Banned from Starbucks

[Monicachoux]

I am part of a group of new mothers who used to meet a local Birmingham Starbucks for a coffee and chat once a week. The Starbucks is located within a hotel, and both businesses share a lounge area big enough for us, our babies and baby equipment.
We have (after about 6 meets) been told we are not welcome to meet there anymore as the "venue has been booked for corporate seminars and events on the days you meet, and this will be taking place for the next few months".
Starbucks boasts a sign stating "Sit and relax in our lounge area at the back", yet, we are no longer welcome to relax here with our babies anymore... Numbers for our group range from about 4 or 5 mums with their babies up to about 7 or 8 (so we're hardly an army) and each of us consumed drinks and snacks from the coffee shop and hotel when we went there... Are we being unreasonable by expecting to be treated like any other Starbucks customer in spite of (the horror!) having babies? I have to say that I for one was quite shocked when they (very nicely) informed us we couldn't meet there anymore- this is DEFINITELY NOT a baby-friendly establishment

Some people do teach their children how to behave in publc LDN but I would agree with you that many do not. I used to teach in a boarding school for girls and we got more letters from parents about poor table manners (when girls returned home after being at school) than about academic matters .

Finding starbucks yummy, is what I meant. Hmmm, iPad wants to write yummy star bucks - which would be a different matter.

Definitely a city thing, outside of the cities it is all International Roast.

Soft Foreign Ways tryingtoleave, I will have to harden up.

If it helps I don't go to Starbucks when I want coffee but only when I want a frothy sweet treat.

There is an issue here about the way children in the UK behave in restaurants. Which is mostly appalling, unlike the continent or the US. Probably because they get taken to Starbucks at an early age and generally neglected, so that screaming, shouting, going to the loo 482 times in one meal is all treated as normal ...

I blame the OP for this decline in modern manners. Who's with me?

I'm with you all the way, Quattro!

sorry to say thats sound not good, i will not be happy saying 7/8 mums with their children and toys in starbucks, i am a mum too, but this is not place to relax and have a chat while letting your children play, most of people go their to chat, relax.......
its not a playground, or parent group,it doesnt look nice at all, better, find an other place more convienent for all of you with your children, if it was just 2 or even 3mums, its ok, but imagine 8 mums with their childrens????????????????

I can't abide the way some parents allow their children to behave in public spaces, cafes, restaurants, libraries.

DS goes to a class in a local centre every week. I's 45 mins long. Every week, although I sit at the furthest table from the gaggle, the toddlers are allowed total free rein to run about and scream, the 'mothers' just seem oblivious.

I've tried hard stares at the mothers, they don't even flaming flinch. I've complained to the head of the person running the school, he has emailed everyone.

Short of marching up and making a scene, there seems little else I have as an option. That day will come, and soon. It's beyond torture. It's actually BAD PARENTHOOD.

I agree too - why is it so hard for parents to teach their children to behave? (SN issues aside). We were always taught to behave when out, my Dad was congratulated when he would take us to teashops on our days out (mum didn't always come with us) on how well the 3 of us behaved.
I have always taught DS to mind his manners and he does - he's not allowed to run around or get down from table while eating, but it's bloody hard to enforce when other people's children are running around screaming! When he's older it will be easier, but at the mo he's 3. My sister's children are not allowed to run around screaming but are allowed down from the table to go wandering around. Mu brother, OTOH, doesn't believe in disciplining his children so they run riot.

"Our coffee shops are packed with students who have somehow bought the idea that it is cool and poet-in-a-garret-like to sit with your laptop in Costa, working on an essay."

eh? That's not new - ok maybe the laptop part is - bu the sitting around working on an essay in a coffee shop isn't new

Am glad to read the last few posts and agree with Quattro too. And yes Thumb - you're right is bloody hard to enforce behaviour when children all around are doing the thing you don't want your child doing.

The irony is that people so often say 'maybe he had special needs' when people complain about a child being badly behaved. I know a few children on the autistic spectrum and they tend to be pretty inconspicuous when out and about because their parents have put so much intense effort into helping them manage their behaviour.

It's odd that so many parents don't seem to be able to put the same effort into their NT children.

Yes, but that is when I turn up the volume and say to DS, I don't care HOW badly behaved the other children are, you have been brought up correctly.

It's very clear if there are DC with special needs, SGM, as you say, the parent is concerned and is actively involved. the kids that are running about screaming are not SN children. I

I don't care if I get looks, truth hurts and since when am I going to take any notice of what hopeless, clueless or plain lazy parents do or think.

I'm fed up in general with any attention or credence being given to those who do not set a positive example.

Their failure to bring up their children to know how to behave in all situations is going to hamper their child's development and stunt their progression in life.

Mind you, until you have seen general parenting in Egypt, you have actually seen nothing. Bonkers doesn't even get close It's actually so awful it's surreal! {grin]

Totally agree with you all there.
Just to be clear, the only reason I mentioned SN issues is so that no one jumped on me and said "but maybe they have SN" - I agree that parents of SN children are not going to be the ones allowing their DC to run amok.

It is bloody dangerous to let children run around cafes and restaurants as somebody could easily spill a mug of boiling hot coffee all over them.

IMO parents with children with SN watch their children like a hawk and try to manage the situation to ensure their child is safe.

However, I have absolutely no patience for parents who allow their child to roam around a cafe or, worse, run around screaming. Just take them to the sodding park.

LittleMissHissyFit - you can't just tempt us with that nugget - in what way bonkers? Strict bonkers or leave-them-to-it bonkers?

Agree that the SN part is largely irrelevant - a child being badly behaved but the parent removing them/trying to get them to behave/apologising/basically acknowledging that the child is misbehaving is not the problem - it's the parents ignoring their kids' behaviour whether related to SN or not that is the problem.

Erm....both my kids have SN and they certainly don't rum amock in public.....nor do any other SN kids I know. If anything us SN parents are a lot more 'on the ball'

I know, just the badly behaved = SN thing bugs me.

My kids aren't badly behaved, they have Autism. Sometimes the way they react to things because of their Autism draws attention. THAT is not 'bad' behaviour, sometimes people are ignorant of that fact usually they don't want to be educated which is ironic as it's usually the actions of other people that causes the problem.

OTOH, SN kids are just as capable of misbehaving as any other child , but behaving a certain way because of their SN is NOT bad behaviour. IYSWIM ?

I have a SN child and a NT child both can behave, neither have ever run around a coffee shop and I do get fed up with parents who let their children run riot.'

The very same parents are the ones who yell blue murder if their child gets hurt or worse scolded.
My nanna sister died after being scolded and I have always been mindful of small people/hot drinks

OK, Housemum you asked....

I was told about this practice before I saw it and felt there was some exaggeration. I sat there with mouth agape when I saw it take place though.

Lunchtime (ish) Sports Club, Alexandria. Mothers wanting their children to eat, literally, and I mean this is in true sense of the word, CHASE their children around until they are completely hyper, then when they are suitably distracted, shove a spoonful of noodles or some such mush into their mouths. The child will be anything from 2yo to 4 or 5. As soon as they are able to run, that is how feeding them is managed.

Bedtime? No such thing. If the parents are up, so are the kids. 4am, 5am 1 or 2am, matters not, you will hear kids SCREAMING their heads off with the tiredness and genuinely confused mothers faces.

Usually, if the child is babe in arms, when it starts to go into melt down, cue half a dozen females crowd the poor wee thing (perhaps including the mother, perhaps not) and bounce it vigorously and all but throw it up into the air, all the while making loud WWAHHHHHH, anD AYYYYYYYYY YAYAAAYYYAA noises to literally drown out the crying of the now apoplectic child.

It took all myself control some times NOT to go and tell them that all the poor child needed was to sleep.

Don't get me started on kids in the supermarket... trolley loads of them, all screaming and the mothers trying to drown out the noise with shhusshing, or just leaving them to have a tantrum will smirking.

Want to smoke shisha? 10pm at night? not sure what to do with your tiny baby? Take her with you! she can lay on your lap while you smoke and if she needs something to occupy her, she can tug on the hookah pipe... H had to drag me off muttering, even after 3yrs of Poker Face reaction at the insanity of that place, I lost the ability to mask my shock at that sight! The woman saw me and actually did look shifty for a moment, I had to leave and go back 'home'.

The strangest thing to deal with was the fact that they all thought I was mad in putting DS to bed at 9.30/10pm, at feeding him in a chair and not letting him play in cat shit infested sand pits....

You can't make this stuff up..

I say mothers in this, as generally Fathers are absolutely NOT involved in the care of their offspring, in indeed anything other than sitting on their arses.

Rare men are involved in their families, it does happen, but they tend to (a) keep it quiet, and (b) remind their wives how lucky they are on occasion.

ACT (and anyone else) - can I please try again - I was NOT in any way implying that bad behaviour = SN. I was trying in a very cackhanded way to say that I was NOT including those children in my comment about badly behaved children and poor parenting but I see I have been hopelessly inadequate in my ability to communicate what I meant. Sorry.

LMHF - that sounds horrendous - don't any of them realise??