Rant about non-parents who criticize parents

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Children will misbehave. We as parents need to decide when it is appropriate to take our kids to a restaurant. If a child is not able to sit and eat a meal, they are not ready to be exposed to a setting where that is the expectation. It will only end up in a loose/loose situation. It is inevitable that the child will get very negative responses. Parents who know this are not smug. They are aware of their kids and the world around them. Do what the rest of us do. Buy some great food, great wine, cook it at home and bloom where you're planted!

Agree - parents need to make the appropriate judgement. But disagree that parents need to completely avoid situations where their children have the potential to misbehave. That could be pretty lonely for some (not me of course...).

Totally agree PP. If you never put children in these situations (restaurants, airplanes, etc.) you never know how they will behave, and you never give them the chance to learn.

We had a very nice dinner last night with my 2 and 4 year old at Artie's in Fairfax (a "nice" restaurant... although certainly no Mortons). They were NOT perfect, but I think they did pretty well, and I was pretty proud of them. They sat in their seats for 45 minutes, didn't scream or make undue noise, didn't climb on the booth, etc. The little one played with the sugar packets (his favorite pasttime), which I cleaned up. At the end (or near the end), I took them both outside while my husband finished his dinner and paid the bill. I wish they could've sat for a few more minutes, but they had reached their limits so I took them out. But, I'll tell you, we got to think point by taking them to a number of different restaurants over the past few years... and they haven't all gone as smoothly!

[Anonymous]

I just wanted to comment on helping out when you see other people's children (stranger's) headed out the door or into some kind of trouble in a public place. I have been criticized and yelled at enough times by parents for interfering that I have stopped doing this. Unless I saw some kind of absolute immediate danger, I no longer take any action or say anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just choose the right restaurant -- I won't be taking my three year old to dinner at Ruth Chris anytime soon, but you can be damned sure I will take her to Gordon Biersch or some other place like that where her occasional loudness will not be an annoyance. She can be in public and still be a kid.

OP here - absolutely. The restaurant I referred to in my original post was the neighbourhood diner. A place like a diner and any restaurant with a kid's menu is fair game as far as I'm concerned.

About people intervening with kids who aren't yours - unless it was my friend's kid and I know them very well, I would alert the parent if the kid was in a dangerous situation and I thought the parent had enough time to deal with it, rather than intervene with the kid directly. (We can all agree that if we see that a child is about to be run over by a car, it's appropriate to intervene directly, right?)

Anyway, I didn't mean to initiate a discussion about whether to have your kids out in public or not - but it's been an interesting discussion. Kudos to the PP whose 2 and 4 year olds were able to sit through a 45 min meal at a nicer restaurant - and agree totally it's possible to teach your child how to behave appropriately in public places - as long as the teaching environment is appropriate for their developmental level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a "friend" who after dragging me and my two-year-old around town on errands all day slapped my daughter, hard, in the face, for splashing water at her with her straw (not spitting, but flicking). She was enraged, and told her that she was NOT to splash her with dirty water.

We haven't spoken since.

OMG - I actually gasped when I read this.