(This is the Tantrum, in which Dadwagon’s writers debate one question over the course of a week. For previous Tantrums, click here.)

Are you out of your mind? Of course not.

The social contract holds that a first-rate dinner should not be spoiled by many things, and intrusive behavior from a nearby high chair is one of them. If you can truly guarantee that your child is an angel throughout the meal, then you will be allowed in. But I challenge you to make such an ironclad guarantee without the involvement of a tranquilizer dart. I’d never subject you to dealing with a charmingly ebullient little kid at dinner when you’re paying a fortune and expecting something transcendent; I’m asking you to do the same.

The fact is, at a serious restaurant—and I’m talking about Daniel or Le Bernardin here, not your neighborhood tuna-burger kinda place, where child-friendliness is best gauged on a case-by-case basis—the dinner is essentially a performance, with subtleties and complexities intended for adults. (“Restaurants are to people in the eighties what theatre was to people in the sixties,” as Nora Ephron put it in her script for When Harry Met Sally...) If a child is old enough to see an O’Neill play, then I’d say he’s ready for David Bouley. Not till then.

Besides! The whole point of serious dining is to get the hell out of the house and do something grown-up for a couple of hours. Preferably after dark! You keep your kid at home, I’ll do the same, and we can clink glasses from adjoining tables. Given the hassle and cost of a sitter, not to mention the dinner check itself, it will happen very, very infrequently.