Response to "Freeloading friends"

First off, you backed up my own impression, which is that it is not common practice to exclude kids when figuring out a restaurant bill. All of my friends include their children, but I thought maybe it was just them. It isn't.

Separate checks were a popular solution, and what I would have recommended, too. (I wasn't implying there was anything wrong with separate checks, just that I was curious if there were any other solutions people could think of.)

Having "the talk" prior to the next dining experience was also advised. Kei summarized this approach:

I'd just take the simple approach and ask very nicely and politely when you call to make plans to go out somehting like this: "and how do you think we should handle the bill for the kids?"

Using "we" means "all us adults", and keeps the conversation light and friendly.

That makes her responsible for giving you an answer; hopefully she'll take the high road and will say that she'll pay for her kids.

If she doesn't, you have the opening you need away from the immediacy of the restaurant to say something like "well, the kids getting so big now that I'd like to work out with you who pays for the children."

If she makes a case that you should pay I'd say something like "I suppose there are some special occassiosn where we'd like to treat them , but for our usual dinners out ir seems to me that parents should pay for their kids."

Then listen to the cajolery, the case-making and all, and repeat: "for our usual dinners out it seems to me that parents should pay for their kids."

The trick here is to be calm and polite and always come back to your main point until the other party agrees. If you get a lot of grief from this person about this topic you may have to reasses their character and value as a friend . . . but do NOT let yourself get bamboozled into justifying your position, arguing about WHY your position is better: " it seems to me that parents should pay for their kids."

Noel made a good point:

all these years you've been tucking away your resentment at having to split the bill while your sister has no idea you are upset. Now your resentment silo is full and about to burst. She has no idea you even have one. If you let it burst, she will be overwhelmed, lost in the flood of a long-harbored grudge about something she didn't think you cared about.

That's a good thing to keep in mind in many situations where you're feeling put upon. (I've referred in the past to rage-toads: "... sometimes when we swallow our anger at friends, it grows into warty little rage-toads in our bellies instead, and one day we open our mouths with the most innocent of intentions and the toads pop out.")

I think MelissaJane, however, has got this one:

All of you advocating the separate checks as the obvious, the-rest-of-you-are-such-clueless-dopes solution - do you actually go to restaurants frequently and try this? Because it is not always so easy, or even permitted. And understandably. It's a pain in the butt for a waiter/ess to remember that the guy in the red shirt and the woman two seats away and the kid in the high chair go on one check but everyone else is on another one. Many restaurants simply won’t split checks like this.

All of this "sit your sister down and tell her the freeloading must stop” talk also strikes me as...not the best real-world thinking. Do you really want to have a come-to-Jesus talk about check splitting, LW? No, of course you don't, that's why you wrote to Miss Conduct in the first place. You didn't need tips on staging a Dinner Check Intervention, you wanted a way to handle this that had at least a 50% chance of keeping your fraternal relationship intact.

So it seems like the best solution, after check-splitting where possible, is simply to toss in the amount of money you actually owe. Ask for the check, add up your share, and let her explain why you need to kick in more–and if she does, that's a great time to pull out the "I really can only afford to pay for my own meal" line.

... with an honorable mention to Hope, for being a good person to have in your corner:

I *do* always speak up on behalf of other folks who might be caught up unfairly if we split the bill evenly (people who ordered something cheaper, the one person who didn't share the wine, etc). It's so much easier to speak up when you're not the person saying, "I only had a salad and you all had steak, can we not split this evenly?" I consider it a kindness.