There has been a
lot of kerfuffle about a crying child this week. In a nutshell, two parents with their toddler
went to a diner for breakfast, crying ensued, which the parents IGNORED, and
the diner owner got angry and yelled at the toddler. According to the self-justification of the
parents – it was raining, the diner was crowded, and they had to (gasp!) wait
for their food. According to the diner
owner – the child was annoying the other customers. The owner yelled, the child shut up, the
parents eventually paid and left the store.
It would have all ended there had not the huffy parents decided to take
to social media with their whining. Now
there is a discussion nationwide about who was right/wrong. The mother seems quite perturbed that many
people are applauding the diner owner.
Turns out she is a marketing executive and has the connections to take
her “spin” nationwide.
I have been on all
sides of this issue – I have raised a child, been a patron of restaurants/theaters/or
even churches annoyed by others bratty kids, and worked in food service.
As a parent, I can
tell you right now that my child knew not to misbehave in public. She would have been removed the situation and
set straight. My daughter was taught
manners and knew the meaning of the word “appropriate” by the age of
three. We were very careful (even when
on vacation) to make sure she did not annoy those around us. Going out was special for us and we
understood it was special for those around us.
As a restaurant
worker, I had to ask people with disruptive children to leave the facility (if
they refused the owner would call the police & charge the patrons with
trespassing). It’s not easy to do, but
most parents when they discover their child is problematic will quickly
alleviate the situation.
I have also been
the patron in restaurants with disruptive children or (even worse) been in a
movie theater when a parent would bring in 3 kids ages 3 to 11 to watch a
specific movie- then leave them in the theater to go watch a different movie
themselves. At that point I went and got a manager to either come and watch the
kids or find their parent. The mother
was grumbling like mad when she was brought in by the manager to watch her own
children. My only question (unasked of
course) was “why in heck did she have kids anyway?”
Believe it or not
we had the same problem at Church. (Caveat- I am LDS so some of these terms may
not be familiar to non-LDS- we have a three hour “block” of meetings every
Sunday – Sacrament meeting – our main service, Sunday School, and then what are
known as “auxiliary” meetings.) A number
of years ago, in a different ward, we had a woman who had 5 kids of her own
then adopted two more. Her children were
among the most disruptive children in the congregation. Our leadership decided to tackle the problems
by having a class with the adults to discuss the problem of disruptive
kids. The problem is when on child or
family is disruptive, it encourages bad behavior from others. These kids were so bad they would be playing
basketball in the back of the chapel (attached gym only separated by a folding
wall) during our main Church service. This mother had the chutzpah to stand up and
say that she ignored her kids on Sundays at church because she “needed to be
spiritually fed”. There was a shocked
gasp from the other adults. One darling
woman got up and chastised her for not thinking of others. It was not the responsibility of the rest of
us to deal with her children – we had the right to be spiritually fed! Her children were HER responsibility and it
was her responsibility to see they behaved well at Church. Honestly it made no difference to this selfish
woman – she still ignored her kids and they still were very irreverent; but the
rest of us were more willing to tell her to quiet her children down. I was one of those who reminded her of her
responsibilities when her child was running through the hallway screaming.
Recently, my
daughter (now 32) attended a baseball game and spent about 20 to 30 minutes
chatting with a 5 year old boy who had been running around like crazy and
annoying people in general. Once my
adult daughter began talking to him, he settled right down and they
chatted. His parents were surprised she
could get him to sit still for so long.
They discussed dinosaurs and Lego’s (two things very close to a
five-year-olds heart!) – all he had really wanted/needed was some adult
attention.
So my advice is
this- today’s parents need to put down their electronics and pay attention to
that living breathing child they have.
Teach that child to be considerate of others (learn that lesson
yourselves), teach them manners and proper behavior, hire a sitter/call friends
or family when you want a break, and understand it might be a number of years
before you can go out to a restaurant.
In other words- don’t raise your children to be self-centered, rude,
whiney brats like you!
