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I had friends over for brunch a few weeks ago, and to my dismay guess who automatically climbed into the chairs I had placed around the apartment? The kids. I had billed this event as kid-friendly, but it became a kid-takeover.

The adults, in modern parent default mode, hovered on the periphery, as they do at children’s birthday parties, standing, holding their plates of cut fruit, and mimosas and ministering to their offspring. “Do you want Mommy to cut up that strawberry, honey?” The mother asked if she could borrow my cutting board.

These kids were not so young that they couldn’t deal with a whole strawberry. “Deal with it,” my mother would have said.

I knew something was wrong with my party when I found my friend, the father of a 3-year-old, sitting like a fragile teacup on the edge of a crate of water bottles from B.J.’s (the only place to sit not occupied by a child) in the hallway, while his daughter held forth from a chair in the dining room demanding that the crusts be cut off the brioche I had made. Why didn’t he tell her to shove off so he could sit down?



I hate it when people say, “Well, when I was little … ” and then launch into a criticism of how I’m raising my children, but “When I was little,” my sister and I (if we were even invited to a brunch at an adult’s house) did not make the mistake of thinking we were the guests of honor.

Quite the contrary, my mother instructed us to help out. We passed plates and asked, “Would you like a napkin?” “Would you like a stirrer?” and when we were done, we sat at our mother’s feet and listened to the adults talk. Sure, it was boring. But, it was also instructive. I learned a lot about social grease, watching and listening to adults, understanding the structure of conversation.

And now I fear our children are not learning these important skills and traditions of respect and polite conversation. How will they turn out if they’ve never dealt in their childhood with a whole fruit, or they’ve been to a house (God forbid) without Cheez-Its, or been asked to politely pass around a plate of cheese?

I remember once when my mother asked me to pass around radishes with butter, I balked and hissed under my breath that I was nobody’s servant, and anyway, nobody likes radishes, and stomped off. But justice was swift. My mother sent my grandmother after me. In no uncertain terms she said, “Elizabeth, that was rude.” She didn’t say, Honey, I understand that sometimes we don’t want to pass the plate of radishes. She didn’t say, I’ll go around with you and help you pass out the radishes, O.K.? Nope.

And that’s what I’m going to say next time I see a child taking up a chair demanding Goldfish when what I’m offering is Gruyère cheese strata, while their parent hovers, trying to take up as little space as possible and seeming embarrassed to even corporeally exist. It’s rude to take a chair while an adult sits on the floor, is what I’m going to say to that 3-year-old girl: Honey, your mommy needs to sit down and talk to other mommies. And I’m not going to act like those are dirty words. It’s my house, and that’s my judgment call.