Message ID: c2crlt$1rmnge$1@ID-202214.news.uni-berlin.de
As the mother of five children, I've run into a problem when I go to nice restaurants (not fast-food places). The moment my husband and I and our brood step up to the hostess stand, diners in the area glare at us, and I've heard people say things like, "So much for a quiet lunch." My kids range in age from 15 down to 2 years old. When my oldest child was a toddler, I decided that I wanted her to learn the right way to behave in a restaurant, and, of course, the only way to teach that, once the basic manners were covered at home, was to go to a restaurant. For the most part it's worked well, and all the kids are very polite to the wait staff. Yet we still get the glares and grouchy comments from childless diners. What can I tell people who come up and tell me that I should be feeding my kids at home and not in the restaurant?
-Teaching Table Manners
Dear Teach,
People come up to you and say this? Prudie has THOUGHT it sometimes when a kid is yowling, but saying something is way out of bounds. For people who deliver such an opening salvo, an appropriate response would be: "What a rude and unkind thing to say. Perhaps you should join a club where they don't allow children." Then turn away and hope the lamebrain has learned something.
-Prudie, irreproachably
It has been my observation that parents, upon the birth of their children, become magically endowed with ability to tune things out. They become so inured to the racket and chaos that surrounds them that they simply fail to notice that not everyone has that dubious blessing. It has been my further observation is that most people are fairly accomodating. So bearing that in mind - if people are approaching you to tell you that you should have left your kids at home, then your kids are making a disturbance that doesn't even register on your diaper-obscured radar.
I hate to break it to you, but a two-year-old does not yet have a grasp of "basic manners" or the reasoning ability to figure out how to behave in a nice restaurant. Therefore, the words "get a sitter" should be in your vocabulary.
Come as it may as a great surprise to you, restaurants are not schools of etiquette established for your sole convenience. They are businesses were people come to dine, and pay for the ambiance of a peaceful dining experience. Do you plan on reimbursing the other diners for ruining the peaceful enjoyment of their meals? I thought not. If people are approaching you and admonishing you on the behavior of your brood, your children are not ready to be there. The only mistake made here was approaching you directly - the other diners should have made there annoyance known to the wait staff, and voted with their feet if necessary.
Childfree Abby
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