A family with children is still an oddity in a Finnish restaurant
By Vesa Mäkinen and Riku Jokinen

They scream incessantly.
In their opinion everything tastes bad.
What in the world were the parents thinking when they decided to bring those creatures along with them?

No, children are definitely still not a natural part of the Finnish restaurant culture.
According to a recent study, parents with small children do not even dare to say it out loud if they take the family to a restaurant, as they themselves feel that this sort of behaviour is somehow questionable.
Tiina Palomäki, however, did not hesitate to bring her 11-month-old daughter Saimi to the Spaghetteria di Giovanni restaurant at Helsinki’s World Trade Centre.
“Saimi has never caused any dreadful scenes”, Palomäki explains.
According to Palomäki, at least to her bringing her daughter to a restaurant or a café is perfectly normal, even if Finland is not exactly blessed with a child-friendly Southern European restaurant culture.
Then again, the places that she goes to are usually family restaurants.
“While on nursing leave I could not afford to go to a Michelin-rated establishment anyway.”

The attitudes of parents with children have been looked into as part of a programme aimed at the promotion of Finnish culinary culture.
The programme is a joint project by the food trade and the public administration. In the survey, some 500 parents were interviewed.
A majority of the parents reported that they mostly take their family to a restaurant when travelling or otherwise on the go, for example, when out shopping.

The same respondents considered eating out as a pastime of busy, hedonistic, and spendthrift families.
According to researcher Anne Leppänen, some may say that their family eats out to reinforce a certain image of themselves.
"It supports the notion of being progressive and outgoing”, Leppänen says.
More than half of the respondents considered families that eat out often to be exceptionally wealthy.
Again, more than half of the respondents felt that families that steer clear of restaurants are both economical and "ordinary".
In the view of Leppänen, most people would prefer to see their family image as ordinary rather than always on the go.

From the point of view of promoting the food culture the survey makes pretty brutal reading.
The parents view familiarising their children with culinary matters as the worst possible reason to go out to eat in a restaurant.
The restaurateurs’ own views of families with children fit the picture.
A vast majority - by a huge margin - of the establishments that called themselves "family restaurants" were in fact fast food joints and gas station diners.

Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 16.9.2009

VESA MÄKINEN AND RIKU JOKINEN / Helsingin Sanomat
riku.jokinen@hs.fi