to want one, just one, coffee shop, cafe, eating place to be child free?

[NearlyMrsCustardsHardHat]

AIBU? Really?

All I ask for is that between the hours of 11 and 2 during the week my precious half hour lunch break is not interrupted by my ankles being rammed by a pushchair, or a grubby little urchin throwing food or wailing or just being within a 5 meter radius of me. It's not much. Actually, rewind, can I just ban the ineffectual mums that come with said urchins?

I love kids. I just don't love them between the hours of 8am and 6pm Monday to Friday.

AIBU to just want a small bit of child free/floppy parenting sanctuary?

YANBU at all.

"But it would be seen as shocking if such an establishment tried to ban individual children through unruly behaviour"

Not really. The owners/staff need to get their arses in gear and ask anyone who is unruly to start behaving properly or leave.

The problem is not the children or even the parents per se, it is that it is either tolerated or simply whinged about. No one does anything. Perhaps tell the parent that little Jaamee or Jorga needs to stop annoying you.

I can just see the AIBU thread now:
"AIBU to ask you all to boycott X establishment as they had the most appalling cheek to ask us to leave, just because Jaamee had tripped up the head waiter and Jorga peed under the table??"

:) Yep. owe veer, the point is that unless the parents are told to fuck off control their children they probably have no idea they are being irritating. I mean most normal people would but the pissed floppy parents don't. banning an entire section of society is not the answer.

Owe veer? Bloody autocorrrect. However.

To me though it isn't just about badly behaved children - it's about wanting an adult space sometimes.

Often children can change the whole atmosphere of a place; many times for the better but sometimes it's just not what I want.

I agree this is just like those times when you just want a break from children It doesn't mean you are miserable or mean spirited. Sometimes it is just annoying when you want a bit of peace.

" "And yes, they are generally middle class mothers, in this area at least, and I suspect in most."

I find it's usually the Chav mothers with their little brats. "

SoupDragon, maybe I live in a posher place than you? :o :o :o

More seriously, you have a very good point about speaking up when children are allowed to behave badly in public and disturb others, one which I was about to raise myself.

From now on I will be the one to tell little Tarquin (and his urchinous, equally odious brother Horatio) to go away/stop screaming/stop running around the restaurant if their doting mummy doesn't. :)

YANBU Would. I would also also like a OAP free space in my lunch hour.They drive me mad, getting their glasses out to read the menu, clustering the place up with their walking sticks.

I used to escort wandering children back to their parents if they were being a nuisance. I had no problem doing that at all (although I framed it as being concerned about their safety - hot food, swinging kitchen doors and all that).

Noisy/otherwise PITA ones was much more difficult. There were a couple of families - I mean really, really bad ones - for whom we were always mysteriously fully booked when they asked for a table. Which is a bit cowardly I suppose.

One of the worst incidents of floppy parenting I saw was when we'd built an amazing snowman outside the restaurant (a quiet morning, clearly). It was lovely - everyone admired it. Until some diners' children kicked him into oblivion as their parents looked on :(

.GS lets have some tolerance

Ah I got around this lunchtime issue by working at a university, thus sat around 18-21 yr olds in the cafe there! Bliss.

That's no a bad plan MrsJamin.

OP, maybe you could pop into the local SU bar?

Of course restaurants can ask anyone to leave who is causing a problem , quite rightly .But having.a.buggy isn't really the same.thing. Am :o at the snow man man.

Sorry that was meant to be

Just been to a nice independent cafe for lunch and it was full of toddlers and babies. Actually they were all very well behaved. But I can't think of any cafes near where I work that won't have kids in at lunchtime.

Oh! Apart from the builders cafe where its chips with everything. Don't tend to see kids in there at lunchtime.

I have worked in a number of restaurants in my younger days. There were far more adults that I would have wished to throw out over the children. Particularly the 'lunch hour lot' that would expect their food cooked and served within seconds of ordering, because they had to 'rush' back to their important jobs. (They could have bought a sarnie in a deli of course).

Most offices are quite child-free - perhaps people should have coffee/lunch at their desks...