I hadn’t really thought about it in terms of public/private sector. Now that I do think about it (with some end-of-week cognitive impairment, mind you), I’m not sure it matters, at least in terms of what I’ve been trying to articulate. Our susceptibility to marketing, and how our responses feed the beast, is germane to this discussion but beyond me at the moment. I can say that I believe mroe parents these days are more likely to expect the world to focus on their children, than was the case a generation ago; and that the public sector has to deal with those expectations. So yes, the grocery carts and mall amusements are private sector marketing, but they contribute to a culture that the public sector ultimately has to reflect and/or respond to.

– choochoo trains and such at a shopping mall, a source of annoyance to me and many I know (with and without kids); it may well attract a particular segment of customers but the noise and overall air of a giant hamster wheel undoubtedly drives away others (including people like me who have more money to spend on ourselves b/c not raising a family). I used to enjoy a nice mall browse from time to time; now I only go under duress, on specific quests, get in and out as rapidly as possible and absolutely spend less money than otherwise would.

– racecar grocery carts at the supermarket – upside is they keep kids from rampaging through the aisles, downside is they’re huge and complicate navigation for everybody. People have been shopping in supermarkets accompanied by children for 50 years or longer, these wheeled leviathans are relatively recent and IMO a response to the prevailing trend of not requiring children to behave themselves in public. (See previous rant about child deportment in stores.)

– n’hood restaurant that wedged a tiny “children’s area” with a few toys into a corner of the dining room, in close proximity to many tables. All it did was encourage a pre-school playroom atmosphere to pervade the whole dining room, which is not what the proprietors were aiming for, based on the menu, prices, and other aspects of decor and branding. Tried it twice before scratching it off the list — good food and decent service but not worth enduring the constant potential for toddler frenzy. Not saying there’s anything wrong with restaurant making that choice. Just an example of what I was talking about.