“I’d like a table away from any children, please.” Saying that to the host or hostess in a restaurant is sure to garner either a confused look or hateful glare. I speak from experience.
Today, more and more restaurants are instituting rules where children under a certain age are separated from the rest of the mature customers who pay for a meal, not the punishment of a screeching youngster.
Even our Sunshine State isn’t oblivious to this plague of noisy kids honing in on our turf like the zombies from “Dawn of the Dead” flocking to the mall. In Boynton Beach, a man slugged a father who’d brought his autistic child to the Olive Garden.
The Rocky-wannabe had first tried telling the man to shush the loud kid, but the Papa Bear answered back that his little boy was autistic. That’s not an excuse for bringing your biological noisemaker to a restaurant. Apparently, the boxer agrees with me as he took the good ‘ole U-S-of-A solution through force when negotiations fail.
In March, a 68-year-old man was charged with striking a child in the back of the head because the kiddo was being obnoxiously loud. His lawyer claims that the man has a mental illness. I can sympathize. After all, prolonged exposure to a screeching child will drive anyone nuts. It’s only a matter of time before psychologists put that in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
The little prince or princess – colloquial terms, which should tell you all you need to know about them – act like miniature drunks with their high-pitched voices and athletic tossing of food. Being stuck in a restaurant with a neighboring squealing child is akin to being subjected to a trap in “Saw,” only, in the restaurant, there is
no escape.
I was a quiet kid, but the rare time that I acted up, my parents would do “rock, paper, scissors” to see who would haul my misbehaving behind out of the place. My parents knew the rules – respect adults. It isn’t my problem that your kid is screaming because you didn’t teach them the value of “inside-voice.”
You chose to procreate. You chose your parenting style and you know when it’s appropriate to bring your rug rat to public places. I can’t control any of those and I shouldn’t be punished for that.
You vehemently claim that “no one should tell you how to parent,” then don’t complain when you raised a little monster that those same “no ones” don’t want to be around.
Now that the threat of physical harm is out there, the love-blind parents might, hopefully, think twice about subjecting the general public to their pint-sized pinatas of mayhem.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t support taking a swing at the arrogant parental unit or obnoxiously loud beast. Just like all parents think that their baby is the most beautiful one ever, they’re blinded to the fact that their entitled little bundle of joy is grating on other people’s nerves like nails on a chalk board.
Don’t like what’s going on, parents, then what’s your solution? Are you going to make the rest of us bring earplugs to dinner and communicate through sign language? Your kid’s the problem, and since you refuse to discipline them, we have come up with the solution. If you don’t like this solution, get sterilized, get the pill, get condoms. But don’t force us to sit through your little demonic progeny’s tirade.
