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• Sunday, November 13, 2005 12:05 PM

  my mother could have written this

  I write as someone who used to be a child, and who used to dine out with my parents. In restaurants, I behaved exactly the way I behaved at home at table. My parents taught their children manners the old-fashioned way, through example and admonition. We never went to "kid-friendly" restaurants (haven't been to one still!), because dining was a civilized event in the day, where the family gathered, and we politely conversed with each other as we ate. No one - not adults, not children - screamed, threw food, or left the table until finished. We used our utensils, chewed with our mouths closed, and kept our elbows off the table. I doubt this was easy or simple for my parents to achieve.

  Adults dining in an adult venue are entitled to adult behaviour. Kid-friendly venues have been created expressly to allow children to act out, although within limits even there. And there are even drunk tolerant bars where adults are allowed to act out, again within limits. No matter what self-absorbed, obsessed parents believe, there are standards of public behaviour differentially appropriate to different public spaces, and these deserve to be honored. This is universally true, although there are a bazzillion (sp?) cultural differences among standards.

  As Americans, we prefer to believe that we personally may behave as we choose, and that only our neighbors should conform to social norms. As a nation of narcissists, we need to wake up to our social responsibilities. What happens in restaurants is merely a microcosm of our national & international entitlement and hypocrisy.

  —imho Read imho's other letters
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