Control YOUR Children- or Leave Them at Home

I helpfully put the word “your” in all caps, because an interesting phenomenon can happen when people take their children out to eat. Certain parents seem to think that, when out in public, the job of looking after their children falls to everyone else in the venue, especially the employees. Almost as if, in bringing your children to my restaurant you are getting a “Mommy Break”. Well Parental RCs, I’m here to tell you that nothing could be further from the truth.

Let me make this clear once and for all. You engaged in the activities necessary to produce your children. You are responsible for their home training, and you are accountable for absolutely everything they do in public. I don’t have any children, and I didn’t become your babysitter when I was assigned to your table. Learn to control your offspring because they reflect poorly on you when they act up. Here’s something to keep in mind. When people discuss the pack of wolves that must have raised your out of control kids, they’re looking right at the pack of wolves-you!

Unacceptable Behaviour #1: Your children standing on the booths, on the tables, on their high-chairs, or anything else other than the floor. This is dangerous, and if little Abraham cracks his head when he takes a swan dive off of the table, well, you might have a problem suing, because we aren’t required to carry insurance for kids who like to jump off of our furniture. Its also disgusting. Shoes are basically the most…unhygenic thing we wear, and a child’s shoes track through every mess they can possibly manage to track through. They walk in mud on purpose! Keep them in their seats where they belong! That is your job as their parent (a word some of you should look up in the dictionary, because you seem a bit confused about what it means).

Unacceptable Behaviour #2: Your children wandering the restaurant unattended. Take them to the bathroom. I don’t care if you don’t feel like getting up! People allow their eight year old son to go to the bathroom alone. He’s a big boy! He can find the restroom! No he can’t. My restaurant is big, and the bathroom is actually more complexly located than it needs to be. Adults always wander into our kitchen by mistake. Children wander in there on purpose. They have an insatiable need to investigate any and every doorway they find. Now, if you waltz into the kitchen just as I’m hurrying out with two big bowls of boiling hot soup, at least I’m going to see you. I may not be able to avoid the collision (waitstaff say “Corner!” before coming around the corner into or out of the kitchen, you as a civilian are probably nor familiar with this useful jargon), but at least I can see you. I am almost six feet tall, and I promise you, I am not scanning the floor as I come out with a tray stacked with five big platters perched precariously on my shoulder. So I will not see your three foot child while I’m on my way through the restaurant. After ten years in the industry, I can skillfully navigate a tray around pretty much any obstacle I can see: slow elderly people, unstable tipsy women on ridiculously high heels, other waitstaff in a hurry, etc. But as good as I am, I cannot avoid a roadblock that I cannot see. And I guarantee you that if I fall on your kid, at 160 pounds (that’s just my weight, now factor in the stuff on my tray) their 55 pound frame will fare far worse than me. I will feel horrible, but it will actually be your fault that little Sarah got hurt.

Unacceptable Behaviour #3: When your child is loud, rude, and obnoxious, you look like an idiot, and I’m not giving any child anything that they demand from me. I’m a grown woman, and I expect all children to treat me as such. I had a little boy, no more than five years old inform me that I “better bring him some ketchup! Now!” Oh, no he didn’t! Unfortunately, yes he did. I believe in spanking kids, and it took every ounce of Jesus in me not to smack this child. Did his mother do it for me? No! She turned to the other lady who was with them and said, and I quote, “Did you hear that? Isn’t that funny? He’s turning into a little man, isn’t he?” “She turned to me and said “Bring my baby that ketchup, and I need a side of mayo right away.” She thought his display was cute, but it made her look ignorant, and she’ll end up on a talk show ten years from now entitled “My Son Kicks My Butt and I’m Terrified of Him”.

Unacceptable Behaviour #4: Clean up after your little disgrace of a child. I’m sorry, but any child who shreds his napkin, the fries he obviously didn’t need, and all the sugar packets and cheerfully tosses them on the ground is a disgrace. And if you laugh, say “boys will be boys!” and then add “oh well, it’s somebody’s job to clean that up!” then you are a bigger disgrace than the child. Maybe you allow your child to behave like that at home because you are a disgusting person yourself. Or maybe you’re an ineffective parent. Or maybe someone dropped you on your head as an infant. Whatever your excuse is, I guarantee you that if someone came over to your house and let their child shred up a whole lot of stuff and throw food all over your floor and then laughed and told you “oh well, it’s your job to clean up your house” you would nut up. Clean up after your kids and tip your server extra for putting up with the monsters!

On the flip side, I do wait on tables with well behaved little children, which is why I know it is very possible to control your kids. I always compliment those parents and thank the children. Well mannered children with home training are a joy to interact with. Adults who lack home training? That’s a whole other post.