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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To feel like these families spoilt the pub?

95 replies

Primadonnagirl · 19/04/2014 15:32

Our local is a proper old fashioned pub. It is family friendly but tends to attract the more real ale crowd.There are two main rooms, one which tends to be where people eat in, and two smaller ones that tend to be used for groups. We went out with four friends for an early evening drink.Great convivial Bank Holiday weekend atmosphere. We were sat in the main room. After only half an hour a huge party came in..almost everyone was a couple with a baby and pram/ pushchair. The atmosphere changed instantly to that of a play group.People were being jostled when they were trying to get prams in etc. Then all the babies were introduced to each other and passed around the group amid much loud baby talk.the noise just completely drowned everything else.I got up to see if there was a table somewhere else ..and found that the rest of the group were in the other room..It was so uncomfortable we left. I don't have a problem with families in pubs but is it really appropriate to take a large group of babies into one on a Saturday evening, completely dominate the space and have no regard for what is essentially an adult environment??Just interested in your views esp if you have littles ones..

OP posts:

Grennie · 19/04/2014 18:15

Yes I forgot over 18 pubs in the City Centre where young people go to get pissed.

All of the pubs where I live in the suburbs, welcome kids. There is no choice if you want to go out to an adult only pub and not be surrounded by young people getting totally pissed. Even 10 years ago, there used to be adult only pubs where people just went to have a quiet drink and chat.

ElseaStars · 19/04/2014 18:16

We had to wait in the car when Dad went to the bookies.
One of the worst things I've seen was when a five year old kid was running around with their cousin and the management told them to stop. Parents didn't listen and the five yr old collided with a waitress carrying hot drinks. Kid got burnt and so did the waitress and the mother went mental. Ruined every ones night. According to my OH this happens a lot at his work (he's the chef in a traditional pub)- management/waitresses always get the blame. It's never the parents.

GoAheadMakeMyDay · 19/04/2014 18:16

I'm pretty shocked at that. I live in a city but right on the outskirts in a little village and one of the pubs doesn't allow children at all. It's the same in the next 2 villages.

In all the other pubs children are to be out by 7 or 8pm.

WandaDoff · 19/04/2014 18:18

I wouldn't have been happy about it.

Thats only because its very seldom that I get to go anywhere without my children & if I'm out in a pub, with adults, the last thing I want to see is is small children.

But that would be me being unreasonable rather than the parents of the babies, of course.

Grennie · 19/04/2014 18:20

Goahead - I am shocked at that. Sounds like it used to be here 10 years ago. Our last pub that children weren't allowed in changed management 2 years ago and now welcomes children.

I agree if you have a choice, then you shouldnt complain about kids in a pub that welcomes kids. I guess it is when there is no choice, that you are bound to get clashes in terms of what people want.

Grennie · 19/04/2014 18:22

Actually kids under a certain age have to have left by 9pm. But as I understand it, that is a licensing condition. And not all pubs stick to it anyway.

GoAheadMakeMyDay · 19/04/2014 18:25

I honestly thought it was the same everywhere.

VodkaJelly · 19/04/2014 18:46

My DP drinks in a old mans pub, it doesnt offer food and will only let children in the beer garden in the day. I dont like the place much but DP loves it.

One night me and DP had a rare child free night so went out for a quiet drink in the pub, it was about 8.30/9pm and we were in the bar area which is tiny. Then a couple came in with a young child (probably under 1) and the pushchair, then 2 more of their friends came in with their children (all under 5) with the pushchairs, so about 5 kids and 3 pushchairs all crowded into the tiny bar. Me and DP were crammed into the corner and couldnt get out from our table!

The kids were screaming/shouting/banging and as we wanted a child free eveing (and thats why we went in that pub) we left after about 40 minutes. And we were not the only ones.

We couldnt complain as it was the landladys daughter and her friends who brought the kids in.

If we were in a Wacky Warehouse type pub we would have expected kids and noise and it would have been out fault for going to the WW type pub, so we chose an over 18 one.

Bogeyface · 19/04/2014 19:09

I love kids, I have 6 of my own! I have no issue with kids being in appropriate places, but I dont think a pub is appropriate.

I never take my kids to the pub (apart from for functions etc) because I dont think it is a good place for them to be. How is that a fun thing to do for anyone? I dont get it!

And as for the snotty woman who complained that the regulars were upsetting her children by telling dirty jokes and swearing, at 10:30pm, well I may have suggested that if she needed a drink that badly that she would have her kids in the pub at that time she needed to join AA

YouTheCat · 19/04/2014 19:11

Good for you, bogeyface.

Bogeyface · 19/04/2014 19:22

Ironically, I had had rather more to drink than she had, so not sure I made a very convincing point :o

sarahquilt · 19/04/2014 20:02

The pub in the evening is not appropriate for kids at all. YANBU - I'd be cross my drink was spoilt.

coffeetofunction · 19/04/2014 20:10

If I had been there with my DH I'd have probs hated it however I wonder if it was a group of families that don't often get out & chance to socialise with adults while letting there hair down....

YouTheCat · 19/04/2014 20:49

Why didn't they go somewhere more suited to babies then?

Bogeyface · 19/04/2014 20:52

But you cant let your hair down when you are in a room full of young children, so why bother with the pub?

I wonder if it was an NCT group where the mummys meet regularly and decided to do their next meeting at the pub so the Daddys could come to, because God forbid they should be forced to go out without being able to have a beer.

RiverTam · 19/04/2014 21:03

Any overly loud group of people in a pub is annoying, regardless of their accessories . I don't think 5pm is too late, it's not evening, it's late afternoon. If they'd rocked up at 8pm I wouldn't have been impressed, but if they were there for an hour of so and left before the evening boozing started I don't see the problem with them being there as such. But if they were being excessively loud, then that's a drag - their babies are neither here nor there, though.

YouTheCat · 19/04/2014 21:05

But it doesn't sound like an appropriate pub if there's no space for prams etc.

RiverTam · 19/04/2014 21:10

most pubs don't have a specific space for prams, though. It sounds like once they'd got past people with their prams they weren't in the way - and the bar staff could have asked them to leave them outside or fold them down if they'd felt it was a problem.

I think in the daytime it's nice for places to be used by all generations.

GoAheadMakeMyDay · 19/04/2014 21:10

But it doesn't sound like an appropriate pub if there's no space for prams etc.

Then I think it would be more appropriate to be pissed off at the LL for advertising as family friendly, not the people who turn up expecting for it to be.

maddening · 19/04/2014 21:14

it sounds just like they are a loud crowd - we were in a lovely restaurant that is always busy and they had a large adult only group with a load of loud mouthed folk - crass booming business type, probably a lot to do with the town council men and their shrieking wives - totally ruined the atmosphere and was such a relief when they went.

I doubt it was the dc -they probably would be just as disruptive without their dc.

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