Do any of ya'll read etiquettehell.com? It's a pretty good blog where people submit etiquette horror stories. The one yesterday was about a lady (the poster) on a bus who was playing a game on her i-phone. The bus was very crowded and a man and his young (maybe 5 year-old) daughter were sitting behind the poster. The daughter started screaming that she wanted to play the poster's game and the man LEANED FORWARD AND TOLD THE POSTER, "She wants to play with your phone, can you let her use it?" Poster declined and daughter started crying asking why poster was being so rude. Father answered loudly, "Some people are just mean."
Yah. I know. It's terrible, right? It reminded me of when I was in a Chili's the other day with DH and MIL and the table behind us was a group of women with a baby. The baby was SCREAMING and crying for the better part of our meal (I say baby, but really the kid was probably 2). I understand, sometimes it really sucks to have a toddler throwing a fit when you're trying to eat your dinner. It doesn't make you a bad parent to have a kid who throws a fit. It DOES make you a rude restaurant patron when you don't take the kid outside until they calm down. I would have understood if the kid had an outburst and then they soothed her at the table, but that obviously wasn't working and so instead they just ignored her and let her freak out. Yes, sometimes ignoring that kind of behavior is helpful to stop that kind of behavior, but not in a restaurant. Kids need to know, even from a young age, that eating out is a privilege that can and will be revoked when they misbehave.
What are your hair-curling stories of kid etiquette horror?