Let’s get this done first – Bronwyn thank you for the longest, most detailed reply ever! I LOVE IT! 🙂

All valid points. Totally agree on the lack of a solution by pointing fingers. A good mix of options in every city is what’s called for.
Each kid is different that’s very true – I still remember my parents marching me home after a tantrum and missing out on dessert was the saddest thing ever ( I was 4) but ever since then…I never acted up in public. Well.. then I became a teen and that’s a whole other story. hah!

I’ve heard of places with a mix of entertainment options for kids … don’t think there’s one in Toronto just yet (maybe I should open one!) but I will hunt one down on our travels to experience it. Perhaps this means I need to come back to Singapore for a visit! 🙂 Thanks for stopping by!

The problem is that some regions have a firmly segregated “adult world” and “children’s world” and few true “family places” where everyone can be catered to, even Grandma. And really, as long as we keep spending our energy saying they’re wrong, no they’re wrong, the problem doesn’t go away, because we’re not really working on a solution.

I have to begin with this but feel free to skip this paragraph. You can’t really judge parents on a snapshot of behaviour at a restaurant. There’s a recent post on my blog where a commenter argues that ignoring bad behaviour in children is the correct response – and whole nations agree, yet here we have people saying it’s the worst thing ever, and the truth is it’s works for some kids and in some scenarios and no onlooker is really in a position to say if it’s the best thing in this case or not. Same goes for marching them out when they misbehave – we used to think that was the “right” response until we learnt the hard way that this tactic actually makes ONE of our children play up harder and more frequently at restaurants. We use different strategies now and things have turned around. Probably there was someone who thought marching them out was the only correct response who was looking at us funny at one point during the re-training period (though I never noticed).

Ok if you skipped you can start reading again.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m happy to have some places which are adults only, and not just bars. There’s a cafe strip in my home town which, due to weird licensing laws, can’t serve anyone under eighteen at any time of day. It’s nice to have an adults-only cafe in town. But it’s on a whole strip of cafes, several of which actively welcome families WITHOUT resorting to fast food and chips, no it’s not really a big deal and nobody is missing out.

There’s also family-friendly movie sessions which show a full selection of films, including art house/foreign language films – kids, including babies, are explicitly welcome (I don’t think they show anything which is legally restricted to 15+ but apart from that parents just use their own discretion). Of course parents don’t mind taking the baby to the family showing of the French Film Festival if given the option, instead of risking disruption in the general session.

Fancy brunch spots in Singapore usually provide a play room (supervised and with entertainers, if you’re really fancy) off to one side so kids, parents, and everyone else can be happy at their fine dining establishment. The kids are still welcome at the table, but they don’t have to be there the whole time and if they unexpectedly have an off day there is flexibility to respond appropriately. AND they mostly still manage to charge less than $300-500 a meal. At those prices, might we expect a slightly more constructive response from Alinea? Isn’t excellence in service one of the things they’re selling?

Thanks for sharing your views! Appreciate that. I can see where you’re coming from though keep in mind airplane journeys are much longer than 3-4 hours and cost way more than than said meal. My gumption is that if I can entertain my kid on those journeys I can do the same when dining out 😉