LETTER: Keep kids out of classes

Editor,

Let me start off by saying that I love families, and I think that USU is to be commended for all the excellent programs it offers that directly benefit the family unit.

However, I believe very strongly that when it comes to actually attending class here, the families should be left at home. More and more often I find my classes being disrupted by a squalling baby or small child, forced to sit through an hour or so of a lecture that sometimes exceeds the attention span of even an adult.

I do not feel that it is fair that I have to pay steadily increasing amounts of tuition out of my own pocket to attend a class where I can barely hear the instructor, especially when the child making all the noise doesn’t have to pay a dime.

As if that isn’t bad enough, a close friend of mine relates that just about every day in his linguistics class, a new mother sits and breast-feeds during the lecture. I understand that feeding a baby is a natural and necessary thing to do, but in the middle of class?! There are many of us who feel that this is not appropriate, just as urinating or having sex in public is inappropriate, yet just as natural and necessary of a bodily function.

Please parents, have pity on both your classmates and instructors, and leave the children home. If you do not have the money for a sitter, may I suggest dropping just one class. Surely that will be enough to afford a caretaker during the rest of your classes.

Gretchen Sancher