I know it’s all too easy to be judgemental about other people’s parenting skills when you’ve never had the opportunity to make the same mistakes, and I’m sure that at some point in the future, should I be lucky enough to have kids of my own I will make plenty of mistakes and utterly ruin their lives in some way or other - it’s an inevitability and the one thing all parents can be sure of. What I do know, however, is that there are some fundamental rules that I have written in my head, mostly based on common sense, that no matter what I will not break. When I see parents breaking them now, it annoys me no end. Some times it pisses me off so much that I’d love to smack the complete strangers in the face and tell them to cop on.
So there we were, sitting happily in the middle of a (fantastic) restaurant this (Sunday) afternoon. It’s not too busy so we have an empty table to each side of us. Beyond that, on each side, is a setting of one parent and one child. On the left, a father with a very young son, maybe 1-1.5 years old. On the right, a mother with a daughter, maybe 3 or 4 years old. At first I couldn’t decide which was worst, as they were both glorifying behaviour which I find frankly intolerable - boozing in front of their kids. It would be one thing if there were two parents, one kid, and one parent having one glass of wine. After twenty minutes, both of these parents had consumed two (very large) glasses of red wine each, while supposedly taking sole responsibility for the welfare of their children. Fricking pathetic and I won’t be convinced otherwise.
As the meal went on, we had more time to analyse what was going on around us. The father and son duo were having serious fun. This started with a lengthy game of “smash your daddy’s keys off the table” followed by some bizarre form of chasing, which involved the son trying to crawl away up the booth, and the dad letting him away with it for a while before catching him and pulling him back. Laughter and smiles all round. The son, at least, was smiling out of sober happiness.
On the other hand, literally, the mother and daughter duo were a sight to behold. The poor child was dressed in a ridiculous Chanel blazer (with ‘designer’ elbow patches to boot) and looked like she was on her way back from pony riding lessons. God help her is all I can say to that one. The mother was one of those insufferable twats you expect spends too much time in Brown Thomas and Avoca. A real type, she couldn’t even hold her fork properly for all her airs and graces. The kid was remarkably happy, all things considered, but you’ve got to wonder what on earth she’ll be like in five or ten years when she realises what an eejit her mother is.
We were admittedly distracted by our own meal, but eventually the wagon (as she will henceforth be known) ordered food, and when the godforsaken waitress brought the food, there were at least eight things wrong with it.
As a sidenote, in the last few years I don’t think I have encountered such competent, well-mannered staff combined with such genuinely impressive food. So in other words, she was talking through her ****.
The main issue was that cheese had been put on the daughters burger, and there were wedges with it (in other words, “as stated by the menu”). The waitress returned with a plain burger with no wedges. And was asked where the chips were. SERIOUSLY! So bless her she came back with a bowl of chips within a minute. Only to be told the chips looked overcooked. Nonsense. Waitress politely explained that that was how the chips there looked, full stop, and that they were in no way burned or overcooked. This was accepted, and everyone attempted to get on with what they were doing. At various intervals, Mrs. Wagon complained about something simply for the sake of it. She was blatantly being bitched about in the kitchen so the waiting staff in some sort of act of solidarity at this point started taking turns dealing with her. To no avail.
Ten minutes and half-way into her meal, the snooty b**ch stood up, walked across the restaurant, verbally abused the guy making coffees, for no apparent reason, stormed up to the cash point, presumably paid, while further abusing yet another random staff member, before dragging her poor unfortunate progeny out of the building. In her ridiculous mini Chanel blazer.
I don’t know if she was just trying to cause a scene and get some attention, or what. Maybe she was drunk. I hope to god she wasn’t driving. But there’s still no excuse. How can you have so little common courtesy? Common is perhaps the only word for it. Airs and graces galore get you nowhere if you’re going to act like that. It’s impossible not to hold such people in absolute contempt. And that’s above and beyond the total lack of respect for her suitability as a ‘parent’.
Meanwhile, dad and son duo were joined by mum and other son. While chatting away to the (happily sober) mother of his children, dad took to rolling cigarettes at the table. Which should be outlawed anyway on grounds of being fairly disgusting, but why on earth would you do that within grabbing distance of your toddler-aged kids? The way I see it you get 9 months notice for a reason. Do some reading. Or at the very least do some thinking. Plan in your head not to be drunk or abusive or ignorant around your kids. Don’t show them up and you’ll look a little less ridiculous if they show you up. They’re allowed to, they’re the children, how hard can it be to remember that? When it doubt, please note, they’re under three foot tall.
Which brings me back to Little Miss Chanel. God help her, her mother had gotten her ears pierced. What’s the purpose in that? It reminds me of an episode of Friends (sorry) where Rachel’s ridiculously immature younger sister is babysitting her daughter Emma for the day, and as a surprise gets the toddler’s ears pierced. Rachel is far from amused, and I can’t blame her. Babies are amazing, all by themselves. They shouldn’t, and don’t, need bits of metal stuck through their ears, nose, or anywhere else, to make them look pretty. Nor do they need to be dressed up like the horses their mothers clearly are.
It says a lot about a place when the food is great, and the décor is great, and the staff are so great that you find yourself almost apologising to them on behalf of the other patrons who are all clearly stuck far up their own asses. So it seems only fair (if you’ll pardon the pun) to give Donnybrook Fair a mention. Nice one.
