If you haven’t been there you should check out The Juggle over at the Wall Street Journal. This blog focuses on the choices and tradeoffs people make as they juggle work and family. The authors are WSJ staff with kids and the pithy subject matter is surpassed only by the great writing.
Jason Fry’s Dining Out with Kids addresses the issue of discipline (or lack of) in restaurants. We’ve all seen it, children roaming free doing as they wish while mom and dad enjoy a quiet dinner. These are the children who “go feral” as Jason and his wife like to call it. While I’d like to say that we impose the same discipline when in restaurants as we do at home, I’d have to say that my wife and I are a fair bit stricter. Universally we consider the experience of those around us above our own. And if we can’t keep things in line with a stern look or concrete threat, there’s always the parking lot. How we teach our children to behave in public determines in part how they see the world around them. And we all have to do our part to cultivate the next generation of great dining citizens.
The comment thread in Jason’s post evolves to discuss public breastfeeding. All the customary lactivist/anti-lactivist rhetoric can be found.