Adults Only Dining?

Recently I was having dinner in a nice restaurant and right across from me a couple and there young child was seated. About the time my meal was served the child stated to cry. Now, I understand that this sometimes happens with children in restaurants. However, the parents let the child cry and scream all through out my meal. This child was disrupting the entire restaurant.

In my day, if a child became unruly and the parents could not calm the child down, they would remove the child to the rest room or outside the restaurant. It seems that some parents are no longer willing to do this. I find that I run in to this type of situation more and more these days. It seems that some parents are fine with letting their children disrupt an entire restaurant.

Personally, I find this behavior unacceptable and down right rude. I think that if the parent won't take control of the situation then the restaurant staff should take control by asking the diners to please remove the noisy child until they quite down. I also think another great option for restaurants would be to have a section of the restaurant for family dining and a separate section for adults only. I think this could replace the old smoking and non-smoking section as many restaurants are doing away with their smoking section anyway.

The bottom line is that parents meed to take control of their children and be respectful of other diners around them. If parents refuse to do this then the restaurant staff should take control of the situation to accommodate all of their other patrons.