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?

YABU, children are a part of our society. I work with children all day and I don't mind seeing them when I am not at work.

it cant be that bad can it, i barely notice

Well, I don't work with children, and the worst is when some proud Mummy brings in their little darlings to show them off.

I come to work to get away from that kind of noise. Is nowhere sacred?

I go to work at the local playcentre (with my two children). I find I am perfectly able to write there. I just tune out, just as I do when I hear braying men laughing in a hearty way, gaggles of office girls who've had a Friday lunch drink, or teenagers 'innit'. You should try it.

Although I don't actually disagree with child-free places, some bars have limits on time/age, so why not lunch in those? Presumably if child-free places were very popular, lots of restaurants and cafe's would be doing that over the busiest part of the day.

DH kind of already has a manbag.

But after Thzumba's story, I'm tempted to get one for my Dad. Or even better - get DH to give it to him while wearing his own :o

Oh and PMSL at poor Tarquin eating his sea urchins

SCOTT - you should do that, it would be most amusing! [hgrin] We teased Dad about using his for weeks afterwards... not sure what happened to it in the end!

I often see the chap who runs this company in the post office, sending off his wares. He does a roaring trade, from what I can see.

Now all I need to find is a spa that serves sea urchin. I bet there's one in Tuscany.

YANBU. I'm a mum of 4 and when I get a short amount of child free time I'd love to have somewhere child free to go. When I do take my DC's in somewhere to eat I make sure they behave appropriately for the type of cafe and sit at the table as I know that much as I love my kids there are lots of people that don't want to be bothered by them. I think it's important to get the right balance between family friendly places and those where it's not appropriate to take young children.

I think manbags have become a lot more acceptable since the invention of laptops - they're really just briefcases with a shoulderstrap, aren't they.

this was what my Dad was given though - not quite the same!

Oh my!

It's very continental-looking, isn't it?

Indeed, barnowl

Liking childfree space doesn't mean you dislike children.

That's a man clutch bag!

Happy Christmas Dad, you can carry your cheese around in this.

I love how this thread has gone from screaming kids to Tuscany to urchins to hedgehogs to manbags

"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.

Can you imagine trying to segregate or ban any other area of society?

It looks like it might go with some man slingbacks, if such things exist.

SoupDragon do you honestly think children should be allowed everywhere? What about my spa example?

SCOTT why does you dad carry cheese around with him?

DBF you may be annoyed to know that your post about Tarquin and the sea urchins had me PMSL. :o

Jenai, they do!! The pics are quite astonishing...

Blimey

Soupdragon - if adults behaved in the same way that some young children are allowed to, they would be banned from various places, restaurants, pubs etc. But it would be seen as shocking if such an establishment tried to ban individual children through unruly behaviour, so they blanket ban instead. Can't blanket ban adults or you'd have no customers.

FGS some people on here really will take offence at anything, OP.
I have a small child, I completely agree that children need to be acclimatised to restaurants etc but I still can understand that someone on their lunch hour doesn't want their one bit of peace ruined by some little brat throwing spaghetti at them while their mother just shrugs and says "oh dear, naughty Horatio".

OP, I sympathise. Sometimes I just want to be in an adult environment with NO CHILDREN.

I also think that most mothers consider their children to be far more charming than the rest of the populace do. Our lives may revolve around toddlers but we forget that most peoples' don't

OhdearNigel i agree with every word in your post.
Can i make a tiny correction though? She wouldn't say 'naughty Horatio' but spirited Horatio . Followed by 'he is bored because he is so clever'.