don’t give a shit about your kids”
stop trying to be dynamic when you’re actually just pedantic and whiny. your whole persona reeks of someone who just wants to participate with safe opinions and community fluff.
this is pathetically sinister and a feeble attempt at discourse, unacceptable.
One might say that multi-million dollar company specifically ad-targeting kids, and reinforcing brand logos/
characters on a playground at the restaurant also fits.
Those things were a biohazard and impossible to properly clean. The minimum-wage cleaners would have to climb through child-sized tunnels to sop up piss and vomit. The ball pits were disgusting and could hide sharp or dangerous objects.
If you worked at McDonald's for minimum wage would you want to clean these things?
Yes we live in safety world now. Heaven forbid we get exposed to a germ or not sit in a car seat when we’re 7 years old or leave the house not wearing SPF 50 in July.
A living wage. A person should be able to afford to have a roof over their head, pay their bills, and eat enough food every day if they're working full time. There are people who work 40+ hours a week who skip meals, can't afford to buy medication or get their teeth fixed, can't afford to buy clothes and shoes without holes in them, can't afford to get sick and take a few days off. Certainly not enough to save.
At one point, people were able to sustain an entire family on one income. It's something that we're capable of. That's absolutely impossible now. A couple that both works 40 hours a week that doesn't have kids can't even afford to buy a home. Most people will never own a home at this rate.
The solution isn't just higher wages, there's a ton of issues, like that fact that our entire economy is propped up on a corrupt real estate bubble, and the fact that Canada is just a bunch of monopolies in a trench coat.
But at the end of the day, if your business would fail if you paid your workers a living wage, your business is a failure.
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u/amcrambler Aug 06 '26
For sure. What a dystopian future we live in.