At 6:34 p.m. on a Friday in early June, at a small Vietnamese restaurant on East Cesar Chavez in Austin, a two-year-old named Mira Reyes-Watson dropped a spring roll on the floor, picked it up, and ate it before either of her parents could intervene. The waiter, who had three children of his own, looked the other way.
This is what eating out with small children looks like in the real world. The writer, who has done it both as a teacher with the children of friends and as an aunt to her sister's three children, spent four evenings in May and June at three Austin restaurants with three families. She watched, she ate her own dinner late, and she took notes.
Family one: the Reyes-Watsons. Mira, age two, is the elder of two children. The younger, Jonah, six months, was at the dinner asleep in a car seat under the table. The family had chosen the restaurant, Pho Saigon, because it was loud, the food came fast, and the waitstaff were patient.
Mira drew on the back of a takeaway menu with a green crayon. She ate, in order: a spring roll, some white rice, a small piece of beef, more rice, three slices of cucumber, and most of her father's pho noodles, fished out with chopsticks he had cut in half for her.
She also dropped a glass of water on the floor. She also said, loudly, that she did not like a man at the next table, who was wearing a hat. The man laughed. The mother, Elise, apologised. The man said his daughter was twenty-six and had said worse.
Total dinner length: 47 minutes. The family left a 25 percent tip. They left the restaurant before either child melted down.
Family two: the Bauer-Reedes. The Bauer-Reede family of South Austin has three children, ages four, five, and seven. The writer joined them at a Tex-Mex restaurant on South Lamar called La Posada on a Saturday in late May.
The family arrived at 5:45 p.m., which is early for dinner in Austin but the only time, the mother Carolyn explained, the children could manage. By 7:30, she said, they will not be people anymore.
The dinner was a study in small management. The seven-year-old, Henry, ordered for himself: a quesadilla with the chicken on the side. The five-year-old, Lucy, had a small bowl of beans and a flour tortilla. The four-year-old, Beatrix, ate the tortilla chips and refused everything else until the basket of chips was empty, at which point she ate a piece of her brother's quesadilla.
The father, Marco, said little during the meal. He was watching for collapses. Beatrix nearly had one when the chips ran out. Marco asked for more chips. Two collapses averted.
Total dinner length: 58 minutes. The family left at 6:43. By the writer's estimate, the parents had eaten about sixty percent of their own dinners.
Family three: the Onyema family. The Onyema family ate at a small Ethiopian restaurant called Aster's on East 12th Street with their three children, ages three, six, and seven. The writer joined them on a Thursday evening in early June.
The Onyema parents, Adaeze and Ngozi, had a specific philosophy about restaurants. We eat what the family eats, Adaeze said. There is no children's menu. We share food.
The injera came to the table in the middle. The children, including the three-year-old, used it to pick up small portions of doro wat and shiro. The seven-year-old, Chi, ate with great competence. The six-year-old, Obi, ate the injera plain and ignored the stews. The three-year-old, Adanna, ate small pieces of everything her mother handed her.
There was no drawing. There were no menus to colour. The children ate, talked, and listened to the adults talk. The writer noted that the children were quieter than at the other two dinners. Adaeze said: they have been coming here since Chi was a baby. They know the rules.
Total dinner length: 71 minutes. The children left mostly happy. Adanna fell asleep in her father's arms on the walk to the car.
Patterns observed. The writer's notebook, after four evenings, contains the following observations.
Loud restaurants are easier than quiet ones. A child shouting in a pho restaurant is one of many sounds. A child shouting in a quiet French place is the only sound. The families with small children chose loud places, every time.
Early dinners work. The Bauer-Reedes' 5:45 reservation was earlier than most adults would choose, and it was the reason the dinner went as well as it did. By 7:00 p.m., children who go to bed at 7:30 are not interested in dinner. They are interested in collapse.
Food that arrives fast prevents collapse. The Reyes-Watsons chose pho because the bowls came within eight minutes. The Bauer-Reedes started with chips because the kitchen could not start with anything else.
Children's menus are mostly a trap. The most successful family at restaurant eating, the Onyemas, never used one. The least successful eaters, in the writer's notebook, were the children given separate kid food while the adults ate something more interesting. The children noticed. The children were resentful.
What didn't go well. The writer should note that none of these dinners were the worst dinners these families had had. Each family told her about an evening that had gone badly. The Reyes-Watsons recalled a tapas place where Mira had screamed for fifteen minutes and they had left without finishing. The Bauer-Reedes recalled a steakhouse where Beatrix had thrown up on the floor.
These dinners are part of the practice too. They are how families learn which restaurants work for them, and which do not, and at what age.
The writer's final note, after four evenings: the goal of eating out with small children is not, usually, a pleasant adult meal. The goal is to teach children how to be in a restaurant. The pleasant adult meal will come later, in a few years, with the same children, who will then know how to sit at a table for an hour without dropping a glass of water on the floor.
Or, at least, they will know not to pick up the spring roll. Eventually.
