Hi-larious

[ceebeegee]

From today's Washington Post DC Dining webchat:

DC 5 year old: Hi I'm 5. I may not have completed my dissertation, but I'm smart enough to know that some of these pretentious washington nobodies, who long to be somebody, are just mad because mommy didn't take them out when they were young.

Dont be upset by the fact that I'm cuter than your date or signifigant other, you cant keep your eyes off me, and I'm eating at YOUR favorite restaraunt.

And dont even think of getting mad at my mom and dad, they know better than to discipline me, but I'm sure they'll have words for you.

So here's to you lightening up, stopping to appreciate the innocence of children, and most of all, you finding a date that you are more apt to focus on!

Tom Sietsema: LOL--and three guesses as to who this might be!

And later on in the chat:

I'm 32: Hi, 5 year old. I'm 32. My wife and I choose not to have children. So, please tell your mommy and daddy that we don't appreciate them letting you run around, yell, scream cry, or annoy us when we go
out to eat.

I don't think I'm important...but neither are you or your mommy and daddy. Wild teenagers aren't appropriate at restaurants, so noisy, annoying, and spoiled 5 year olds aren't as well!

Tom Sietsema: Uh oh, what have we started today?

Hilarious. Sounds like some parent is a little defensive about their child's behavior. I hate that kind of thin-skinned crap--"My child is by definition adorable and I'm going to reflexively reject any suggestion that his behavior in an expensive restaurant is inappropriate, by making ad hominem attacks." No, your child is not adorable by definition--well-behaved children are adorable. Most 5-year olds cannot handle sitting still for a long meal in an expensive restaurant--they will act up, and then you're going to get mean looks from the other patrons, who have paid lots of money for their meals--the same money you wouldn't spend for a babysitter. If you want to teach your child how to act in a restaurant, take them to Friday's or Bennigan's.

I should write a book, The WASP Guide to Child-Rearing. This country could use it. My parents never let me act up in public--they dragged me out of a million places, because yes, I did act up. Bart was much better-behaved; I was definitely spanked more.

Addendum: Because I have nothing to do at work today but play with my dick, I found the incident to which that post refers, from the chat the week before.

Bethesda, Md.: Last week my wife and I were at Le Bistro Francais. Fine food and service, except for when the previously thoughtful maitre d' seated a couple with a young, restless, obviously unhappy child (about 5) right next to us. We have children and understand what they can be like, but we hire a babysitter when we want to go out (this was about 9 PM). This boy was fidgeting, crying, under the table and his parents threatened him with taking him out and leaving him in the car (!) We finished quickly and left. Should we have complained? (PS: If any restaurant managers are reading this, please give consideration to your guests when seating young children.)

Tom Sietsema: I sympathize with you AND the restaurant. Where exactly should the crying kid be placed, I wonder? Or are you suggesting that the parents should have left, then and there?

Only the most defensive, thin-skinned, I-take-my-child-everywhere-because-they're-really-an-extension-of-me kind of parent would write the first post in answer to the above. Hello, they're parents themselves! Even other parents are giving you mean looks. Morons.

Comments

[ceebeegee.livejournal.com]

That'll teach 'em discipline!

I do love children. But they'd better be well-behaved (I don't mean timid or silent, just respectful and not loud).