Restaurant owners to parents: "Control your kids"

The New York Times article about restaurant owners putting up signs requesting that parents make their children behave has probably been posted to every childfree site on the Web. This is as it should be. It deserves that much attention. Parents need to know that allowing their children to yell, ricochet off display cases, and run around like maniacs is unacceptable to not only fellow customers but to the store owners as well.

Of course, there is the requisite complaining and entitlement attitude from snarky parents who are offended that anyone might not think their children are perfect angels. I don't understand why parents read a sign that says, "Children of all ages have to behave and use their indoor voices when coming to A Taste of Heaven," and immediately interpret this as "Children (and parents) not welcome." Since when is a polite request for polite, appropriate behavior a "Do Not Enter" statement? Why do parents consider such a request to be an affront? Were they themselves raised by parents who let them scream and run wild in restaurants as well as playgrounds? What do they not get about "Behave yourself in public"?

Parents who take offense to these requests by store owners should consider that when they enter a store or restaurant, they are entering someone else's property, and the property is not a playground. It is no more appropriate to let your kids cut up in the store or restaurant (or supermarket, or library, etc.) than it would be to take your children to your friend's house and let them scream and run into everything full speed. Parents, would you really do that to your friend? Would you want your friend and his or her children to do that in your house? HAVE SOME RESPECT FOR OTHERS AND THEIR PROPERTY. That wasn't always an outrageous, discriminatory request; it was common sense. What the hell happened to that?

If parents wish to boycott places that expect children to mind their behaviors and parents to help the children do so, good. That will make those places pleasanter for the rest of us. If you can't be bothered to teach your child appropriate behavior in varying sites and circumstances, stay at home or at the McDonald's Playplace, and leave the other stores and restaurants to those of us who were raised properly and know how to interact without creating a disturbance.