Strollerderby

I remember seeing the 3rd Lord of the Rings movie, a 10pm showing, and there were toddlers in the audience. Smart.

I couldn't really be annoyed though, because I felt so BAD for the poor kids. That was a SCARY movie.

On the other hand, I'm sure the parents suffered that night when their kids woke up repeatedly with nightmares. But come on people!

I like the idea of knowing whether or not my child is welcome at a restaurant.  It's not completely cut or dry in terms of where it's okay to take them.  There are certainly restaurants we save for date night without the baby, but occasionally you want something a little better than pizza when dining out with the kid.

As far as how much the public should have to endure of my crazy toddler?  I say if you're eating at a family restaurant, a buffet or many other places before 7:00pm then expect some crazy kids to be there.  If you don't want to have kids running around, stay away from those places.

As a parent of now grown children, it has always amazed me to watch as people bring tired and cranky babies and children to very very grown-up resturants. As much as I hate to sound so very, well, old, (and I'm not that old, just married young), grown-up resturants are no places for small children This resturant owner must have good reason to start this new trend, at one time, it was simply assumed people would not bring children to places where adults go to be adults. Really, don't we spend enough time with our children as it is? All people need places to relax and trying to relax with children around is hard, one never knows what they are going to do next, even the most well-behaved ones.

As aside, we raised our boys to look forward to their first true "Grown-Up" resturant experience, and they did very well. It is unrealistic to demand our children to behave like grown-ups in grown-up places anyway.

I applaud this gentleman's brave new take on policing the public since they are so often lax in policing themselves. Many couples and people will happily head to a place on Friday night or Saturday evening, calm and assured that no little hyper-badly-brought-up stressed child is going to have a meltdown in public.

Just for fun, I asked several of my friends, acquaintances and rivals here in Oldham County and they all applauded. Cheered even. High fives all around and over half of them have children under seven.

I remember seeing an article about a no-kids coffee shop years ago.  I don't really have a problem with it.   I am sensible about where I take my toddler, but not everyone is.  When my husband and I go to the trouble of paying a babysitter and going to a nicer place to dine, I don't want that diner disturbed by a preschooler wandering over to my table and asking what I'm eating.

Of course, this doesn't make my eyes roll any less at people who are irritated by the presence of well-behaved children in grocery stores or eateries that contain an arcade.  

I have to say, I don't really agree with this.  That restaurant doesn't look like a fancy place.  Last year there was a 5 start restaurant down in Disney World that banned kids...I can understand that.  A 5 star, $50+ per plate restaurant is a place that I can understand banning kids.  A local Thai restaurant, not so much.  I have a 19 month old that I can still take out to eat with no problem.  He is perfectly fine in the restaurant, eats his food, smiles and charms the waitstaff from his chair.  And No, I am not a dilusional parent who thinks their kid is acting fine when really he is annoying everyone in 20 ft radius.  If he gets to the point where he will no longer sit still in a restaurant or distracts other guests, then that will be the day I stop going out to eat.  Case in point, I was at a decent restaurant earlier this week.  When the table next to us got up to leave, one of them noticed that there was a toddler at our table.  They all commented that they couldn't believe he had been there the whole time and that he was so well behaved that they didn't hear him.

My intention is not to brag about my child (he has plenty of other faults!).  My intention is to show that there are some kids that do not cause disturbances.  And that it's a shame that the parents who have kids that run rampant, choose to bring their kids to these restaurants and ruin it for those of us that have children that can sit still.

When I waited tables at a brass-and-fern restaurant in the mall, we frequently served families with children, and from what I observed, the kids who ran rampant were the kids whose parents allowed them to. It was that simple. Once there were two children, maybe 7 and 3, who were running in circles all around the restaurant. One of them nearly tripped a fellow waitress who was carrying two pots of hot coffee--she or the child could have been very badly burned if either pot fell. So the next time the kids ran past the bar (and were out of sight of their parents), I stopped the older kid and said, "You are old enough to know that you should NOT be running in a restaurant. You take your sister and go sit at the table with your parents, and don't get up again until they're ready to leave." And guess what? She took her sister back to the table and they both sat there until their parents were ready to leave.