Perhaps Political Scientists Just Don't Like Kids

The American Political Science Association has bannedchildren from the exhibit hall at their annual meeting.  They cite “liability”.

This is clearly nonsense, as the other academic associations, including the American Sociological Association, do not ban children from their exhibit halls.  These conferences are held in the same hotels as the APSA meets in.

In the late ‘80s, Mrs. Gruntled and I lived in Washington, DC.  For fun, we would put the kids in the stroller and walk up to the Washington Hilton to crash academic association meetings.  We particularly liked to go to the exhibit hall, to see the nifty new books.

We learned that different associations reacted differently to children.  Sociologists would smile.  Anthropologists were come over (often with their kids) to talk babies. 

And the political scientists?  They turned their backs, pretending they had not seen children.