Most people understand that parents of young children have it rough and they simply can’t control everything their child does 24/7.

They can, however, make an effort, especially when they’re out in public in a place where other people are paying to have a nice time.

So when one anonymous father wrote into Slate’s “Care and Feeding” advice column, he didn’t get quite the response he was looking for.

You see, it turns out this dad thinks it’s ok to let his 4-year-old “explore” a restaurant while he relaxes and eats. That might not sound so bad, but I think we all know that it actually takes a lot for someone to say something to a child, and that’s precisely what this dad ended up complaining about.

Be began:

“My wife and I and our 4-year-old son were out to dinner last week. It was a medium-nice restaurant, not fast food, but not super fancy either.”

Ok, I think we can all agree that minding your child is important in any restaurant, at the very least for the child’s own safety. But we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

He continued:

“My son is a normal, active little boy, and it’s hard for him to sit through a whole dinner, so we let him explore the restaurant a little. I noticed our waitress giving him the hairy eyeball, so we asked him to stop running.”

We still want to give this parent as much credit as we can. It’s true that 4-year-old’s can’t sit still through a meal and while we might think “then why take them out?” we don’t know the entire context. Perhaps a babysitter was unavailable or too expensive or the parents just wanted to get their child out and about. After all, how else will they learn to behave unless they’re put in these situations?

But then the dad lost us:

“He was pretty good about it after that, but he did get underfoot when she was carrying a tray, and she spoke to him pretty sharply to go back to our table and sit down.”

There’s nothing acceptable about letting your child take charge of a restaurant to the point where they even need to be told to stop running. But it appears the parents tried to calm him down and it worked to some extent.

However, when a child is so unaccustomed to being in a restaurant that he or she feels it’s ok to get near the wait staff trying to do their jobs (while carrying trays of hot food, no less) then it’s time to wrap things up or take them outside for a chat.

But this dad wasn’t mortified by his own child’s behavior, he was angry at the waitress his kid nearly tripped up.

“I felt it was completely uncalled for, and she should have come and spoken to us personally instead of disciplining someone else’s child.”

Now, we get it. No one wants to hear a stranger speak sternly to their child. But if the parents aren’t going to do it and the kid is creating a dangerous situation, sometimes there’s no choice.

And here’s the kicker. He ended by telling everyone how they mistreated their long-suffering waitress as a result of her intervention:

“I tipped 5 percent and spoke briefly to her manager, who gave noncommittal replies. My wife agrees with me, but when we posted about it on Facebook, we got a lot of judgy responses.”

It appears that entitlement runs in the family here. Granted, it takes a village to raise a child, but not everyone wants to live in your village.

Clearly the dad was looking for someone to tell him he and his wife were right, but if you can’t get that from your friends, chances are you’re not getting it elsewhere and you’re probably in the wrong.

Advice columnist Nicole Cliff gave it to him straight:

“Yeah, this is your fault. It’s hugely your fault. Of course it’s hard for a 4-year-old to sit still, which is why people usually stick to fast-dining establishments while working on restaurant manners. It’s why one parent usually responds to a fidgety kid who wants to “explore” by taking him outside the restaurant, where he can get his wiggles out while not taking laps around servers precariously carrying trays of (often extremely hot) food and drink.”

Ok, maybe that’s a bit harsh, but it’s true. This is what responsible parenting looks like in a normal context.

And then she said what many were thinking – especially those of us who have had to suffer through a meal while someone failed to parent their child:

“A kid ‘exploring’ a restaurant is not a thing. When you did intervene, it wasn’t to get him back in his seat. It was just to instruct him to ‘stop running.’ You weren’t parenting, so a server did it for you. She was right. You were wrong.”

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But do you think these parents are even capable of getting it? We’re not sure, but we do hope so. And Cliffe left him with some parting advice that might help parents out. After all, kids do eventually have to learn to behave in restaurants and there will be slip-ups.

“Your son is not ready to eat at a “medium-nice” restaurant again until he is capable of behaving a little better. You can practice at home. You can practice at McDonald’s. You can try a real restaurant again with the understanding that one of you may need to take him out when he starts getting the urge to run an obstacle course.”

As for the waitress, we wouldn’t be surprised if that’s where the majority of the “judgy” Facebook responses came in. Cliffe laid down some parental discipline in a masterful finale:

“I doubt that you will do this, but I encourage you to return the restaurant, apologize to the manager for complaining about your server, and leave her a proper tip.”

There may be more context that we don’t understand, but it seems reasonable that if you can’t accept what you did was wrong, apologize for it, and make sure it doesn’t happen again, you’re likely to raise a similar child, incapable of doing those very things.

We already live in a wildly entitled world – we don’t need more bad citizens.

Whether or not you agree with the advice in total, there is some wisdom here for parents.

But we should also leave this on the realization that parenting is hard and sometimes you just want to sit down and have a meal without having to yell at a small person.

We get it, but you can’t be surprised when someone steps in to make the bad behavior stop.

Hang in there, parents and servers!

Please SHARE this with your friends and family.

Source: Mom.com, Slate.com