cThere are locals who do everything they can to make it clear, very few who have chosen to make it clear with a sign. “Children are not welcome in this restaurant.” (The famous case of La Fraschetta del Pesce in Rome which reported at the entrance “Due to unpleasant episodes caused by lack of education, the presence of children under 5 in this place is not welcome”).
And if this is clearly discriminatory behavior, it also photographs a certain very palpable and widespread impatience. Those who go to dinner without children would gladly avoid being around other people, small and troublesome. Maybe very harassing like, reports the Red shrimpare the Italian children.
Children in restaurants: are they rude or just children?
Our children would even be the rudest in Europe. Little hands soaked in gravy crawling up the walls and throwing pieces of bread while mum and dad chat undisturbed are, according to the masthead, the order of the day. Many parents shrug: “But he is a child!”, They say. What is certain is that good manners are taught, above all by example.
Hence the “decalogue of the child educated in the restaurant”. Drawn up to encourage children, but above all their parents, to have a less disturbing behavior for those who are dining at the next table.
The decalogue of good education
1. We go to restaurants to eat and be together. Not to scream, not to sing, not to run, not to play. At the restaurant there are guests but also fantastic jugglers who pirouette around the tables with a hundred dishes in hand. Their performance must not be interrupted or impeded!
2. Fork and spoon are used to bring food to the mouth, and not the other way around. as a manger. Don’t play with cutlery. Including the hilarious game of dropping them a thousand times to see how far mum and dad’s patience goes.
3. The cutlery they are difficult to hold and use correctly. The attentive parent can resort to the “chopstick hack”: a cork or a piece of paper rolled up and fixed with an elastic band to a pair of Chinese chopsticks: the child has fun and finishes his portion in the game.
4. Do you not like a dish? The parent who wants to convey good behavior, which is a reflection of himself, will teach that expressions such as “That sucks!” or “It stinks!”. Before arriving at such a reaction, the parent’s task will be to establish the rule that everything brought to the table is tasted. And if you don’t like it, you say it without making a scene.
5. There is no rocking on the high chair or chair. It’s too dangerous a game. You do not change places during the course of the meal. You don’t get up from the table three hundred times. If you need to stretch your legs, ask mum or dad to take a walk together in the garden. If you have to go to the bathroom, a parent accompanies the little one and supervises all stages including hand washing and drying. We return to the table walking.
6. Restaurant waiters thank each other when they bring us the dishes, and greet each other when you arrive and when you leave. If the cook appears in the dining room, he is complimented on a dish that he particularly likes.
7. No playing with the food on the plate, with the salt shaker, sachets of sugar, toothpicks, oil cruets and bottles: they must all be able to use them at the table. They are not toys.
8. Don’t talk or laugh with your mouth full. Instead of playing the bon ton card (which is a difficult concept for children to understand) parents can inform them that doing so is very dangerous, because there is a risk of suffocation. All the same, the caring parent will make sipping the broth a conversation about how in some cultures it is allowed and indeed, recommended, while in others it is very cringe.
9. No digital babysitter. When we eat together in the restaurant, the electronics are kept off. To distract children irritated by tiredness or boredom (or simply to keep them quiet) the worst form of laziness and bad education on the part of parents is to make them play at the table with devices such as video games, smartphones or tablets.
10. Dealing with tears and squeals. If a child cries in a restaurant it is often because he is tired. Is the restaurant really the best place for a child at eleven in the evening? Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, if kids cry their hearts out in restaurants, it’s not their fault. Forcing a child to an endless meal is cruelty. In the evening after their usual bedtime, the children, instead of in the restaurant, should be sleeping in bed, after a story read softly and a cuddle.
Decalogue for rude parents
Gambero rosso also draws up a decalogue aimed at rude parents. In which he invites, among other things, a lascgive a good tip if the kids get a little dirty. “The least well-mannered parents can do.” Adding a small footnote: «We are well aware that this world is not at all suitable for children». Exactly, that’s the fact.
The problem is not the children but the rudeness of the adults
It is a legitimate operation to invite parents to have higher control over their children. But so much intolerance, on the part of many childless patrons, is towards the little ones regardless: whether they are rude or just children.
On the parental front, it is clear that some attention must be paid, even more so than to the child choice of venue. If it offers suitable spaces and a menu that can meet the needs of the little one, for example. It must then be verified that the child can actually remain in place. And, for the well-being of all, without having to resort to digital entertainments inappropriate and widespread.
Baby-friendly premises? They were born, in fact, not to make anyone feel uncomfortable: children free to cackle, parents to be adults. Yet in large part, they resemble kindergartens with alcohol service. A playful self-denial for the responsible parent. Better than nothing.
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