Have You Ever Yelled at Someone Else's Kid?

[dekeguy]

Last year I was hosting a sit-down dinner at my place for friends and co-workers to celebrate a major occasion. This was relatively formal with cocktails before, wines with dinner, and cognac and liqueurs after. It was clearly a "grown-up" sort of dinner but one couple brought their five year old along. Not because they couldn't find a baby sitter but because they wanted to introduce their little monster to dinner alternatives other than a "happy meal". There were 18 planned for dinner so shoe-horning in a 19th was an interesting excersise in creative seating geometry. I'll gloss over discussion as to the relative do's and dont's of their adding a five year old uninvited guest to an adult dinner party as I am always open to stretching hospitality as far as I can. However, this little monster had no concept of how to behave and his parents seemed to take no notice of his outrageous and incessant bad behaviour. I thought I'd just grin and bear it until it became apparent that my other guests were likewise being continually annoyed by this little brat. I then looked him dead in the eyes and said, 'Son, at your parents house they make the rules. At my house I make the rules and my rules are that you settle down, be quiet, stop annoying everyone else, and do it now.' The table could be described as 'all smiles' except for the parents who actually seemed bewildered that anyone might find fault with their little darling. From that point on the boy behaved quite well, listened to what was going on around him and seemed to be enjoying himself.
Next day I asked my mom and dad about how I handled the situation. Dad said that my primary obligation was to my guests collectively. I had welcomed the couple with their uninvited brat and tried to be accommodating. When my other guests were subjected to continuous disruptive bad manners I took control and delt with the situation. Net result was that all my other guests had a nice evening, the boy learned (I hope) something about limits, and the parents ... well, you can't winn them all.
Mom took a (tounge in cheek?) approach to the effect that in an ideal world the parents would never have been given a license to breed. She feared the gene pool was in danger of further pollution (double meaning here).