Being THAT Family

I grew up with a family of people who basically lived in poverty. Most of my family worked hard labor jobs, including most of my cousins. I am the only one with a college degree on either side of my family. With those hard labor jobs came a lot of restaurant waitresses/servers. One in particular is areally a big talker. She would come home from her job as a server in a little mom/pop diner where she worked the lunch shift and she would have $60 or more in her pouch just from tips. I mean it sounds good, but if you knew she was only making $2.00 something an hour besides that, well it doesn’t sound to awesome, does it?

Anyway, she had a daughter and at that time, we were fairly close. When we would go out to eat with her family, she would clean up the table, pick up all the big pieces of food that the baby would deposit on the floor (crackers, pieces of bread, chicken nuggets) before we left. I asked her why she did that and her answer was “just to help out a little bit”.

So, several years later when we I had kids, I took that to heart. Every time we ate out, I would stack up the dishes and quickly scan the floor for large pieces of food that could be picked up by hand but wouldn’t necessarily sweep up or go into a sweeper. My cousin had mentioned how bad her back hurt from waiting tables and that bending over was the worst part. My husband thought I was nuts.

My children are 5 and 3. I still stack the plates, I still pick up anything that manages to hit the floor and people still stare at me from other tables like I have bumped my head. But, if you will think long and hard, you probably know too that most people who wait tables don’t do it for the money. And, all that time on their feet along with being nice to people who may not help out with the cleaning or may not even be nice to them while they ache…that simply is not right.

We also tip big unless there is a major problem. And, if it is a big enough issue for us to skip the tip or lower it, we also tell management first. It might not be what some people would do. I watch people turn their noses up to their servers all the time. But, when you’ve seen it happen to one of your own*, you get a better idea of what proper behavior really is.

* one of your own refers to one of your own family or friends

And, when I say that, I certainly take into account what proper behavior is for an adult versus proper behavior for a child that’s one, two, or five.

I have a friend who quit eating out when her children were young because she couldn’t make her children mind. My husband and I knew that we enjoyed dining out way too much to allow that to happen to us. So, we never slowed down when my oldest was born. We hit the ground running, going out to eat, little chains, mom and pop diners as well as the fancy places. We were dead set that we weren’t giving up our lives in that department. And, my cousin’s point of view changed the way we handle ourselves, but the fact of the matter is….there have been many many times that we have been THAT family.

“This post was written for Parent Bloggers Network as part of a sweepstakes sponsored by Burger King Corp.”

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