The Toccoa Riverside restaurant in Georgia, USA, now fines parents who cannot control their children. At the bottom of the menu is a note reading “adult surcharge” and has three dollar signs next to the words “for adults unable to parent”.
The Toccoa looks like a relaxed place: it has a “pooch patio” and declares on boards outside that it serves “SEAFOOD SNACKS STEAKS”. Reading the Tripadvisor reviews from annoyed parents, it sounds like the owners are just a bit bad-tempered about high-spirited children, but still – I sympathise.
Most parents and children are perfectly alright in restaurants, but you do sometimes come across parents who have a single sip of wine and immediately lose all sense of responsibility.
This is not a class or a cultural issue. The idea that little French or German or Australian children behave any better in restaurants is nonsense. It is just a fact that unsupervised, bored children get very stressed and will act out in an attempt to regulate their emotions.
A famous (expensive) hotel and restaurant in the Oxfordshire countryside had to reissue instructions to their patrons after parents arrived in groups with gangs of mixed-aged children and proceeded to get incredibly drunk while their children formed marauding packs, hitting each other with pool cues and terrorising honeymooning couples.
I go to restaurants a lot with my children. They are now 10 and 12, but they haven’t always been. I have scrambled out of plenty of places whispering “Sorry, sorry” to neighbouring tables and leaving huge tips to make up for the terrible mess. The stress was considerable, but my husband’s job as a restaurant critic means going out to eat with them is non-negotiable. We all had to learn to make it work.
So here is my handy guide to avoiding a naughty children surcharge, should it make its way to a restaurant near you.
1. Restaurants are exciting for adults. There is wine! Food someone else has made! No washing up! But you must understand that, for children, restaurants are dreadful. They hate them. The waiting, the sitting still. The not being allowed to attack their brother with the cutlery. Children are not interested in anything that a restaurant has to offer. Maybe the ice cream and, even then, that doesn’t really make up for the tedium of it all.
So lower your expectations as to how long you will be able to stay in a restaurant. And then dig deeper. With small children, you’re looking at one course and about 45 minutes. Make sure you and your partner are on the same page with this, as one parent inevitably wants to get stuck into the red wine and gas on (in desperation to prove that having children doesn’t mean the end of this sort of thing), while the other parent has to walk the toddler round all the other tables and stop it from grabbing at tablecloths or eating food off the floor. This is a recipe for a massive row if nothing else.
2. If your children behave wildly at home at mealtimes, they will behave wildly in a restaurant. If they eat the majority of their meals in front of a TV or stuff food into their mouths as they do laps of the table in their pants (no judgment, by the way), then this is what they will do in a restaurant.
3. Do not arrive at a restaurant with hungry children; this is asking for trouble. Similarly, who cares if they eat only white bread or don’t finish their plate? This isn’t the time to fuss about that.
4. If your baby is screaming for minutes at a time, perhaps take it as a sign that this is not working.
5. It takes years and a lot of repetition and patience for children to adjust to the very modern social construct of a restaurant. I have said to my children until I think I am going mad: “Use your napkin. Napkin in your lap. Napkin. Napkin IN YOUR LAP! USE YOUR NAPKIN!!” and they will do this voluntarily about one time out of every five.
They are now just about capable of getting through a meal without either one knocking over a glass of water. You know that thing about how you need to practice something for 10,000 hours before you are any good? This applies to children and restaurants. So don’t give up, but keep it casual. Aim low.
6. Don’t be shy about using screens. These days my children are allowed to bring only books to restaurants but when they were younger, hell yeah: I used drawing, stickers, cards, games, screens… whatever I could get my hands on.
The worst thing you can do is not bring screens because you think, “They shouldn’t need screens, they should be able to just sit at the table and ‘be good’”, because you know what? They can’t. Their prefrontal cortex is underdeveloped and therefore they lack self-control. Let other parents judge – who cares? A pair of screened-up little zombies is really better for everyone than your children charging about or roaring at each other. Just don’t forget the headphones.