Kids Meals and Tipping

2026-07-30

Hi, the kids slept a full night and are still sleeping at 6:50 so I feel very lucky. Also our oldest has napped three days in a row and so we went to the park every day to try to get some of his energy out. The results: first day he slept early, second day he slept very late, third day he slept early. What did we learn? I am not sure, I hope we can tired him out on the days he takes a nap.

But getting back to the main topic, kids meals are usually a bit cheaper than adult meals. At least in America, we will go to Korea soon and I am not sure if that will be the case there, but in the US many family friendly restaurants offer kids meals on the cheap, I assume to help out families. Also the kids meals are huge, they are usually adult size, portions in the US are just huge. This is great for us, as a family of four now it helps if our kids eat a little cheaper.

When we went on our most recent vacation that I previously referenced, we went to a nice sit down diner, and we ordered two kids meals and one adult meal. Sneha and I shared the adult meal and the kids ate some of the kids meal (again they are huge). And I felt a little bad because tip is based on how much you pay (which I think is a silly system and should be replaced) and if we order kids meals we pay less and so we tip less. I thought the waiter might be annoyed that we ordered less, I couldn’t tell though because I think they were just very full and working hard.

The core of this blog is that I hate tipping culture, but also if I do order cheaper food or things on the kids meal, if me and my lovely wife Sneha do split meals, should I feel bad? If I am taking up seats at a pretty full restaurant with my kids that eat cheaper, should I feel bad?

I think the answer is no, and should be no. We are all eating, we are polite, we don’t dilly dally and take up seats for no reason. I wouldn’t feel bad about ordering a hamburger vs a steak, sometimes you just want a burger. But on that vacation weekend I felt a little conflicted. If tipping culture didn’t exist I wouldn’t have to think about this as much.

-Gary