You’ve seen him. The kid running around the restaurant dodging coffee-serving wait staff.

Then there’s the kid screaming at the top of his lungs that he wants chicken nuggets and NOT meatloaf while his parents try to shush him to no avail.

And don’t forget about the kid who insists on tearing all of the sugar packets and scattering their contents on the table and floor.

The truth is people get really irritated by kids who aren’t theirs.

And so the public is in revolt.

Parents with unruly kids are getting kicked off of airline flights.

Restaurants and upscale stores are declaring child-free zones.

Some businesses are even levying baby-surchages (WTF?).

I grew up with a mother who strongly believed that children only learned how to behave properly when you took them places. That’s what the old schoolers call Home Training.  She didn’t believe in the “children should be seen and not heard rule” and so even from a young age the three of us kids went to museums, ate Sunday brunch at four star hotels and generally went where most people wouldn’t dare bring kids.

A chef friend of mine once confessed that she dreaded families eating at her establishment because once the family finished, their table looked like a Category 5 hurricane hit it.  Kids can be noisy and messy. Top that off with parents who are either oblivious or insensitive and you get a recipe for landing on the Restaurant Black List.

The other day, D2 and I stopped off at McDonald’s (and yes, we go to “Old Mac Donald” – as D2 calls it – don’t judge me) for a post-grocery shopping ice cream. A kid about four years old was sprinting around the restaurant yelling at the top of his lungs while his grandmother chased him around.

D2 looked a the little boy and then at me and said, Mama, we don’t run around in the restaurant. It’s not nice.

God, I love my child.

I tell him, that’s right we don’t run around because we know what happens to little people who run around like wild animals. 

He looks at me all serious, We have to go home and get a time out. 

Damn right you do.

Parents who let their kids run amuck give those of us parents who don’t a bad name.

But I get it.

You want to expose your kids early in life to different social settings to teach them how to behave. Maybe you’re just desperate to get out of the house and don’t want to spring for the extra $50 bucks it’s going to cost you to hire a babysitter to watch your tots.

If you are bound and determined to eat out with your child, you need this advice.

Here are five simple strategies to keep your kid off the Restaurant Black List.

There is a way to have a somewhat enjoyable meal out with your kids while not driving other restaurant patrons crazy or having a restaurant manager threaten   tell you to never come back. And you don’t even have to relegate your meals out to Chili’s, Golden Corral or any of those other plastic-food serving joints. Dr. D. and I have used these strategies many times over with great success.

Avoid dinner primetime and eat out early.
I miss those days of eating dinner at eight and nine at night really I do. But if your kid’s bedtime is any time before 9pm what sense does it make to take them out at seven? No, it’s not that fun to eat dinner early but on the plus side, the restaurant is less crowded and the waitstaff are far less harried. Your food will arrive promptly thus enabling you to avoid hunger -induced meltdowns. Remember a tired and cranky kid is a disruptive kid.

Order appetizers and dinner together.
I used to love lingering over a glass of wine while I perused the menu. These days, I’m a bit more hit it and quit it. Our strategy is to order our appetizers and main course at the same time; we don’t wait for our server to come back and to take our order for the main course. We also tell the server to bring D2′s meal out right away so that he can start eating.

Clean up any mess you’ve made on or around your table.
Kids are messy we all know that. But just because you are eating out doesn’t give you the right to leave your table a disaster zone. No one expects you to bus your own table but do your server a favor and try and keep your mess to a minimum. Pick up nasty globs of food and scrunched up napkins holding mystery offal and at least consolidate them onto an empty plate. Clear up piles of sugar or salt and pepper (what is it about pouring stuff on tables that children love so much anyway?) your tot may have dumped.

Ask for the check to be delivered with your meal.
Congrats, you’ve made it through most of your meal and for some totally random reason your tot starts flipping out. You haven’t finished your meal but she is ready to go NOW. You’re getting death stares from the couple at the table next to you. You’ve got a couple of options when this happens. One of you can get up and take your screaming tot outside while the other pays the tab. You can wait it out and hope your child suddenly calms down (highly unlikely and not recommended). Or do what Dr. D. and I do. We always ask for our check to be delivered with our meal and we pay for it while we are eating. This way if D2 starts bugging out, we can beat a hasty retreat without waiting more time to pay for our check.

Leave the fancy restaurants for dining out a deux.
It’s so tempting to bring your tyke to that fancy restaurant you’ve been meaning to try out, but think twice. First off, it’s no fun for them or you to be in surroundings where you can’t totally relax. Eating out is one of life’s great pleasures but if it means dining in hushed or uptight surroundings you are asking for trouble. Make it easy on yourself and save that  12- course molecular gastronomy tasting menu for when it’s just you and your main squeeze.

Finally, if your kids are walking and talking, I’m a firm believer in setting expectations. Now that D2 is three I explain to him where we are going and how I expect for him to behave. We talk about how much fun we are going to have but that we want to be nice to other people by having good manners.

You are probably thinking this sounds rigid and boring but actually we have a great time eating out with D2. True eating out with a toddler means that we can’t be in a restaurant for more than hour and a half (max!) but our system gives us a chance to get out and have fun as a family without wreaking havoc on our fellow diners.

Your turn. What strategies have you learned to have a sane diningout experience with your kids? What are your pet peeves? Do share in the comments!

 

 

 

One of my favorite scenes in the movie Sex and the City 2 is when Charlotte and Miranda, holed up in their posh Abu Dhabi hotel, commiserate over cocktails about the struggles of being a working mother.  Charlotte confesses the first thing she thought of when she had fears her husband Harry was cheating on her with the nanny was, “I can’t lose my nanny!”

I along with many other working moms cracked up at this because we know a great nanny is worth her weight in gold.  My girlfriends and I joke if we ever had to choose between our husbands and our nannies, we were going with the nanny no question.

A great nanny will pick up the slack when your tot needs to unexpectedly go to the pediatrician and you can’t get away from work. She will do arts and crafts galore, even if you don’t have a crafty bone in your body. She will make sure your child is clothed, fed and tucked into bed while you are making that big presentation in London.

If you have a great nanny, you know you can’t live without her.

She becomes a natural extension of your family. Actress Julie Bowen may have raised eyebrows at the Emmy Awards when she thanked the “sister wives” who cared for her child but I know exactly what she was talking about.

Nannies are the unsung sheroes of many American families.

So why are so many treated like shit?

The reality is that many women who become nannies and domestic workers come from developing countries. They often come to the US as undocumented workers looking to better their families’ lives. Go to any park mid-day in Chicago or New York and you’ll see women from the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Mexico or the Philippines watching after their young charges. Often, they are black and brown women speaking Patois, Spanish, Creole and Tagalog.

Yes, you read the rare story about the nannies who makes $150,000 a year and help parents prepare their children to get into the best prep schools and make the “right” friends, but they are exceptions.

The vast majority of nannies and other domestic workers barely make minimum wage.

These women are the most vulnerable to exploitation.

Earlier this week the National Domestic Workers Alliance released the not so shocking results of a recent study. Domestic workers they interviewed reported long hours, low pay and wage theft among a long list of grievances; demonstrating we have a long way to go in protecting the rights of women who work in our homes.

As a mom you entrust your nanny with what’s most precious in your life – your child.

So I get pissed off when I hear about  reports like this and how some families treat their nannies. D2′s nanny Eva has been with us for three years now and while we have a very close relationship, I never forget that she is my employee first and she deserves to make a good living with good working conditions.

Eva has shared with me horror stories of friends who work for families where the caregivers are expected to look after multiple children, cook, run errands, clean house and be available on call seven days a week with no vacation or breaks.

Her own former employer was a family with eight children. Since her departure, they’ve gone through nannies like dirty diapers because the workload was too heavy for a single caregiver.

As women we should stand up for the women who do the work we can’t or won’t do.

Currently, most labor laws offer domestic workers very little protection so up it’s up to you as the employer to do the right thing. I believe any family who is truly dedicated to their nanny’s well being will absolutely have the following in place to protect her and you:

• A contract that establishes her salary, hours of duty, and specific duties to be performed
• A clearly articulated policy (or established norms) around overtime requirements and pay
• Regularly scheduled breaks during the day and vacations
• Predictable pay periods with regularly filed payroll taxes

If you are confused about what’s fair to ask your nanny to do,  here is a short-list of activities I think are within boundaries:

• Watch your child during your work hours and designated non-work hours
• Pick your child up from school and transport to activities as needed
• Cook for your child
• Clean up common areas where your child plays
• Do your child’s laundry
• Arrange for play dates, do art projects and crafts
• Help with or supervise completion of homework

You should  negotiate all of your  nanny’s duties upfront and if you need to expand her responsibilities or ask her to work overtime, you should expect to pay her more.

It’s true that money is tight for many families now and the cost of childcare is insane. Truth be told, the US is woefully behind other industrialized nations when it comes to affordable childcare.

But it’s time to put mothers on blast who are taking advantage of their nannies and other care givers.

If you can’t afford to pay your nanny  a living wage and provide her with good working conditions, you can’t afford a nanny.  In 2010 New York became the first state to pass a domestic workers bill of rights which guaranteed among other benefits, overtime pay.

Unfortunately, the governor of California recently vetoed a similar bill.

Many of us have mothers and aunties who worked as domestics. Dr. D.’s late mother, one of the most honorable and amazing women I had the privilege to have in my life, worked her entire life as a domestic. My late maternal grandmother worked as a domestic for much of her young life.

I’m willing to risk sounding like a preachy sanctimommy to stand up for women like them who worked so hard to allow women like me to do what I do.

I know not just a few short decades ago, being a domestic might have been the only work available to a black girl like me. I owe them.

Your turn. What do are your thoughts about domestic workers and the possibility of taking advantage of them? Am I being too harsh? Not seeing the bigger picture? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.