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Parents are responsible for children in public

By Staff | Dec 27, 2012

Tonight I went to one of my favorite restaurants in Milford.

At the table next to me were some couples and three or four of their young children. While the parents sat there talking, the older children were running around the restaurant and making a lot of noise to the point that the parents were almost shouting to hear each other in conversation. The children had also been given crayons to color with, and pieces of paper and crayons were littering the floor to the point that the whole area looked like a disaster.

The group started to leave and the children were screeching to the level of obnoxiousness. When I looked at the parents to signal my disapproval, one of the fathers said to me that he did not like the way I was “looking at his children” and “since it is a public restaurant, if you do not like the way my kids are acting, you do not have to come back.”

After the party left, I overhead the staff of the restaurant talking about the people and how this had been a “quiet” night, that on several occasions the staff had to tell these people to control their children.

It is a public restaurant. Like other public places (libraries, schools, movie theaters) the public expects a certain amount of decorum, parental control and responsibility over children’s noise and actions. As parents, if you can not exercise that control and responsibility, then “you do not have to come back.”

Jon A. Hall

Amherst

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