A long time ago I was part of a large group that went out to a late dinner at an expensive restaurant that took a long time to prepare the meals and that kept the lights low and had a menu geared to mature palates.

One of the other guests -- one of the guests of honor, in fact -- was a Deaf five-year-old boy from the time zone to the east of us. He had already spent most of the day traveling. I imagine that he and his mother had had a very long day.

Why the organizers (who had children of their own) thought that making this poor child wait until several hours after his usual bedtime to get his dinner, and to make him wait while sitting in a place in which he could barely communicate with anybody, I don't know.

But he was quiet and charming and well-behaved (and seated) throughout. Sure, his mother and those of us at my end of the table were making an effort to keep him entertained, and sure, he ordered Scooby Snacks (which were not on the menu, and his mother quickly changed his order), but still. We didn't even get a glance from another table.

Welcoming children is not the same as welcoming loud children. Asking loud children to be quiet is not the same as treating them badly because they are children. If Chili's actually approached you for no reason than that you had children at your table, they shouldn't have. But if they approached you because your children were being louder than was acceptable, then I think they were totally in the right. And since your response was "We're not being louder than anyone else" rather than "Of course we will" I suspect that your children were being louder than you realized.