Last night my family and I were
dining at one of our town’s finest establishments: IHOP. That’s the International
House of Pancakes. I had the
crepes. Crepes are French. Small had the grilled cheese. Grilled cheese is from . . . where is grilled
cheese from? Medium ordered the chicken
tenders, which I believe is Spanish for “long chicken nuggets.”
We sat in a booth near the front
and we noticed there was a group of 4-5 male teenagers at a nearby booth. They were talking more loudly than is appropriate
for normal conversation and periodically I heard a curse word (and if I’m being
honest, I didn’t hear anything I wouldn’t say under my breath in the privacy of
my own car to a particularly inept driver.) Other
than that, I didn’t notice them too much.
Midway into
our meal, a family of 4 was seated in between my family and the teenagers. I noticed when they sat down that the booth
seats must not have been anchored very well into the wall, because when they
sat, our seat moved. The noise level
raised a bit as well, because now my family, (which includes 3 excited boys,) a
family of four, and the teenagers were all talking at once.
All of a
sudden, the family dad raised his voice and asked an employee if he could be
moved to another booth. The mom added
that she kept getting “bonked in the head.”
I overheard the dad say “you’ve already made someone angry.” They grabbed their soda glasses and their
paper napkins and were escorted to another part of the restaurant while other
patrons shared the what just happened?
look.
Perhaps you
think I’m going to criticize the teenagers for being rowdy, or for using salty
language, or for loitering, or for disrupting my family’s dinner.
Nope.
I’m going
to suggest that the dad could have handed the situation a little
differently. I understand he was
frustrated, but perhaps he could have quietly asked to be moved if the noise
was bothering him.
Here’s the
thing. It was a group of teenage boys on
a Sunday afternoon who went to IHOP to get some grub and hang out. There really aren’t many places for them to
go these days where they will be welcomed.
Think back to when you were in high school . . . wasn’t one of the best
parts of being a teenager being able to hang out with your friends without your
parents hovering over you?
We were
once in IHOP after a local football game when the entire back room, where my
family of 5 happened to be dining, filled up with teenagers excited about a
team win. Yep, it got loud in
there. But if I wanted a quiet evening
of fine food and drink, I wouldn’t have picked IHOP. (Nothing against IHOP . . . I think it’s
clear from this post that we loves the IHOP.)
I take my family to IHOP because there are all kinds – screaming babies
and preschool playgroups and laughing teenagers.
Cut them
some slack. Teenagers have a lot of
weight on their shoulders; if they want to go to a safe place to hang out and
laugh with their friends, we should allow them some space to do so. I’m not suggesting you hang out at 7-11 in
case some 16-year-old needs you to buy him beer, but let them be kids. Take a step back and ask yourself, are they really causing any trouble? We were all teenagers once; just remember
that.
