Manners 101: DC Kids' Restaurant Week

June 13, 3:33 PMDC Military Families ExaminerKaren Klasi

Previous Next

1 comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the DC Military Families Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

kidsrestaurantweek.com

Cookie and Gourmet might bill June 13-21 as an opportunity to introduce your children to fine dining.   They will entice you with:

• The wonderful, reasonably priced menus of the 17 participating restaurants.
• The chance to eat something besides mac and cheese.
• An evening out, minus the astronomical sitter's bill.
• The knowledge that a portion of the proceeds will benefit Miriam's Kitchen, now in it's 26th year of feeding the homeless men and women of Washington, DC.

But don't be fooled.

The event is really a ruse designed to put on display the terrific extent of your parenting deficiencies. 

Picture it with me.  You dress them up in their finest attire, you prep and warn and threaten and cajole and make vain promises of dessert and sleepovers and anything their little hearts desire.  You put on extra-strength deodorant because you have absolutely no confidence in their ability to remember all you have so diligently taught them about table manners.

And off you go.  You breath a sigh of relief when you discover that the restaurant of your choice has grilled cheese on the menu, you smile at the equally uptight parents around the room and find that you can even let out a little laugh at your children's mispronunciation of menu items. 

As you begin to relax, you realize that the food is delightful, the company entertaining if not refined, and the sudden loud burp at the next table a sure sign that you are not alone in the ongoing and universal struggle of food over face, napkins on laps, and  civilized dining over barnyard gluttony.