Momtroversy: Mom Controversy of the Week
Media and bloggers were all a-flutter last week when a family in WA received a discount off their restaurant bill for their children’s “good behavior” during the meal. A picture of the receipt was originally posted last week on Reddit –
which elicited this post by the family involved:
This was me and my family. I didn’t know this picture had been posted until today, so I’m here to fill you all in. My family (me, husband, 2 year old, 3 year old and 8 year old) went out to dinner Friday evening at a small restaurant in Poulsbo, WA. We enjoyed a fabulous dinner sans crayons, ipods, and other toys. We appreciate conversing with one another over dinner and always use our dinners out to catch up and do just that. I worked in the restaurant industry prior to having kids and so have high expectations of my children when we are out to eat. We never arrive starving and always tip well. I encourage all parents to take their kids out to eat so they know how to do so. This kind of reward was not expected and probably not something they do regularly. Frankly, it is not the kind of restaurant you often see young children at. Our server visited our table toward the end of our dinner and remarked at how the entire serving staff hadn’t even noticed there were young children at our table. They brought us a bowl of ice cream to share and we saw this little nugget of goodness on our tab at the end of our meal.
This sparked an extremely heated debate. Some people, including our very own Social Media Director, Wendy Bradford, felt like this was a lovely gesture by the restaurant – that taking children out to eat can be extremely challenging and if a restaurant wants to “reward” a family for going out of their way to keep their kids well mannered, then great! Others felt that it’s plain old ridiculous to reward parents for doing what they should be doing anyway – encouraging (and even demanding) good behavior from their kids in AND out of the home.
The thousands of reader comments that poured in on this issue were just as extreme as the debate itself. Here are just a few left on various chat boards about this:
That is just so sad. Like, seriously sad. What is our world coming to if it’s no longer considered the most normal thing in the world for little brats to be nice and quiet when in a restaurant? Parents, please raise your kids!
What an awesome thing for the restaurant to do.
Our parents taught us the proper manners when we went out to eat. We were taught the correct way to hold the utensils, how to use the knife properly when required, in other words proper manners when in public. It’s too bad the parents of today’s youth won’t teach their children manners or they just don’t care and allow them to run amuck wherever they are.
How about well-behaved adults? I have seen plenty of rude, loud and obnoxious adults out at restaurants as well.
Good behavior starts at home. If you teach them to behave well at home, they will behave while eating out because it is already a habit and they know misbehavior has consequences. If you wait until you are at the restaurant with a double standard from home, of course they will misbehave.
A nice but unimportant story. Their dinner should have been free. Well-behaved kids at a restaurant are a joy to behold. My 3 year old grandson doesn’t always qualify for that honor.
So what you do all think? Should parents be rewarded for their kids’ good behavior? Here are some quick and easy tips on promoting manners: Manner-filled Kids: No Money Down
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