Parenting

each. . a nice little $200 profit, and the bills must have been quite large to begin with, given the prices I saw.That is the first time I have ever heard of that particular surcharge, although I have been in some restaurants where such might have been appropriate.

The children might well have been happier at Burger King. But the issue remains, how do children learn to behave in such venues (notice I did not say "civilized society" ) if they never encounter them? I remember a line I read many years ago about this issue, something like, "We keep children separate from civilized society, and then bemoan their savageness."

I do not know the answers. But I will say that I have been in restaurants where the children were well- behaved, and it was adults who were loud and obnoxious.