Aloha RRP! Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend!!!
Last night my sister and I went to one of our favorite local bar/restaurants. To our surprise there was a little girl with her mom sitting at the table next to us. Now before I say anything else, in our hometown it’s not normal for kids to be in a restaurant that late(11pm), in fact there are laws against it; the reason why we were surprised to see her there. She looked to be about 8-9 years old, and was sitting there crying and begging her mom to leave. What does her mother do? She makes fun of her crying. Granted I didn’t know the situation and why she would bring a child to a place where everyone is sitting around drinking (some heavily drinking). Still at the same time I felt the child’s distress, and of course I was outraged that this woman would make fun of her child like that.
But then I stopped to think. Maybe I was over reacting, and it’s not unusual for parents to do that. So this is where ya’ll come in, and I’ll love to hear what ya’ll think.
Is it normal to tag your children along when going out for late dinners?
Thanks so much for stopping by!
Aloha,
Dee
--
www.deeshore.net
www.dee-shore.blogspot.com
www.vintagemermaidgraphics.com
21 March 2009
Late dinners???
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
9 comments:
It's so funny that you ask that Dee. A friend and I were just discussing something similar. We'd just seen parents drag their kids to films like Friday the 13th and Watchmen, and wondered whatha hell were they thinking?
I'm hoping the woman you mentioned just didn't have access to a babysitter that night and really needed to get out. But I do wonder about it...it seems when your child starts crying after 11pm it's time to put them to bed. Not mock them. Pretty weird.
This must have been painful to watch. I appreciate your writing a blog that raises an interesting question....
SB
Nah...I don't understand parents doing this kind of thing either, Dee. Could be because I live so far out in the country just driving to a restaurant takes an hour, lol.
I see lots of things parents do with their kids that make me stop and go "hmm." *shakes head*
I guess I was an old fashioned parent, but my kids were in bed by 8 nearly every night of their grade school lives. And we still have dinner at 5:30 every night! Erratic schedules don't work for us.
Children need more sleep than adults so I made sure they got it. I didn't want to send them to school tired.
Even now, with kids in high school, they are expected to be in their bedrooms winding down for the night by 9 pm. School starts at 7:45 am!
After teaching preschool for nearly twenty years I've reached the conclusion that there is whole contingent of parents who view their children as assesories to the parent's life. Sad.
I'm going to have to take the defensive on this one. I was a single parent at one time. My son was on my schedule; if he hadn't been I never would have seen him and for various financial reasons we maintained that for several years. It was not unusual for me to take him out with me no matter where I went. Now, I never took him to a bar or a club or anyplace like that but dinner? Yes, frequently. I got those looks of 'you don't know what you're doing' all the time. Luckily I was confident and strong enough to know what I was doing what was best for both of us.
That said, it doesn't seem like this child was getting what she needed or that this was normal for her. Family dynamics are hard to judge. I agree that there are tons of places that children shouldn't be- I avoided those places myself but all don't. It bothers me when people degrade others instead of helping them up.
Kissa
Thanks guys! I thought I was the only one that felt this mother was wrong. No, I don't think there's anything wrong with taking your kids out to dinner; I take my nephew (who is like my son) to dinner all the time. However, he's at home no later than 9pm, or 10pm if we went to the movies.
I guess I wouldn't have had a problem with it was a family chain of restaurants; Applebee’s, Chevy's, TGI Fridays, ect... But the place that we went to is more of a bar that happens to serve food. People go there to party, and drink heavily. In my home town there are laws against minors being in a place where they serve alcohol after a certain time. The lady had to be friends with someone at the bar to allow her daughter there. In my opinion, there was no reason for a 9yr old to be around that kind of environment.
And agree with you Kissa, that little girl was lacking the things that she needed. On a few occasions, she stood and tried to leave and her mother yelled at her to sit the “fuck” down… yeah.
I don't understand why parents take their children to places that are so obviously for adults only. There is a time and place for children but a bar is not one of the places, no matter what the time. Even if a child is out late for dinner, there are family restaurants where the child can be comfortable. As to teasing the child about her crying, that is just plain cruel. I don't understand that either.
sit the “fuck” down
That just makes me want to cry.
:o(
I didn't realize the mother said that! That is horrible.
Post a Comment