Restaurant Child Ban Update (babysitter, spanking, boys, play)
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Thing is, restaurants have typically allowed children to behave in a way that they would -not- tolerate from adults. If *I* ran up and down the aisles, stopping at patrons' tables and asking where they got their pink pocketbook, or thumping the back of my seat, or shouting "NO I DON'T LIKE PEAS TAKE THEM AWAY!!!" I would be kicked out of the restaurant.
The behavior shouldn't be tolerated from anyone. Not children, not adults. Give the parent a chance to calm her child down, OR move the child to the bathroom til he can calm down, or remove him from the premises til he can calm down, and try again. I'm all for it. But if the parents don't try, and the kid refuses to calm, then the establishment -should- kick them out.
I'd argue that rude behavior is more prevalent across the board. That would include adults as well as children.
I'm in total agreement with you on that, but I will say it's been my experience that unruly adults are less likely to be destructive than unruly children.
Rude is one thing, but I get to enjoy things like children running down an aisle and careening into other customers, which I get to apologize for, and not a parent in sight. Or the kids that decided to bounce a ball and see how high it would go and it landed two aisles over knocking a bunch of merchandise off the shelves. I was relieved they didn't injure anyone with that little fiasco. The mom hurried over from wherever she was and hustled the kids off, but there was no rebuke, no apology for the mess, and certainly no attempt to make the kids help pick up the stuff they knocked over. This is the type of behavior I have seen becoming more prevalent over the last several years.
I'm actually hard on my nephew and nieces because I know how much of a troublesome they can be. If they don't listen, I will be "mean" to them and tell them how it is. It's just a sad thing that sometimes their mom cares but doesn't care enough to do something about it. It's annoying.
I think I'd get a kick out of an adult shouting "NO I DON'T LIKE PEAS TAKE THEM AWAY!" But that's just me.
I think I did that last week at the Golden Corral except with brussel sprouts when my Dad put one on my plate trying to get me to try one again for the first time in over 30 years. Not that many could probably hear me though over the din of screaming kids. At least I hope not.
I think I did that last week at the Golden Corral except with brussel sprouts when my Dad put one on my plate trying to get me to try one again for the first time in over 30 years. Not that many could probably hear me though over the din of screaming kids. At least I hope not.
When are "adult" establishments going to ban obnoxious, loud-mouth drunks who take great pleasure in spewing obscenities? That's more annoying than unruly kids as far as I'm concerned.
And I'm not talking about bars, that sort of thing is to be expected there and if you don't like it you can leave, or just not go in in the first place. I'm talking about the sort of restaurants that people usually go to when they want a quiet dinner with no kids.
For the record I have no problem with these establishments keeping kids out. I enjoy a child-free meal myself once in awhile. But to assume that children are the only people who can ruin a nice, quiet dinner is naive.
I've shut off drunks and had drunks tossed out when I was a bartender. That was part of the job. For places where the person is coming in drunk, and there's no bartender, you'd need to be pretty careful how you handle it because drunkenness and violence are close comrades. Best bet in the case of someone roaring drunk is to call the police and let them handle it (which I've also done).
I'm amazed that parents don't seem to be able to put the fear of God into their children. If, God forbid, they are ever in a situation where their child's conduct is a matter of life or death, then how will they keep the kid quiet?
I'm not the only person to see the finale of M*A*S*H, I'm sure. And hostage situations, while rare, are not at all unheard of. Some of the survivors of the attacks in Norway lived because they played dead. One sound from a child could have fatal consequences.
While our kids were never in such a situation, there was an instant when my son was about three that he was about to step in front of a car. When I yelled STOP, he froze. If he had been disobedient, he would have been hit. I see so many parents who don't understand that they must insist on obedience at the earliest age possible. Obviously a parent who is trying to soothe a baby on an international flight deserves sympathy and not scorn. But I've been on the same flight with school-age children kicking our seats with parents who are oblivious. Our kids were the same age, and we had put aforementioned fear of God into them. That made them even angrier when it was their seats being kicked! They knew that if they even thought about kicking a seat, they would regret it for a long, long time. They knew and feared the wrath of Mom and Dad.
I think it's a symptom of some people's hatred of children in general, whether they behave or not. Most of these people share a certain political ideals (usually liberal). These feel the planet is over populated and needs a population reduction so anyone who has kids are a part of the problem.
I could live with this kid, though more than one happy scream would still have me cringing.
If a restaurant really wants to limit child traffic, I'm thinking that it might be easier, rather than banning kids, to just stop selling kids' menu items and charge a hefty fee for plate-splitting. If you offer fish sticks or spaghetti at $2.95 a plate, it suggests a whole different ambience than if your child has to pick between the grilled Scottish salmon or Ballard pork chop with blueberry gastrique at six times that. You might still get kids, but on average, I'm guessing someone who has taken the time to introduce Junior to fine dining is slightly less likely to let him be a nuisance through it.
That is a near-genius idea. The two possible drawbacks would be if Junior is just as badly behaved as kid who didn't have that advantage, and if it's not a "fine dining" establishment, but just the average TGIFriday's that wants a less kid-ish crowd after 7pm.
For the Friday's situation (or Applebees, or Chilis, or Outback Steakhouse), I'd maybe make it a policy to not seat families with children after 6:30, but any time up until then would be fine. That way kids could have their mini burger and adults who can't afford Mortons but still want an adult evening in the company of adults can get their adult-time in as well - after 7:30 or 8, when the families leave.
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Not that many could probably hear me though over the din of screaming kids. At least I hope not. 
