Cathy in the Wright

Dining al a Child

Doug over at Bogus Gold links to a post from Plastic Hallways which has a humorous paragraph about dining with little kids in restaurants. Doug adds a few of his own thoughts and gets a snide (anonymous, of course) commenter who chides, "You'll be served first, but in the meantime could you teach your kids some manners?"

Well, anon, we do teach our kids manners. And our efforts often work at home because we have access to the time-out corner or the bedroom and we can listen to half an hour of screaming because it only effects us. But if we want our kids to learn the ins and outs of public social behavior, we sometimes have to put them in the public arena. Not our first choice, mind you. Personally, I'd have no problem keeping the urchins in controlled environments until they were legally responsible for their own actions. But think of the economy. The generic crayon business would dry up. Jobs would be lost when graphic designers no longer have to come up with cartoon pictures of corn dogs and french fries for the kiddie menus. And the big tips guilty parents leave after Junior wreaks havoc at the table? Gone.

This is not to say that parents have no effective tools when out in public. I have spent more than one meal sitting in the car with The Governor while The VP and The Senator finish dining in the restaurant. But bear with us as we try to steer these monkeys away from the label of social pariah.

As painful as eating with children can be, it's worth it. Without actual dining experience, you never know what might happen. One of my boys, for instance, might grow up to date your daughter. And when he's taking her out for a meal, he just might remember he shouldn't blow the paper straw wrapper across the table into her face or turn around in the booth and throw croutons at the diners behind him. He might slurp the last few drops of his soda because the day I was teaching that lesson, we were probably sitting in the car.

Posted by Cathy at October 24, 2004 10:00 AM