To expect my local coffee shop to let me in with a pram?

[Shockingundercrackers]

Will try to keep this brief. My local coffee shop owner has just refused me entry with a pram (not a massive silver cross call the midwife one, just a bugaboo style thing). He said he was busy (he wasn't, and although its a small place there were only two other customers inside) and that buggies had to be parked outside. I can see the logic of this, but a pram with a 5 week old sleeping baby in it isn't really a buggy is it? Or is it?

I should have remonstrated with the grumpy fecker of course, but it had taken me so long to get said infant out of the house and I was so hungry and tired I thought I might embarrass myself and start blubbing. I beat a hasty retreat.

I've been fuming ever since of course. AIBU?

The Equality Act ban on age discrimination does not apply to children. It is perfectly legal, for instance, for the Royal Opera House to ban children under a certain age or for shops to say no more than 3 school children at once, etc.

I think a lot if the suggestions are great (although the suggestions of buying another easier to fold buggy seems rather decedent just for going in Cafes - ds is 3.5, dd 12 weeks, I have yet to go on a bus with a buggy, if somewhere isn't walkable I'll drive, so "ease of use on public transport" isn't something I've ever needed to factor in for buggy purchase, a lot of people don't and a lot never need a second buggy, I've no idea just how quickly I can fold up mine, I've never had to do it in a rush, and never while also holding a baby)

But the point remains, unless you were desperately in need of food, why bother thinking up ways you can put yourself out in order to give a cafe business? If a cafe owner doesn't really want you in there (which is what he's saying, asking her to leave a pram outside a virtually empty cafe, it's not like it would be in the other customers way) then just go somewhere more welcoming, or keep your money for something nice.

No business has a right to your custom, they should be working hard to win you spending your money with them, not the other way round.

I found out local M&S cafe was great when DS was a small baby, the staff were nice, there was plenty if space to wheel him in in the pram and move a chair or too and they even has bottle warmers!

It took me a while, but you end up going to different places to eat/shop purely on the basis of 'is there a big clean toilet with nappy changing facilities' and 'is there room to park the pram'.

Aw that's sad for you OP. Our small (London) local cafe went out of their way to make room for us on a busy Saturday on our first trip out with our young twins and I'm sure our pram was bigger than yours! Unfortunately people don't always act the way you'd hope when you are isolated, exhausted, fragile and have a young baby. It's a hard lesson to learn but most people are lovely; some aren't, for whatever reason.

'I had some buggies that you could fold with one hand and once folded they would stand up on their own. I suppose it was something parents asked for or they wouldn't have been designed like that.'

There you go, MrsDV, the original folding buggy, invented by a grandfather to help hos daughter.
I had a 1990s one that was invaluable when I was travelling on public transport and long distance trains with DD. Didn't have a car, you could fold the buggy and hook it over your arm.
Not suitable for under 6m, but I had a sling and another small 0-6m buggy that also folded. Can't remember the make because that sort of thing was less important then it seems.

www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/CngWUrn0QmuY1R4XpU-zWA

'On your own, how on earth are you meant to fold a pram while holding a five week old? Where do you put the baby while you're eating? '

You hold the baby on your shoulder with one and and use your foot and the other hand to fold the buggy. I did it hundreds of times, and I'm not a magician.

Fold pram and hold baby.,,if its too difficult then there are usually legions of elderly ladies in coffee shops who would jump at the chance of a cuddle with the baby while you fold the pram up.

It's a nightmare accessing places with a bulky pram or even a not so bulky pram. Spare a thought for wheelchair users who don't have the carrot of increasing mobility to look forward to. It's the one time I got an idea of how awful and inaccessible life is if you are reliant on a wheelchair.

Those of us who routinely used public transport, who used cars but had car seats that fitted in the car and didn't come out to clip onto pushchair bases (due to selecting car seat on basis of top safety record rather than anything else, plus moving countries so needing to meet 2 sets of regulations with different car seats), or lived in houses where wheeling a pushchair into the front door wasn't possible did the 'baby out, pushchair folded' routine many times each day ... though i can see that if you start with an assumption that you and your pram will be welcome anywhere without folding it, whatever the inconvenience to others, this might be something that will be more difficult because you won't have taken it into account when buying said pram.

Odd, how expectations change soooo much over only a few years, really. Things that I, and everyone I knew, just 'did' are now seen to be 'impossible'.

Ultimately whatever the legal rights and wrongs of this, the cafe owner was behaving in a pretty shit way to a new mother with a young baby. Yes, she could have been a more confident new mother, or a more practically minded new mother, but here's the thing - why the fuck should she have to be so soon after becoming a parent? It's hard, coping in the early days, and working out how to get by. Not everyone gets it right all the time. This is where compassion and kindness would have gone a long way. Someone who is so dismissive of a customer, rather than seeking to work out how to make them feel welcome and valued, sounds like the type of proprietor who won't be in business for long. Plus it's easy for people in general to have a pop at young mums as they know the young mum will generally come off the worst (I see it all the time and I have been on the receiving end of it). I do hate middle England sometimes. I would recommend slamming him articulately on TripAdvisor and patronising somewhere that likes you, making friends with the staff there instead.

By the way a mini MN campaign for smaller, lighter, cheaper strollers might be in the national interest.

After a sleepless night with a teething baby, I am not really able to formulate any clever contributions. However I think yanbu. Mothers with newborns are definitely in a category of people that should be treated with courtesy, support and friendliness. They have to deal with a range of challenges night and day, hormones are all over the shop and they are indeed looking after the most vulnerable of beings, their babies. They may be vulnerable themselves due to sleep deprivation, baby being unwell, super clingy or even pnd so I really think being welcoming and helpful towards new all mums shows basic humanity.

Sod everyone who thinks mums with prams are entitled.
Georgette I totally agree with your arguments.

Boffin, well said!

Teacherwith2kids, i am so tired of the "oh in my time we had it so much harder and we coped, aren't I great?" lamentations. Times change, context changes, attitudes to inclusivenesd and discrimination evolve, and yes, products (i.e. prams) change. But well done for folding your pram all those years.

Q, I am just surprised how QUICKLY these things evolve, that is all (my oldest is 12, and my youngest 10, so 'my time' is really very recent in the general scheme of things).

The pushchair that I had, though, is still on the market, so it is perhaps attitudes that change rather than products? Or maybe that attitudes vary within and across different groups (ie like-minded mums tend to congregate together) so 'norms' will vary very widely even at the same point in time? There are others here who do - at the moment - what I did 'in my time' and see it as 'normal'.

Teacher, I can see your point. My own pram is so easily collapsible, it's a dream but when I am out and about the shopping basket at the bottom is loaded with shit nappy bag, water bottle, jackets, wet wipes and the odd bit of shopping; there is no way I would/could collapse it just to have a quick coffee. Also, a five week old baby is likely to be asleep, not a great time to drag them out of the pram, sort of defeats the purpose of a much needed coffee break. How about mums who have had a c-section and aren't quite as mobile yet but want to get out of the house so not to loose their mind been there done that.

I just don't understand the mum and baby/toddler bashing that seems to enter some conversations. I have always given way to mums with prams or slings, given up my seat to pregnant ladies, always asked if they needed help on public transport way before I had kids myself. It just seems to be a kind and normal thing to do. Yes, being pregnant or having small kids is perhaps nothing out of the ordinary, you don't get a badge I know, but it's still a bloody tough thing to do sometimes. So someone being kind and welcoming to a mum with a newborn can make a world of difference.

rant over

Btw,

I'm not saying that the coffee shop owner couldn't have behaved better, just that collapsing a pushchair is possible. Perhaps if all the people who came into his coffee shop had been courteous and conscious of the needs of all his customers in the past, he would be much more understanding of OP's particular circumstances? He may have had a long series of unfortunate incidents that have led to him making a blanket ban....

Ultimately whatever the legal rights and wrongs of this, the cafe owner was behaving in a pretty shit way to a new mother with a young baby

A new baby is not an entry ticket to an exalted state of being.

Our local one is tiny too, all the Mummies go there after dropping kids off at local school, its an obstacle course with various prams, buggies and whatnot, and itbalso means people just can't sit down - so everyone else avoids it like the plague, I suspect their takings are much lower than if they made everyone leave their gubbins outside.

Go to another coffee shop.

Lazyjaney Why is simple human kindness = being treated as an exalted being?

FFS, kindness should be default behaviour in a civilised society, not some extra special option only for special people.

Lazyjaney - why do you presume the mothers will still go and leave their buggies outside, rather than just going somewhere else altogether?

I don't think that expecting to be able to take a pram into a coffee shop is entitled but it most certainly is not discrimination.

So, a shop owner should let a pram in the shop even if breaches fire regs just be kind?!

If it's a small shop, it's perfectly reasonable for the owner to ask you to leave the pram outside.

candycoated That's a ridiculous strawman.

The owner could perfectly well have been kind and explained problems. Being able to say no without making the other person feel like shit is a) prerequisite for being decent human being and B) prerequisite for being good at that "customer service" thing.

@ ridiculous strawman

I still don't know why OP couldn't have parked buggy outside, and carried baby inside.

Who would seriously wake a sleeping 5 week old? I certainly wouldn't.

Plus it opens the cafe owner up to the risk of the even more alarming (whispers) breastfeeding