Our comfort chat turned into an ear slitting screaming session

😂

OP can chat with her friend at home.
Why should a child and their family be unable to enjoy themselves? There's so much complaining on here about children just being children from entitled older people who think the world around them should bend to meet their wants.

I don't think she was expecting deathly quiet. But ear splitting screaming (albeit excited screaming) is not on in a coffee shop where people are trying to enjoy conversation and cake. There is such a thing as an indoor voice and this toddler was not being shown how to do this.

Parents / grandparents are responsible for teaching children expected behaviour for different social situations so they grow up learning this. Those parents who think their children are somehow exempt from this are quite frankly really selfish.

Exactly.

If the parents/grandparents wanted noisy play they should have gone to a soft play.

Adults need to teach children how to behave when eating/drinking out.

Screaming and running round should be stopped and not encouraged.

Maybe they wanted to get out of the house?

It's not an unreasonable expectation that there won't be ear-splitting levels of noise in a rural cafe.

LTB

A packed out cafe is not the place for a quiet break.
I hate the noise of kids, so actively avoid cafes and similar places.
Them being tourists is not relevant.

How is it triggering? 🙄

So do l - l would be embarrassed if l was with you op.

By your logic then no babies/toddlers/children would be allowed in any public places until they were in school.

Goodluck teaching an 18 month old how to behave.

The people in charge of the cafe are the ones who get to make that decision. They evidently were willing to permit both the other family and OP to be there, despite the impact both clearly had on each other in this clearly fictitious scenario. Which means the pp is correct, they were all equally entitled to be there.

Oh and OP if anyone has ever told you that you should be an author and have a quirky writing style
they were lying

I think your first mistake was heading to the cafe in the first place - not a smart choice given the state of your friend.
Then given how busy it was and the noise from the table next to you, I would have left and gone somewhere else.

Exactly this. The OP has one husband who could be asked to turn the volume down on the TV, or the OP and her stressed friend could sit in another room. It's a bit much to expect a large group to psychically intuit that her stressed friend has entered a crowded cafe in need of a 'quiet break'.

You teach your children how to behave in public spaces. Shrieking etc in a cafe isn't acceptable. If your kid can't do it then they shouldn't go.

This is very very different to a toddler being loud in a cafe. A toddler doesn’t know any different, a grown man is choosing to be rude.

What type of cake was it?

Never mind. I'm off for a 'comfort chat'.

Coffee shops and the like, are not playgrounds.

You're are definitely not being unreasonable. You were also nicer than I would have been.

Performance parenting - it seems invasive in the UK.
See also poor parenting. I’m sitting beside a young boy right now swiping through TikTok at full volume and his own parents are totally oblivious to a) what he’s watching and b) the impact on others.

You can’t control your grown husband’s bodies-making but expect a toddler to be quiet a public cafe? Get a life.

I feel your pain OP. I’m currently sitting on a train in a very quiet carriage with a man playing videos on his phone on FULL VOLUME and I’m losing my mind. I’m 31 so I don’t think it’s an age thing to get annoyed by other people’s noise. I just wish I had the guts to ask them to shut up like you did!

I agree that it would have been considerate and polite to either to hush the toddler or not spend too long in the cafe. On the hand, a small cafe in a tourist area in Christmas week is not the place to go for a quiet chat with someone who is upset, so it was a bad choice on your part.
You have emphasised so many times in your OP that you don't mind tourists being in your village that it makes me think you do mind, and would prefer them to go elsewhere!

I'm with the OP here, people fine, laughing children fine, genereral hubbub, not a problem.

Screaming children, absolutely not. It's at that point the parents should be looking for calmer ways to entertain, not ramp up the mania. I'm surprised by the number of posters that think this is ok (Although maybe not by the behaviour of some children I see when out and about).

I like children, even other people's children, I had a delightful chat with a three year old in the pub recently. He didn't screech at me once.

Although lose the gif OP, tis not nice!

That Giphy is awful, @Bridget05 .

I actually think yabu. The adults were playing with their child. Fair enough if the kid had been running around or screaming at the top of their voice tantruming but it sounds like they were just playing, which I don't think is inappropriate in a cafe

You could have sat outside (not sure where you are but its been 8 degrees where I am today and I've just had a lovely walk and coffee with a friend outside) if they were bothering you. Or knowing your friend is fragile,chosen a less public area given its a lovely day, the time of the year people are likely to be out with family and sat in your home away from your loud husband.

Not saying you are not entitled to go to cafe but if you have set requirements of peace and quiet, its probably not the place for you and your friend to have this catch up