Kids, their disgusting table manners and neglectful parents

Someone posted this on their blog:

<i>I spent my vacation week in the company of lots of children. Nice children, by and large, of great variety and with nice parents of the sort who have enough cake to take the family on an international vacation in this economic climate.

So what I say is not class-based. Here it is:

Your children are pigs at the table. Every little Avery and Madison of them is such a slob at the table that it is an insult to pigs to put them in the same class.

I saw otherwise intelligent children slash their fried eggs into gooey heaps and shovel them mouthward. I saw kids almost old enough to do quadratic equations grip their spoons in their fists, place their mouths an inch above the bowl, and slosh cereal into their mouths.

I saw a boy pick up fried fish with his fingers, and I almost choked until I saw that all the other kids were doing the same.

This is a generation of children who do not know that the fork goes on the left. God knows they don't know the napkin goes on the lap, and it is used sparingly to dab at the mouth. They don't know you don't cut all your meat up at once, or announce that certain foods are "disgusting". They don't know how to say "Please pass the ..." or, if left alone, not to throw food at each other. They treat waitstaff like dirt, too, and that's simply unforgivable.

I know a courtly Southern man who says his grandchildren's manners at table are so horrible he can't stand to eat with them. The nippers get up in the middle of the meal and start running around. He's right. Nobody can stand that.

There is a simple reason for this state of affairs: You.

You are too tired or burnt out or lazy to enforce manners on your children. Manners don't just happen, any more than algebra just happens. They require daily enforcement and reinforcement by parents.

I know you're tired. I was tired too, when my kids were little. My mother was tired, and so was her mother. That doesn't exempt you from drilling the basics of civilized behavior into your kids. For one thing, make them use utensils! Is that too much to ask? Serve food that requires utensils, not chicken fingers and Hot Pockets. The foods that are making them slobs are making them blobs.

Schools don't do the job anymore. (I had the dubious benefit of attending a girls' school where lunch manners were scrutinized microscopically.) So you have to. Because, frankly, the rest of us don't want to be around your kids for the rest of their slobby lives.</i>

 

Did any of them have tattoos?

 

Beards. They are the source of all that is wrong with food and dining.

 

My godson is like that. Kid can be a pure terror at restaurants.

His parents let him eat sugar packets. I'm not talking opening them and pouring them in his mouth like a pixie stick. The kid stuffs the entire packet, paper and all, in his mouth and eats it.

At a dinner recently, I looked at them and said "Y'all know I love you, but that's just weird." They both chuckled and didn't offer any explanation.

 

Lousy fuck trophies.

Next thing you know, they'll be getting nose rings.

 

I'm all for manners, but who gives a shit if someone cuts up their meat all at once?

I mean, I don't do it, but for fuck sake, who is it hurting?

 

this person is right, but she (I'm making an assumption this is an old lady) is also in need of a laxative.

and if I'm in the cutting mood, I cut my entire steak up into bits all at once. Usually when I just finish cutting up my 4-year-old's steak up into little bits all at once.

 

They smoke, too.

They're destined for the Army.

 

That's what you get for going to Club Med. Lots of money but no class; that's how they roll.

 

Growing up as a kid, I didn't know which fork was to be used, or where my napkin was supposed to be. And come to think of it, it's not really relevant until they're older.

As a parent taking his kids out, I hope for three things: 1. That they eat their food. 2. That they don't mess things up too bad to disturb other people. 3. That I can somehow eat my meal while the kids are occupied.

As a parent, there are many things to be concerned about. Sometimes, things have to be prioritzed a little. What fork the kids use, to me, is irrelevant. And the napkin will be falling on the floor if they try to put it on their lap.

 

You know what pisses me off? People who get all anal about table manners.

 

Starman's Rules About Kids in Restaurants:

1. Be Quiet.

2. Stay In Your Seat.

3. No Airborne Food.

4. Be Quiet.

5. Be Quiet.

6. Be Quiet.

7. See 1, 4, 5 and 6.

After that, I don't give a shit.

However, the instant any of your kids violate ANY of these rules the second time, the entire family has 30 seconds to pack up and get the hell out of the restaurant.