Shouldn’t my adult children be paying their way when we all go out?

I have three adult children. We all recently enjoyed dinner at a restaurant. When the bill arrived, they all looked at me. At what age does it become acceptable for your adult children to contribute to – or even settle – a restaurant bill?
N.M., Bathurst, NSW

Credit: Simon Letch

My parents would say no age is acceptable. Any time the Katzes go out for a meal and one of us Katz kids tries to pay, it gets violent. There will be blood. When Mum sees us reaching for pockets or bags, she’s on her feet, yelling, “NO, I’M PAYING!” Then she’ll kick wallets out of hands, punch phones out of the air, threaten us with her Visa card – the big one with the serrated edge; it can cut you up good.

After that, it’s chaos: the whole family is flicking cards at waiters like ninja stars – credit cards, library cards, Medicare cards, we’re not even checking any more. Staff are ducking, customers are hiding, children are crying. And Dad is just sitting there calmly, completely unfazed, because he already sorted out the bill two minutes into the meal when he headed off to “check out the restroom”.

And you’ve got to ask yourself, what’s worse? You leaving a restaurant feeling peeved that your adult kids didn’t pay the bill, or us adult kids leaving a restaurant feeling wounded – both emotionally and physically – limping and bruised and applying napkin tourniquets to our Visa-card lacerations.

But both our cases may have the same solution. If an adult kid is adult enough and cashed-up enough, then restaurant bill-paying should be predetermined: discuss beforehand who’s going to pay or agree to split bills. Draw up contracts, get lawyers involved and hope the family still wants to eat together. It might be the only way to avoid anger, humiliation, resentment and ears getting lopped off by low-flying Mastercards.

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