Last weekend my friend and I stopped by a very cute new café that opened in my neighborhood. It has a lovely private patio, big sun umbrellas, and a good menu of healthy food, so we looking forward to a Saturday morning breakfast and chat.
But when we stepped out onto the patio, there were young children everywhere, and by everywhere, I mean everywhere. They running in and out of the tables, playing in the middle of the floor, and one little boy was rolling his toy truck under a table where a couple, who were definitely not his parents, were eating.
Out of the six or seven sets of parents present, there was one who appeared to be making any kind of effort to teach their child how people behave in restaurants. One. My friend (who is a mother) suggested we leave and take our coffee to go instead.
They say it takes a village to raise a child, but that doesn’t mean the village should have to step in and do the parent’s job. Nor does it mean the village can’t have a quiet meal without their feet being run over by a toy truck.
It’s Whiny Wednesday. I’m done grumbling for today. It’s your turn now.
I do believe it takes a village and I work with children in my job, but it is inappropriate when parents think that their children should be allowed to run all over the place. The parents are the ones who should have been asked to leave the restaurant. Good for your friend who saw that this was inappropriate too!
I remember a man in a movie theater I was at telling a couple with a noisy child to be quite. The child talked throughout the movie and the parents did nothing. It was very distracting. At the end of the movie, the woman stood up and went over to the poor guy and yelled at him for messing with her child. This is a poor example to set for the child. All she was doing was showing the child that it was ok to be rude and that anyone who thought otherwise should be treated with disrespect.
While we were on vacation this summer and out to dinner with other friends, a couple with a 2 year old joined us for dinner. It was a very adult, expensive place and I was surprised they wanted to go with their child. They let their son wander around the entire restaurant and thought it was cute he was going up to other people’s tables to take food. Then the mother took him to the bathroom and I came in a few minutes after her and saw she let him kneel on the countertop to play with the water in the sink. She told me a woman came in the bathroom, and gave her a dirty look, and the mom told her to f*** off. I couldn’t believe she thought she was right. I told her, people are here paying $40 for an entree, they expect an upscale adult environment, it’s really not a place for children. Then she got mad at me (I didn’t invite her to dinner). I just don’t understand the mentality of parents today. I want to say to them, just because you think everything your child does is adorable, doesn’t mean everyone else in the world feels the same way.
Ugh. You made the right move to take your coffee to go. There is a great italian restaurant near us that also serves great pizza. People with kids took it over because of the pizza option. It’s so loud in there it’s insane. We tried to eat in once and while we were waiting for our waitress, a kid was screaming non-stop. We watched every couple in the restaurant ask to take their food to go and leave, and we did the same. I feel like if that’s the type of place they want to be, then I won’t put up with it. But I don’t know how parents can sit there and let their kids behave that way and do nothing. There is another italian restaurant we go to and the owners are from Italy. When the kids act up, the wife owner tells them to behave and the parents look surprised and scared of her. I love that place for that reason.
What is it with kids in restaurants? I was never allowed out of the chair when I was little and we went out to eat. Never. We live near an Amish community and visit their buffet style restaurant often (not um..healthy). Last Saturday I was shocked at a few children old enough to know better who were loitering at the dessert table.
Parents who let their kids run crazy in a restaurant drive me crazy. We went to a fancy steak restaurant for a romantic dinner and a couple let their small child (about 4 or 5) run from table to table and around the restaurant. I was glad the manager finally said something to them.
My mother expected us to display the kind of manners in a restaurant that we did at home. We were not expected to dress up or eat off china with silver utensils (except at Christmas), but we were expected to sit in our seat, try at least a couple of bites of something before declaring it yucky, and participate in the family conversation. In looking around these days, either my Mom had very high standards, or standards have become obsolete.
This post immediately made think of this Bill Maher quote I saw last week: “I don’t dislike children; I just don’t particularly want to be around them a lot. The problem is, neither do their parents. And I’m tired of being constantly, involuntarily deputized into the fight to keep your kids away from adult pleasures. ‘It takes a village.’ That’s just a saying. Us other villagers are busy, okay? I have other things to do in the village.”
Love it! 🙂
My sister worked as a waitress for quite a few years, 30 years ago, & even then, she used to tell horror stories about kids running around the restaurant. She was always afraid they were going to crash into her when she was carrying plates of hot food. I’m sure it’s only gotten worse since then. :p