Posted at a Chicago cafe called A Taste of Heaven, it’s made the national media and any number of mommy blogs in recent weeks because parents are warned — ready for a shocker? — that children will have to behave decently, and speak in reasonably quiet voices, inside the eatery. Moms are so insulted at the thought that anyone could be so “child unfriendly” that many are boycotting.

That’s fine with the eatery’s owner, who was fed up with parents who ignored their children’s wilder moments. Not your basic kid stuff of chanting “Mommy” loudly 50 times over 30 seconds until they get parental attention, or playing under the table. These children were brazenly running headlong into display cases, screaming full throttle and spreading themselves on the floor in the path of customers carrying hot coffee.

The owner’s not the only one noticing a perplexing lack of manners — not just in children but in parents, who either can’t be bothered to interrupt their coffee or shopping to tame their progeny or who think the word “limits” is synonymous with “repressive regime.”

[...]

I wonder if other people’s unpleasant spawn are annoying to parents who likewise have annoying kids? Or are parents of annoying kids blind to the ill-mannered behavior of each other’s reproductive units? Or just how does that work, anyway?

[Post to Twitter]