Michael Tosatto on Kids in Restaurants

Michael Tosatto, over at the usually even-tempered Cooking in Kansas City (worth adding to your list of regular reads because of such gems as Olive Oil Cake) unleashed his fury on families who behave like savages in restaurants.

I've been on all sides of this one. Before I had children, I had zero tolerance for screaming babies, and I had militaristic expectations of behavior from everyone else. Families like the von Trapps were okay, but the Brady Bunch would have been too rambunctious for my patience.

After I had children, my standards slipped, but just a little. A few cries from a baby are tolerable, but just a few. Whereas I formerly believed that parents should be dashing to the parking lot with the crying kid like a running back as soon as the crying started, I came to see that most crying babies can be calmed within a minute, with a properly applied pacifier or a few bounces on a parental shoulder. So, that became my Plan A, but Plan B (removing the child from earshot of the other patrons) would be implemented within a minute, if Plan A didn't deliver immediate results.

My expectations for non-infant children remained the same - volume should remain at respectable levels, and no clowning around that can disturb other patrons. And I got more strict in my attitude toward parents. This is not the time to threaten pain and dismemberment on your child. That time is in the home, so that when you give them that raised eyebrow or use a certain phrase to them, they know you mean business and will submit to human behavior with a minimum of fuss. Parents who create a bigger disturbance than their obnoxious children should eat in the car, or at home.

Now, all this judgmental opinion doesn't mean that you cannot take a rambunctious child anywhere. Chucky Cheese is designed with the expectation that kids will behave like unschooled savages, so all bets are off. (As a side note, I caution parents with well-behaved children to carefully consider whether they should expose their angels to the demons of Chucky Cheese. Perhaps your little angel simply hasn't realized that it is even possible to run around a restaurant with half-eaten pizza spilling from your screaming mouth.)

Similarly, some bars with pin-ball machines are well-suited to a late afternoon or early evening visit with an energetic child. Ms. Pacman served as our family babysitter on more than one trip to Hooper's, and the children are now model adults. But get them out of there before people get drunk enough to dance on tables, okay?