In Ontario, there is no specific age at which children may not be left alone - it’s up to the parents, based on an assessment of the individual child’s level of maturity. They can, however, be charged with an offence if after the fact their judgment turns out to be incorrect and the child is held to be endangered thereby.
Some authorities (not legally binding in any sense, but which may be evidence of appropriateness) state as follows:
In summary, leaving a 10 year old in charge of younger siblings in this day and age would be “borderline”. It isn’t against the letter of the law, as there is no strict age limits, but if anything went wrong the parents could expect to be charged, as childcare authorities recommend against doing it.
Thus, in terms of which is “worse” - taking the kids that age to the restaurant, or leaving them at home alone - there is no question: legally, leaving them at home would be considered worse now, as (depending on circumstances and events) it may result in a criminal charge for neglect.
as a waiter i have regular customers with children that DO do this… at 3 in the morning. it was all i could do to keep from laughing when the kid started jumping on a booth bench and fell into the table, spilling their drinks and ruining everyones food. Of course the great parents that they are, they just put her out in the car and left here there by herself for the remainder of the meal after the food was remade.
I find Alice’s POV is a bit extreme, but I live in an area where people like to live when they decide to have a family, and screaming, ignored children are the rule and not the exception. They are screaming either because they are too young to deal with the sitting-around-for-a-while restaurant environment and are bored/hungry/wet/tired, or because they are running loose and hurt themselves. The worst thing I see quite regularly is an older sibling heroically attempting to corral a toddler while the parent completely doesn’t give a shit. It pisses me off when a 10 year old is the only one trying to be a grownup.
And that’s the issue. Parents ignoring their kids, not kids being kids and acting within normal kid parameters. Ignoring your dependents who need your assistance to function is not acceptable whether they are young or old. Parenting is a ton of hard work and sometimes that sucks.
And for the record, I just got back from visiting with my brother and SIL, who have a 21 month old. He is a charming child but no more able to sit still and be ignored for an hour than any child of his age. Amazingly, they actually pay attention to him, consider his needs, and plan outings appropriately. Diner when its empty: yes. Loud, crowded neighborhood restaurant: no. we got takeout, and we called ahead so we wouldn’t have to wait. If they want to go out and not spend the evening considering their son’s needs, they hire a sitter.
I was thinking back about those times, and I remembered that I was always told to call Grandma or my aunt in case of trouble. I believe that both my aunt and uncle and my grandparents lived within less than a mile of our house…and my parents had already notified them that they were going out for a bit.
This. The problem usually isn’t the kids. Most of these problems could have been mitigated or simply prevented if the adults in the party would pay a LITTLE attention to the kids. You can’t just take a child or baby somewhere and proceed to ignore it. In the case of the OP, the child should NOT have been running around the restaurant. She should have been seated at the table with the rest of her party. Restaurants, and grocery stores, and shops are not safe areas to play in. It’s not like those play areas that have been carefully engineered to remove all hazards (except for the biohazards in the ball pit). Other people are trying to go about their business in those areas, and don’t need little kids zooming around. These kids are an annoyance to others, but more importantly, they are a danger to others and themselves.
…we have worked DAMN hard to make sure that our children behave at the dinner table (whether at home, visiting or in a restaurant). We make sure we have something to occupy them with. We make sure they don’t go too hungry or tired. We make sure to go to relatively child friendly places. We talk during dinner WITH them.
You know what REALLY pisses me off. You could be eating in the very next booth and never know there were kids at our table (in fact, people get up and get this surprised look on their face) but we STILL get the stinkeye if you see us coming.
DAMMIT! All those other parents who didn’t come prepared or who aren’t giving an effort give us a bad name.
SOME of us are doing a good job. SOME of us care about the people who have to share this society with. SOME of us just want to have a nice meal out WITH OUR FAMILY.
But, noooo, a bunch of you who can’t be bothered ruin it for us by turning all the childless or empty nesters in the restaurant against us.
I think it is simply an example of how times have changed, particularly in respect to safety issues involving children.
When I was a kid, people thought nothing (for example) of smoking in the car with the kids; in the country, kids rode in the back of pickup trucks all the time, and even when they didn’t, specal seats for young kids were unusual and seatbelts for older kids practically unknown - if they sat in the back.
These days, standards are simply different. You absolutely would not get away with having kids riding in the back of pickup trucks. Leaving 10 year olds to watch younger siblings isn’t of course as bad, but would definitely be frowned upon.
Similarly, standards in respect to tolerance for children in public have changed. Back then, kids were simply accepted as a part of life more.
That is a really great idea, I wish I had thought of it then. All I can say is that when you’re a new parent and your kid is crying and you’re embarrassed and hungry and trying to move your whole house to another state it’s hard to think in a rational, problem solving way.
I will also say that the total time from first cry to get out was about 3 minutes, and that during those three minutes I remained ever hopeful that the next thing I tried would calm her. When she told us to get out we didn’t argue-I took the baby out immediately while my husband stayed to settle the bill.
That was 24 years ago (wow) and I actually ended up growing into a good parent, but almost no one is a good parent from the start, we figure it out as we go.
So although I totally agree that kids should not be running and screaming anywhere in public while their parent pretends not to notice, I also have some “been there” sympathy for the ones who are doing their best and still failing miserably. Along with the understanding that sometimes, from the outside, it’s hard to tell the difference.
I often imagine a history class in the distant future. One where the professor tells students that way back all humans had and raised kids without any classes or lessons or tests they had to pass and all the students gasp in disbelief
Honestly, its not hard to tell. Parents like you who are trying are very different than caregivers who just shrug and keep letting the riots happen. From what you have posted, I don’t think that your kids would have been able to get the nod to drink vinegar.
They might have been crying and screaming, but you wouldn’t have let them run riot and climb into an empty booth and mess things up. You seem to be the sort of person who would have kept them close because they were your responsibility.
I agree. moejoe, you sound like you were one of those mammas who make me think, “Oh, the poor thing. I should tell her it gets better. No, that’s patronizing, stop it. But she looks so overwhelmed! There goes the blanket, onto the floor. Should I pick it up for her? I don’t want her to think I’m judging her negatively…”
That’s entirely different from the self-absorbed, clueless parent that makes me think, “Oh, for the love of Darwin…natural selection works all too slowly.”
Funny you should bring that up - I had this happen just this morning at the grocery store - and I didn’t know what to say or do either because we’re so afraid of offending, or that the other person will think we’re being judgemental - I remember when I was a new mom (many many years ago) and can remember how overwhelming it could be especially when my son would start getting ballistic and how a comforting word would have helped me immensely. It makes me kind of sad that we can’t do that. You know?
I tend to use humour in those circumstances. It breaks the ice a little and lets you know if the mother would welcome help or not. I’ve used “Can you believe they tell us we’ll miss these years” and “That’s why their so darn cute isn’t it” or whatever seems to fit the situation. Some clearly don’t want any interaction and I move on but several times it’s broken the ice enough to make me feel more comfortable offering to carry something, stand in line while they pace with the child or, more on topic for the thread, come and get her from the sidewalk when her food arrives.
Oddly I’ve never seen a dad stressed in this way. They seem to get flustered at finding/doing things but more calm when the kid melts down.
Kids were accepted as part of life more because parents did not tolerate this running through the restaurant getting maple syrup on Aanimika crap. My dad would never have put up with that. Kids were everywhere because if you didn’t behave, dad might spank your ass in the parking lot. Just the threat of that kept most of us in line.
When I was little, the second the waitress would put the food down in front of us, my dad would snap, “Hurry up! We’re leaving!” And our eyes would get huge and we’d gobble down our meals so we wouldn’t get left behind. We believed he’d actually just leave us if he finished before we did.
Years later, he admitted he just didn’t like us dawdling for two hours over a meal and he learned if he said that to us, he’d have plenty of time to eat, pay the bill, and get us out before we got bored and started looking for trouble.
While there have been many data points of responsible parents also not currently tolerating bullshit behavior in public, there are now too many parents who are worried about damaging their children’s self-esteem, or who just don’t know how to be the parent, so they do nothing when the kid goes a-roaming with his sticky maple fingers. If the parents are engaged, I cut kids a LOT of slack. It’s the parents who aren’t engaged who cause threads like this.
Forgive me for asking, but is your anecdote an example of how you think parents generally behaved in the past, or an example of how you think parents ought to behave now? Because quite frankly, I don’t think either is true.
I suspect many here are simply relating anecodotes of the “kids these days are spoiled - I walked five miles to school through the snow uphill both ways” variety. Combined with the “accuracy” of peoples’ recollection of how they themselves behaved as children!
What has changed, and objectively so, is the prevelence of large numbers of middle-class adults who have chosen not to have children. In the past, children were more a “fact of life” because, by and large, most adults had them; it was more of a social expectation. With decreasing birth-rates, that has changed.
There were uncaring clueless parents then, and there still are now.
When I was a kid I used to sit in the back of the station wagon all the time and it never did me any harm. Well, apart from that one time when I was two and my dad had to brake suddenly and my face smacked into the metal edge of the back of the seat and I had to go to hospital to get stitches leaving me with a scar that I still have to this day*. But apart from that, I was fine. Kids today are so pampered.
On a more relevant note, my wife was smacked as a child and it has left her with a determination never to smack ours. If your kids are well-behaved in public because they’re terrified of you, I’m not convinced that’s evidence of great parenting.
*True story, although the scar is barely noticeable.
