Old Parent Syndrome

   I dine out with a couple in their mid-forties and early-fifties, respectively. They watch their two-year-old running dementedly around the courtyard of the village restaurant, getting under the feet of the waiters. The parents say nothing to the child to keep it in check. I bite my tongue. Eventually the boy returns to sit on its mother's lap, in time for the waiter to take our order. The boy yells at the waiter, "Go away! My Daddy is fine! My Daddy doesn't want anything. Go away!" I bite my tongue. The parents both laugh at the child's antics. He then continues his domination over the pair by running around their table and complaining about everything. He throws his woollen rabbit onto the next diner's table. The mother stands and says, "I think I'd better take him home, he clearly doesn't want to be here". The father says, "It's ok. Steve is here to  amuse him." He nods in my direction. I bite my tongue. She sits back down with a pained, resigned look on her face. The child is now scrabbling his hands in the stones of the courtyard, still under the feet of the staff. He then scoops up a handful of gravel and tosses it over the backs of some diners. I instinctively call out to the child, "DON'T throw stones!" He begins to cry at the unheard of event of somebody actually telling him not to do something. The parents turn to me, shocked. The father says, "Don't tell him off!" The child runs into the arms of its mother, who picks him up and comforts him, saying, "It's all right. It's all right. It's SO hard for you to understand that you mustn't throw stones at people, isn't it?" I look across at the diners, who are now picking grit out of their hair and meals. It was me, alone, who gestured a profound apology to them across the courtyard.