While millennials are correctly labeled the “Entitlement Generation”, they can also bear the title of “Most Overly-Accommodated Generation” as well. Their expectations go beyond just getting a trophy or verbal praise for everything they do to a belief that their every need must be met not just by the government, but by the entire private sector as well–no matter how rare the request. That attitude explains the one-star on-line review for the best restaurant in town because “they don’t have free wi-fi” or “there was only one gluten-free, non-lactose, low-soy entrée on the menu–and I’m not eating fish right now”.
The latest example of this is Chris Mau–a father whose angry on-line rant about a fast-food restaurant not have a diaper changing table in the men’s room is going viral. For those that haven’t heard about this, Mau was taking his 8-month old daughter for a walk when she got a dirty diaper. Mau then went into a fast-food restaurant with an indoor play area assuming they would have a changing station. When they did not, he put paper towels on the floor, laid the baby on those and changed her diaper–snapping photos for his angry post.
My parents have been traveling this week, so I haven’t been able to verify this with my mother–but I can pretty much guarantee they never changed my diaper on the floor of a fast-food restaurant. And do you know how I know this? Because my parents never took me to a fast-food restaurant as a baby because they knew they would likely have to change my diaper on the floor of the bathroom. You see, parents in those days didn’t take infants everywhere they went–and they didn’t expect private businesses to provide them accommodations to take care of babies.
It should be noted that Mr Mau wasn’t even a paying customer of the restaurant that he and thousands of others are now taking to task. He was just walking by and assumed that they would have accommodations for him. In a USA Today version of this story I saw on-line he called it a “social injustice” that the men’s room wouldn’t have a changing table (because it’s sexist to think that men don’t change diapers). I fully expect that restaurant chain to now close all of their locations for an afternoon next month to teach their employees to be more “sensitive” to fathers with infants that just pooped their pants.
Actually, the cyber-bullying that will accompany this story will result in this restaurant chain ordering its franchisees to install changing tables in all men’s rooms–even though there is no guarantee that it will ever be used–just to avoid any further bad publicity. And, those changing tables had better be available to people just walking in off the street–and not just to paying customers. Because if you don’t, you can expect an entire generation to cry and throw a fit until they get their way.
