In the latest ridiculousness in the world of parents at restaurants, the Internet has been graced with the photo of a couple in Williamsburg, Brooklyn who rolled their crib down the street so that their baby could chill out in it while they had brunch. Or at least that’s what the headlines says. But in actuality, it’s not a crib. It’s a playpen. And we thought strollers were bad? Now parents are dragging furniture to restaurants? Why not just bring the rocking chair too so you can rock it to sleep after it spills its bowl of Cheerios? Or roll down the whole goddamn bedroom and then build some walls around it so you can pretend that you’re still at home. Oh, wait, you’re not at home. You’re at a restaurant. I really don’t get it. It seems to me that the parents would have had a full conversation about this decision before following through on it. It’s not like Mom was in the bathroom brushing her teeth while Dad was getting Junior ready to go to the restaurant and he just decided to bring the playpen and she was all, “Cool, hon. Let’s go.” I would think they they really discussed it first.
“Wouldn’t it be awesome if restaurants had playpens for babies?” says Dad. “I mean, really, it would be like so cool because Junior would have a place to hang out and we’d know he’d be comfortable but not stuck in his stroller, you know? Pass me the Doritos, man.”
“Oh. My. God. That is such a good idea, honey,” says Mom. “Why don’t restaurants have playpens? They totally should. These Girl Scout cookies are delicious but they’re stale. How old are they? Where did they come from?”
“Some bitch at work was selling them for her daughter. We need to change this screen, it’s all clogged,” says Dad as he flicks the orange Bic lighter and inhales deeply on the glass pipe he bought on 23rd Street and Sixth Avenue in front of the Best Buy. He coughs, as smoke billows across the living room.
“Cough, you get off,” says his wife. “So, maybe we should buy a restaurant and put playpens next to every booth so cool parents like us will have a place to eat brunch with their babies,” she says as she reaches across the coffee table for the pipe. “We should mix the Doritos with the Girl Scout cookies, that’d be good right?”
“It is good,” says Dad. “I did it already. So when are we gonna buy the restaurant with playpens?”
“I dunno,”answers Mom, “But in the meantime we can just roll ours wherever we want. It’s got fucking wheels, right? Fuck it.”
“That’s awesome! That’s a freakin’ awesome idea. Let’s do it now.”
Okay, but lemme take another hit first. Hey where is Junior?”
Twenty minutes later these parents are at Rosarita Fish Shack asking if it’s cool to set up a piece of fucking furniture on the sidewalk. Looking at the photo, the kid looks plenty old enough to be sitting in a booster seat. My favorite part of the picture is the lady sitting at the table behind them who is giving them one of two looks: “What the fuck are they doing?” or “I wonder how I can get my couch over here.” I also like the little girl in the back of the photo who is holding her mom’s hand. You just know that about ten seconds after this picture was taken, that little girl pulled a Veruca Salt and screamed out, “Mommy, I want my playpen at the restaurant!”
I suppose there are some good points to the kid being in its own private wooden jail cell. Its mess would be contained within the confines of the playpen and a playpen is a much bigger target than a stroller for me to drop random pieces of garbage into. But I wonder about the socialization of this kid. Isn’t that the age when a parent should begin teaching the child how to behave in public? It looks like they are missing a teaching moment there. I also wonder about the playpen itself. When was the last time those wheels were rotated? Does it need a permit? Is the warranty void if the playpen breaks when you’re pushing it across Bedford Avenue? I guess the most important question that this situation brings up is “How am I supposed to push a baby out of my way if it’s stuck in a playpen and not wandering around my station?
The Bitchy Waiter on Facebook.
GORE
WHAT A HUGE PAIR OF ASSHOLES.
Josephine
this ain’t your father’s BKLYN !! Brooklyn is becoming “pussified”
LS
Hipster parents are the worst.
California Girl
Hi BW, saw this on HuffPost today and thought of you.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/18/free-pizza-breastfeeding-_n_3613311.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular
Anne
Smug douche-face? You have made my day.
Mary
Mom was smoking something….kid has on blue and white checked shorts and a red and white striped polo….and what is up with the backless look on Mom?
PolishSpring
I don’t want to even imagine what the generation of these people will “raise” their crotchlings to be.
Already I can see myself with a shotgun and a rocking chair, screeching. “get off my lawn” at the bunch of ill-equipped for adulthood overgrown brats.
Good grief.
Christina
I had someone come in tonight and ask for two extra chairs so their child could lay across all of them and sleep. When I replied we didn’t have enough extra chairs to accommodate… They asked for milk crates. MILK CRATES!! I asked if the child was sick, and they replied ” no she’s just tired”. I still can’t believe how terrible people can be.
Anne
Seriously? If the kid is that tired, the kid should be home in bed. That’s the darn thing about parenting, you are supposed to be responsible that way, and all.
Jimmy
Honestly, I wish I could have waited on these people. Just so I can be laughing in the back about this. It’s so over the top, that any obstruction to my walkway or any annoying yuppie questions they may ask won’t even matter to me, because there’s no way to take this kind of thing seriously. I wonder if they had the server set the mac and cheese in the playpen for Junior?
Kerry
Bitchy..this comment has nothing to do with the article…Please..to anyone who is not a server..take notice..we servers are not the chefs..the bartenders..preppers,toilet paper fillers.. etc..we are the servers period..if I could make patrons understand that,I would be the happiest server ever..I get your hungry, I get your kids are “starved”..I get you need that third martini asap..I am doing what I can do to make it all happen for you to the best of my ability..so,grabbing me,waving to me& being just straight up nasty isn’t going to help your cause..thank you for letting me vent… have a great vaca,I personally know you deserve it!!
Mark W
Let’s not even discuss the fact that the playpen blocks all access to the table by the server.
Allie
Well, yeah.. Huge server annoyance. The thing is, I see this all the time with people positioning their strollers and high chairs in the most stupid and inconvenient places. They would absolutely block my access to the table if I let them. I just tell them that we can’t have whatever it is in the aisle due to fire codes (which may or may not be true, but it saves me from having to point out that they’re forcing me to pass things over their child’s head).
Allie
I bet they were really proud of themselves for coming up with such a brilliant idea. Take note that they could have turned the playpen so it wasn’t sticking out onto the sidewalk, thereby making it an annoyance to everyone, including passersby. I really fucking hate people who don’t give a single thought to anyone else but themselves.
Rachel
They do look so proud. Check the dad’s face out–if that isn’t the most blatant example of smug-doucheface I have ever seen, I don’t know what is. You can’t see the mom’s face that well, but she is definitely trying to pull of the ‘casual because I know I’m cool’ body language.
Anne
The point of taking your kid to a restaurant is not just to eat there together — but to teach your kid how to act in a restaurant. I started this process with our son when he was an infant, because I was damned if I wasn’t going to have one of those kids who was allowed to roam around and drive wait staff crazy. Believe it or not, if you make it a rule that your kid must: 1) Sit in his/her seat at all times; 2) Refrain from loud screeching; 3) Learn to order politely from the menu; and 4) Treat wait staff with respect — They can actually do this. Of course, this assumes that the parents have already mastered these skills.
Scargosun
“Of course, this assumes that the parents have already mastered these skills.” Ah there’s the rub. 😉
anne marie in philly
OMB, these entitled parents and their spoiled bratleys! did they bring a potty for him to use whilst they were eating? UGH!
Dearmax
Nope, they let it do that in it’s pants.
melissa in houston
Proof the whole fucking world has gone mad. We just had our potty training kids and now this.