Who cares about manners in kids? It look like someone finally does and is willing to do something about it. I find it somewhat humorous that this story about a Chicago restaurant can only be found in a Detroit paper, but that would derail this post.

the sign warning the cafe's customers that "Children of all ages have to behave and use their indoor voices when coming to A Taste of Heaven,"

The kids must have been pretty bad if a restaurant owner would risk losing customers over their behavior. This seems like a reasonable response.

Children were climbing the cafe's poles. A couple were blithely reading the newspaper while their daughter lay on the floor blocking the line for coffee. When the family whose children were running across the room to flail themselves against the display cases left after his admonishment, McCauley recalled, the restaurant erupted in applause.
So he put up the sign.

Well, that seems reasonable to me. Get your brats under control.

"I think that the mothers who allow their kids to run around and scream, that's wrong, but kids scream and there is nothing you can do about it. What are we supposed to do, not enjoy ourselves at a cafe?"

There is something you can do about it, you just choose to avoid it and inflict your brat on the rest of us. Get yourself together! Your kid needs your help! What do your parents have to say about this? If they are not ashamed, it would explain your attitude.

Kim Cavitt recalled having coffee and a cookie one afternoon with her boisterous 2-year-old when "someone came over and said you just need to keep her quiet or you need to leave."
"We left, and we haven't been back since," Cavitt said. "You go to a coffee shop or a bakery for a rest, to relax, and that you would have to worry the whole time about your child doing something that children do -- really what they're saying is they don't welcome children, they want the child to behave like an adult."

Good, don’t come back. The rest of us will more than make up for your small coffee and small cookie a week. I don’t want them to act like an adult, just like good kids.

Everyone understands that kids get restless and sometimes loud. It’s just when the parents do nothing to correct the problem that gets us upset. Teach your brat some manners and we would be charmed and happy to see them.

Regular readers know that I am the proud father to a 3 1/2 year old daughter. If my girl makes a scene in public (as she sometimes does), I feel horrible and try to whisk her out of the limelight and correct her in private. Of course, I am not one of these yuppie bastards. My wife and I do our best to teach her to behave in public places, as well as in private ones.

It’s our job as parents to teach our children how to live in society. I have often said that children are little barbarians that have to be taught to be civilized humans. Allowing them to run, scream and generally make a nuisance of themselves in public is not sound parenting and is doing the child no favors. The earlier the kid learns how to behave in public, the better for everyone. If you want your kid to be a friendless loser in High School, then go ahead and let them run wild as toddlers.


I welcome this pushback by the civilized against the barbarians.


(h/t) Ace, who has a slightly different reaction.