Too Loud, To Small, No Service

I've heard of kids eat free, but kids-free eating caught my eye this week.

Monroeville, Penn., restaurant and driving range owner Mike Vuick opened a national can of worms with an email to his customers.

“Beginning July 16, 2011, McDain's Restaurant will no longer admit children under six years of age. We feel that McDain's is not a place for young children. Their volume can't be controlled and many, many times, they have disturbed other customers.”

The place, I've read, is mostly a bar and doesn't have a kids menu, so it's not some kiddie paradise. But that hasn't stopped Vuick's edict from sparking cheers and jeers across the fruited plain. It's possible this crafty owner of the “World's Greatest Driving Range” knew the value of a good controversy.

I doubt this would happen in the Cedar Rapids area, where restaurants are amazingly family-friendly. I've been surprised more than once at places where I'd never dream kids would be welcome, and yet, booster seats are in the house.

Still, this hits close to home. We eat out regularly, with our kids. I am sensitive, maybe irrationally sensitive, about how they behave. When they were smaller, we brought lots of quiet stuff to hold their attention. When a meltdown loomed, we took the little volcano outdoors. Sometimes, when we sense trouble ahead, we pick a big, loud place where high-decibel bursts blend into the din. My younger daughter has one volume, wide open, at roughly the same frequency as a siren.

Ironically, other peoples' kids don't bother me a bit. Scream, cry, fuss. I hardly notice.

I'm not going to cheer or jeer Vuick. It's his joint. I'm just going to lament one more great American overreaction, and marvel at how we've become so hypersensitive, even as we're so much less willing to cut others a little slack.

Kids aren't an accessory that we can simply bring or leave home like a hat or a handbag. Getting a baby sitter isn't like ordering a pizza. So basically, unless we hide out until our kids become Emily Post, we're going to brave the world and hope for the best. I think most restaurants that aren't four-star bastions of refined adultness understand that.

Yeah, my kids may annoy you. We'll try to head that off. And your cellphone might annoy me. But who says either of us have an inalienable right to be blissful and unbothered at all times?

And with any luck, if we expose our kids to both the joys and discomforts of the real world, they won't grow up to be hotheaded hothouse flowers driven to outrage by the cries of an infant. It's worth a shot.

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