Another "screaming kids in a restaurant" thread.

Concur.

And the asshole server should have brought a dinner roll or soup or one of the 50 things in a restaurant that are ready to go at all times.

Waitress checking in to say there was absolutely no reason why they couldn’t have given those kids something to tide them over until the meal came. Hell, even low-end places have pieces of Wonder bread, cracker packets, veggies for burgers and usually some kinds of fruit for various things. Sounds like they were engaging in either a power play of some sort, being a dick in general or didn’t like children and wanted them to suffer. Otherwise, you certainly wouldn’t have effected your other tips by doing nothing.

+1

Hell, +20

A preschool age child has a limited intellectual and physiological capacity to sit still and quiet in a stimulating environment. (Like a restaurant filled with sights, sounds, smells, people to watch, unusual things to look at, etc.) They have limited capacity for self-control and self-regulation, even when they “know” the rules or expectations for their behavior.

Punishing a 3 - 5 year old in such a situation would be like punishing a 2 week old for not being able to sit up by herself. It would be punishing them for acting in a fashion that’s entirely consistent with their expected and normal stage of development.

kbear, if you had a hotel, why not drop kids and one parent at the hotel and go get food? You ate in the room anyway. The children could have gotten into their jammies and watched TV while waiting to eat.

I kind of did–sort of a vibe that it was primarily the restaurant’s fault the kids were melting down because they had to wait for their food.

There were a lot of points where this situation could have been dealt with, and most of them were directly under the parents’ control. They could have left for dinner at a time more in keeping with how long it had been since the kids had eaten last. They could have grabbed some fast food instead of going to a sit-down restaurant to speed things up. They could have carried snacks with them as pretty much all parents of kids that age do (and they were travelling, so nobody else had secretly depleted the stash without them knowing–if they didn’t have snacks, it was all on them.) If there are 4 points where something can go wrong, and you screwed up three of them, it’s going to come across pretty bad if you call the person who screwed up #4 names while simply saying that you made a mistake.

I shall print your post out and show it to my mother. Perhaps she’ll take heed of your words, because nothing I say has the slightest effect on her whatsoever.

TGI Fridays serves nachos. I doubt they make their own tortilla chips. If that’s true, they must have tortilla chips on hand. They could have brought out some chips for the kids, if nothing else.

This is exactly what I was going to say. It was not a punishment. She knew what we wanted but she was simply not capable of doing it yet.

I wonder if this sort of behaviour happened fifty years ago, and if so how was it dealt with ?
I assume though, that this is a more modern phenomenon aided and abetted by liberal parenting.

Oh, was she kidding? I was going to agree with her and the baby-haters.

sigh Yeah, yeah, no doubt about it.

Or it’s a more common phenomenon now because 50 years ago families may have been closer together, traveling was rather less common, and people didn’t eat out as often.

But by all means, let’s definitely drag politics into it. Maybe we can work religion and cat declawing into the matter as well.

People ate in restaurants less often fifty years ago than they do now. It’s possible this kind of thing happened then, but people did not notice it as much because they weren’t eating out as often.

Yes, because growing old is a choice that only some people make, then inflict their choice on other people. It’s completely the same thing as having kids.

This is, in many cases, so untrue.

I used to work part time in retail while I was in high school, and any time someone got pissed off about something that happened in the store, they made sure to tell me that “They won’t be coming back here, this is bullshit.”
Good asshole. I’d probably respond differently if you simply told me you didn’t like something about the store, but if you’re going to be a dick to me about it, I don’t want you to come back.

I guess what I’m saying is, be selective in who you tell and how you tell it.

Heh, great post. :smiley:

That’s the only difference between her posts and yours - that old folks didn’t have a choice? :smiley:

Sure they did - to be out in public or not. Same as parents with kids.

Except that old people don’t normally scream in your ear, stand up in the booth behind you and fuck with your head or thump, thump, thump on your back, or run around the restaurant endangering waitstaff that are carrying hot pots of coffee. At least, not in the restaurants I frequent.

They also generally aren’t allowed to let their wheelchairs and walkers block the aisles, nor to dine in nursing homes where they aren’t residents, nor can I recall (in several years of waiting tables) a single elderly customer demanding that I immediately bring them water with which to take their medicine. Not to pick nits from a great post that’s pure genius!

You’ve obviously never dined with my husband.

We don’t go out much.

:smiley: