Is it possible to dine out politely with kids?

[TZ]

Going to restaurants with children can be like target practice for dirty looks, but you can dodge and deflect
Is there any hatred more vile and seething than that reserved for parents and young children by people not in the mood? In cities, particularly, it becomes turf war: small spaces and bulky bourgie baby-care accoutrements really don't mix. I love kids (Hi, Peanut!), but there is a dark chamber of even my heart that opens up when I'm in a hurry and the entire sidewalk is taken up by a double-wide stroller. And nowhere are the battle lines more drawn than in restaurants.

"The first warning is when you see the parents enter the restaurant with a stroller the size of a KIA. From there they will ensure that no one enjoys their dinner until after they're gone. I sincerely think it's intentional," a commenter on Serious Eats replied to a poll on whether children should be allowed in high-end restaurants. Granted, this commenter calls him/herself "Leper," so there may be something else going on psychologically there, but that level of animosity, resentment and contempt is not out of range for what I hear uttered about parents with kids at tables.

And then I heard recently of a stylish cafe in a particularly baby-happy part of town that instituted a no-stroller policy. Not a particularly welcoming gesture, but hearing young parents in the neighborhood talk about it, it wasn't just an annoyance, it was a declaration of class, race and gender war all rolled into one, almost as evil as anything to do with Dick Cheney.


http://www.salon.com/food/francis_lam/2010/05/13/how_to_go_to_restaurants_with_kids/index.html

[MiddleFingerMom]

1. Certainly. Duh. n/t -- no WAIT... there IS more. Silly me.

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:evilgrin:
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[mike_c]

2. some of my worst restaurant experience involved children...

...including my own. When our replacement unit acted up, we generally tried to remove her from the restaurant quickly to avoid making everyone else pretend that our toddler wasn't screaming at the top of her lungs, but I DESPISE it when others don't extend the same courtesy. I do understand that kids can't always stay calm and quite for as long as it takes in restaurants, and that there's not much for them to do there-- which is why parents should leave them at home until they're old enough to do it-- and to understand why.

[HopeHoops]

3. We've been doing it for 19 years.

We have a simple rule: certain behavior is not appropriate. We have always enforced it consistently and have all along gotten comments from both wait staff and other patrons on how well behaved our kids are at restaurants. That obviously isn't always the case at home, but in public it is expected. They learned to say "yes ma'am" and "yes sir" very early on and still do.

Now, that said, my wife and I are appalled at what we see children do in restaurants and it is the parents who are to blame. There are a lot of variants to the problem. The most inexplicable is when the parents are completely engrossed either in a conversation with each other or something on the TV and the kids are playing hand-held games while eating sloppy food over their laps. Then there are the parents who keep reprimanding the children but don't actually DO anything about it. "Don't do that! Don't do that! Don't do that!..." When the record ends, turn it over and start it again.

[LeftyMom]

4. Once they're old enough to mind? Sure.

The thing is, kids need consistency. So if the rule is "if you do not behave, we will leave" then the parent needs to consistently enforce that rule.

But it's also important to have age-appropriate expectations. Taking very young or boisterous children into places where neither the food nor the noise level is kid-friendly is neither fair to other diners or to the kids. There's plenty of time to take them into nicer places once they learn to communicate quietly and politely.

[LisaM]

5. My sister and I practically grew up in restaurants

and we were very quiet and well-behaved. We liked going to restaurants and it would never had occurred to us to act otherwise. Never. We didn't need to be entertained the whole time, either, but give either of us the back of a menu and some kind of writing instrument and we would happily draw until our food came.

The kids who act like this in restaurants probably act like this at home, or don't have sit down meals. We sat down to dinner at the table almost every night, and used good manners even at home.