For a day that was supposed to be quiet and enjoyable, this past Saturday certainly turned into anything but. Our oldest boy was to spend the whole day at Wonderland with his church group and our younger son, my husband and I were to spend a quiet morning catching up on our regular Saturday morning chores. With a business of our own, finding time to ourselves is a treat and not having our older son around for the day was an even bigger treat. So, off we went. We dropped our son off at the church and planned to have a few enjoyable hours together. The rain had started early, shortening our trip at the St. Jacob’s Farmer’s Market. We grabbed a few things and took off. After that we hit our favorite wholesaler. While we checked out our items we noticed how dark it was outside and upon exiting the store, we got completely soaked as we loaded our van. Our next stop was for food. At the restaurant we found ourselves practically alone except for one other family. You can guess where they plopped us…right next to the other family. Not realizing that the other family’s kids were little hellions on high, cushioned seats, we took the table and hoped to enjoy our meal, even though we were wet and hungry.
As we sat there, with dying patience, the toddler in the adjoining booth decided we were up for investigation and watched us over the back of the seat, whilst giving off intermittent squeals, talking like there was no tomorrow, and being general pains in our backsides.
Do you think that throughout the whole meal that either adult at that table corrected the children, possibly told them to sit, be quiet or to leave us alone? No. I think that since we had a five year old of our own or that it was a family restaurant, they believed the behavior was acceptable. We didn’t think it was acceptable, and since the server was so slow we were forced to sit there even longer than we wanted. Family restaurant or not, children need to learn acceptable ways to behave when out in public. Family restaurants are not the place for screaming, carrying on and general playtime for children. Sure, the neighborhood burger joint may permit such activities, but not at a family sit-down restaurant, where families with well behaved children hope to enjoy a quiet, pleasant meal together.
To cap off our afternoon, as we drove home we received a phone call from our older son, telling us that Wonderland had been cancelled and he was coming home. Nice. You have to love days where all goes as planned
And in case you see us at your local restaurant dragging our kids out the door due to bad behavior; know that we’re not doing it for us. We do it for you. No need to thank us. Ignoring us will suffice.
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