A Calgary restaurant will now give parents a break on their bill if their kids were well behaved. This is a real thing.
As for me, I never gave a damn how my kids acted in public. But now that they are giving financial incentives, I’ve decided to actually parent my children and make them follow some ground rules of polite and respectful behaviour.
Now I can save money when my kids are quiet at the local eatery. However, it works both ways; I can get a break on our family dinner bill, but fines are also a possibility.
Sure, my kid threw a toy in daycare, so I was dinged $7.37 (an extra .37 because he screamed while doing it), but I’m still making money off this gig. Forget cutting coupons, relying on my children to make a buck is where it is at! My four year old son is the most meek and submissive child in the family, so I most often take him alone to outings. He has adapted wonderfully, last month he accidentally cut his chin and needed stitches but he knew he had to be calm and collected through the process so we could get the 10% HMO discount for compliant children patients.
My daughter is a little more ‘spirited’ but she is learning. I think she is almost what we moms now call ‘restaurant ready.’ She can officially sit still for seventeen minutes in one spot; smile sweetly at strangers and occupy herself with a paper-clip and crayon all while feeling hungry and overstimulated by the environment around her. And she is only two!
I’ve heard not all parents have it this good. Like my friend, Janice, her five year old son has some developmental delays and she is constantly fined for him wetting his pants at day care when he gets scared or upset. She also has to pay extra on the bus when he sings the theme song to Frozen in his most unpalatable voice and overly-exuberant arm gestures. I get Disney is great, but I guess it makes sense that children express themselves in quieter and more pleasant ways. Like lying in their mother’s lap with their earbuds in and their iPad playing the Gangnam Style video on repeat.
Before all these wonderful pay-offs, I would have done things differently. I would have worn my kids out with play all morning then taken them to an adult-oriented restaurant. It really is the ideal place to let them practice their long toss with their spaghetti and wander through the kitchen to ask the coffee-carrying wait staff where the most slippery part of the floor is. Then shout obnoxiously and run in figure-eights through the dining area while I pretend not to notice them and slowly sip my double margarita.
Now that we have all received our ‘Measurement Standards of Well-Behaved Children in Societal Settings Handbook’ we can enter public settings without concession and haggling with wait staff on what constitutes ‘well-behaved’ and worthy of incentives. For instance, my six year old daughter offended a waitress when asking what was wrong with her leg, as it appeared to be artificial. We were fined $2.25, as it is clearly stated in Chapter 7, Article 19 that, ‘their curious tendencies and inquiries may never be expressed physically or verbally. Well-behaved children may only express curiosity in polite and non-offensive questions, submitted in writing.’ Don’t worry, I deducted this fine from her allowance.
When I reflect back on these slow changes in our culture, I am thrilled that we are getting a chance to raise our children with less tolerance for their obnoxious outbursts when they are feeling emotional. You will have those naysayers who think we are stuffing our children into an ‘always be happy and quiet’ box and that there will never be latitude or communal patience for them to learn healthy ways to express their emotions. But children should be seen and not heard. This far better prepares them for the burying of emotions they will have to carry out daily as adults.
So as I pocket the fiver I just made off my kid grinning like a robot while another adult cut him in line at the ice cream shop, I smile. It really does take a village to raise a child.