It's an interesting story. First, I'll tell you what I think I would have done. First, enjoy it as long as I found it fun and enjoyable.

In my case, a mere second or two, since I really wanted to talk to Renee, and she was basically "siccing" Jennie on me. I paid a heavy price for suggesting she ease up on admonishing Jennie for wanting attention from her.

Second, say, "I'm not enjoying this any more at all." If that had no effect, say "If you don't stop by the time I count to ten, I'm going to hang up." Count to ten. If she doesn't stop, say "bye" and hang up.

She from the onset that I didn't enjoy it, but it wasn't her intention to make me enjoy it, but to terrorize me, so that didn't work. I finally ended up doing a version of the latter suggestion. Renee let it go at that, since she felt I had learned the lesson she intended to teach me.

And this gets to my skepticism about strong forms of youth liberation. You can't reason your way out of all such situations, even with 7-year-olds (let alone 4-year-olds). And as most parents lack infinite time and patience, there are times where "Because I said so" is a reasonable answer (or "I can't explain that right now" if you want the slightly more polite variant). When used within reason, kids accept that. Of course you can hope for a big-picture plan where you do in fact listen carefully to your kid and explain the, well, big picture. But living up to that requires insight and is hard work. So while I personally cringe when I see parents being gruff or insensitive, I'm slow to judge them.

Freedom does indeed require hard work. I think most things that are worth it do. I'm slow or fast to judge parents who are gruff or insensitive depending upon the situation, how necessary it actually is compared just to a case of "power tripping," how unreasonable the child may be acting, etc. In all honesty, I'm the same way with other adults during situations when they act unreasonable or rude, or if they are the type of person who does so consistently. I once had to throw a group of fellow adult friends out of my house because they were making extreme amounts of noise, which I told them they couldn't do because it was late at night and the land lords would be disturbed, and they continued to do it after I asked them several times. And I've personally put the literal smack down on adult friends who got out of hand to the point of being violent and abusive after having too much to drink (and knowing from past experience that they get like that when they drink too much).

I also don't think there is a good explanation for why you won't let your 10-year-old son intentionally belch at the table endlessly without consequences. You can argue that such a prohibition is culturally specific (and he will make what boils down to that argument himself).

I have no problem with this prohibition, actually. It's rude and it ruins the eating experience of others by grossing them out. That's a good explanation right there. That's considerably different than making a personal decision within the realm of conducting their own life that may offend the sensibilities of people (e.g., forming a relationship that society doesn't approve of; this doesn't directly affect others like belching at the dinner table directly affects the eating experience of others in their immediate presence). It's something I wouldn't let any adult who was at my house do at the table either. If you told your 10-year-old son not to belch again at the table after he did so, I would simply say "thank you" to you. Did you honestly think I would argue that point with you?

On the other hand, regarding cultural specifics, I won't insist that every male take off their hat at the table before eating, because that makes no logical sense to enforce as far as I'm concerned; that's largely a Catholic thing that not everyone should be compelled to adhere to.

But we live in the culture we do. And some of the time that means parents are making rules that are in some grand sense arbitrary. It can of course be overdone, but at root it is part of good parenting.

I don't think expecting kids to display the same degree of manners that we also expect from our adult guests is bad. Good parenting, in my definition, is good guidance, and that includes teaching good manners.