We've all been there. You come into a restaurant with a friend, family member, or significant other, and you ask for a small table to accommodate your party. When you're seated, you're given a menu, and you have both ordered your drink and your food in a matter of minutes. You and your meal-mate smile at each other, lean back, and chat idly while you wait for your food to come out.
Then... it starts.
It's innocuous at first -- seems a little kid has become restless. You ignore it, hoping the issue doesn't escalate. Then, with the power of about a hundred banshees trying to alert one missing from the pack (and he could be hundreds of miles away, who knows), a scream rattles the windows of the restaurant... and the brain cells in your head.
You have a Situation. And that Situation's not going to stop crying anytime soon!
What's a restaurant to do, especially if the parent sits there and does nothing, having obviously tuned out this high-pitched noise? (Or has gone deaf.) Several places, such as Denny's, makes it corporate policy to not have their staff tell a parent to take their kid outside, so they just have to suffer through it with you and the rest of the patrons.
One restaurant, Olde Salty in Carolina Beach, decided to take matters into its own hands. A few days ago, a sign appeared in the restaurant window: "Screaming Children Will NOT Be Tolerated!" Since then, the restaurant has gained notoriety from several different angles, from the ones who praise their actions to those taking personal offense. It's also gained tons of business as a result of its newfound publicity.
So what are your thoughts? I obviously have my own, which I'll put under the jump, but I want to hear your thoughts! Would you frequent a restaurant that didn't tolerate "screaming children"? Or would you boycott it? Do you think restaurants should be more accommodating of children and what they will naturally do (like scream), or that the parents should take more responsibility for the actions of their children? What are your opinions on the matter?
I personally think it is reasonable to take a child (toddler and older) outside or sit with them in the car if they are going to make a scene.
ReplyDeleteHowever, these same rules end up applying to infants as well, and sometimes the only thing you can do is take a baby outside. But what do you do if the child is screaming because it needs to be fed.
I went to a local diner where you can eat on the back porch. Nothing incredibly fancy, like a view of the beach, just some fresh air. A woman was in the corner and covering herself because she was breast feeding her child. a waitress actually goes up to her and humiliates her. She loudly exclaims "please put that away miss, that isn't allowed here".
The diner's rule was also that if your child persists screaming and you do not take them to the parking lot, that you and your party will be kicked out of the diner. Apparently, the woman disagreed with bottle feeding, and tried explaining that to the waitress. After the waitress insulted her a few times and threw a fit, the mother ceased breastfeeding. Ofcourse, a few minutes later the hungry baby starts wailing. She went out to the parking lot for a few minutes, I guesse to try to feed the baaby some more. But that can take a while, half an hour or more sometimes, yet she quickly returned. A few minutes later the baby is crying again, and this poor woman has barely touched her food. The manager comes out and insists that she and her party "have to live right now".
I think that if a restaurant is going to have a no-tolerance policy towards children making a scene, that they should be sensitive to that child's needs. Having coloring books and jungle gyms in diners and other eating areas that are supposed to be family friendly, and allowing a woman to breastfeed are absoloutely neccessary if the want to prevent the outcries in the first place. It is insensitive and wrong otherwise. If a business is under the very unnatural and strange impression that breast feeding is obscene somehow, and they don't want their customers to see it, then they should have a place set aside for breastfeeding mothers, other than parking lots and disgusting bathrooms.
These sorts of issues just goes to show that it is okay for a fully grown man by himself, with a business party, or courting a young lady to enjoy the simple pleasures of public life, but that a woman and her children are still expected to stay locked up in the house.
I disagree with policies that make it difficult for mothers and their children to go out and enjoy themselves. If these food places want to avoid a scene, then they should accomodate.