Pipsqueak pariahs? The fuss over children in public

At Atlanta's Villa Christina, the third Friday of each month is Date Night: Parents get a candlelit dinner while kids are upstairs with child-care professionals. Those without children don't know the difference. "Our restaurant is a little more quiet, a little more romantic. It's not really a Chuck E. Cheese kind of environment. We don't have a clown running from table to table," says Julie Bilecky, director of sales and marketing.

Not true upstairs, where for $10 a child, there's a kids' buffet, arts, crafts, videos, and books. It's become so popular that reservations need to be made up to three months in advance and other restaurant owners routinely stop by to figure out how to make the concept work for them.

In Cambridge, Mass., the Full Moon restaurant is at the opposite extreme. Buckets of toys are on each table, sippy cups come with each child's meal, and in the back, there's a play space with stuffed animals and a pretend kitchen. The idea is grown-up dining with a child-friendly twist. "It's hard to go to a restaurant with kids," says Helen Haley, feeding pizza bites to her 10-month-old daughter, Grace. "It's more comfortable here. There's not quite the pressure to get up and leave, especially with this one. She's screamy."

And that, parents here agree, doesn't go over well in some public places.

"I never liked how you were treated when you had kids," says Sarah Wheaton, cofounder of Full Moon and mother of two. "The minute you came in with a child in tow, they seated you in the way back."

But Ms. Wheaton realizes that her restaurant will keep many people away: "We still get complaints from time to time."

Indeed, it's a fine line for businesses. Back in Houston, Juliana and her date look shocked when they find out "The Passion of the Christ" is a Cry Baby Matinee.

"That's kind of weird. I don't want to see a movie like that with crying babies, like I'm at a day-care center," says Juliana. They turn away from the theater and she shakes her head. "When I was being raised, my mom just stayed at home and raised us. She wasn't toting us around with her everywhere."

Sociologists debate whether such ideas make America more family friendly or less. "When it comes to things like the Cry Baby Matinee, for instance, is that segregating mothers or is it easing their lives?" asks Steven Mintz, a historian and family expert at the University of Houston.

Many factors work against family friendliness, says Dr. Mintz: Unpaid parental maternity leave, mandatory overtime, and an unsatisfactory day-care system are among them.

Other scholars argue that the US is too family friendly, expecting childless employees to pick up the slack at work and pay more in taxes.

Mintz says it's important to look at other countries to see where America falls. In Mexico, for instance, if you bring a child into a restaurant, he or she will be passed around from table to table. In Germany, the child may be treated like a pariah.

"Americans envy youth, we envy children's energy, we envy their viability. But that's not the same thing as being child friendly," he continues. He points to vanishing public spaces for kids. "I would argue that there are fewer places for kids to call their own and we feel very uncomfortable about letting them into adult spaces."

In the end, many say that it's up to parents to decide when and where to take children and that they should teach their children how to act in public. Many more decry the loss of manners and upbringing.

"There is a kernel of truth in that [argument], but it shouldn't be puffed up into a bag of popcorn," says Dr. Coontz. "Parents are becoming much more tolerant of a certain amount of talking back and boisterousness. But I wouldn't want to return to the days when we allowed our children to be intolerant ... just so long as they were quiet about it."

• Sara B. Miller in Boston contributed to this report.

Page: 1 | 2