Effectively asked to leave cafe..AIBU or was he?

[Hoptoit]

Today my husband, 3 yo and 2 yo twins went for lunch in a small local cafe that we go to maybe once a month. It's quite informal and I took the pile of kids toys as an indication that families were welcome. The twins were fractious and hungry, and having a bit of a shout, but we ordered food and waited for them to settle. There were about two other tables of people in there at this time.

After we ordered the owner made a comment along the lines of 'give it a rest now kids' which I took as a joke, then about 5 minutes later, after the children's food had arrived, but before my husbands and mine had he came over and said,'your going to have to stop them making this noise, they are disturbing everyone else lunch. It's just not on.'

So, my husband ate a bit of his lunch then took the twins to sit in the car while I picked at mine. Just after he left a lovely lady on the table next to us came over to say she'd heard what he said and was disgusted and wanted me to know she hadn't complained to him about the noise, and that she planned to say something to him when she left. I'm ashamed to say that I was so embarrassed and stressed that this made me cry.

As I went to pay my £30 bill for the mostly uneaten food, he asked me if everything had been ok?! I said I was mortified by what he'd said. He got all chippy and defensive about it so I didn't say anymore.

It has ruined what should have been a lovely day. Twins aren't easy and I am very conscious if not impacting on other people negatively, but this place gives the impression of being child friendly, and we weren't letting them run wild or anything like that.

So what do you think, was he out of line or should we have left sooner? It was a terrible mortifying experience.

shoudl i cancel is

bt they wil be so upset it's neen booked for a while and i\ dont have all teh numbers of teh otehr childrne to cancel what can i even do

liek otehr poster said teh vast vast majority of chidlren in uk have appallign bahviour and soe f them aren't mine so i dont' know what their bahvior will be liek and people are goignt p get angry aren't they it was a bad idea frankly what was i even thikning

lock em up till they're 10 .

We eat out regularly with the dds, they are 5 and 2, we always have.

They aren't perfect (2yo is at the 'reminding waitress she wants her dinner' as she walks past stage) but generally I find people are lovely and supportive. It makes me that very often they oh so subtly put you on a 'special' side of v the restaurant.

Going to a caff for lunch is hardly fine dining.

And as for people abusing disabled people words just fail me

Seriously love you are blowing things out of proportion - and I really do not mean to be nasty to you because you sound very stressed and worried.

Don't cancel the party. A venue that takes a booking for a childrens party of 20 is going to be set up for this. So don't worry! Enjoy and have a wonderful day full of laughter and fun.

Taking children out to eat is part of introducing them to the wider world and that there are different rules to when you are at home. At home you might chose to ignore a temper tantrum until the child calms down itself. When you're out, most parents intervene because it's a different situation and they're aware the child is seriously disturbing others and could even put themselves at risk (eg if they lie down on the floor in the middle of a busy coffee shop where people could trip over them and spill hot coffee). There is a world of difference between children talking and laughing, maybe having a wee bit of a cry as mum/dad talks to them and tries to sort things out to blatantly ignoring the fact your kids are screaming and shouting and causing a huge disturbance.

It's easy to be a smug perfect parent when you have a child without issues. I remember one ferry crossing with ds1 - I was 6 months pregnant, ds1 was non-verbal, couldn't sit still, couldn't read, had the understanding of language of a 12 month old, , couldn't play with toys, couldn't cope with crowds, couldn't hold a pen. He crashed around the boat with me following him - he didn't notice the boat moving, do didn't slow down, kept trying to get into the shop through the exit to set off the alarms then started trying to lie on the floor of the toilets to look under doors (he wasn't looking at people he was trying to look at the toilet fittings).

It was horrendous. Right at the end of the journey some smug father with 2 perfect girls who had sat colouring in the whole time (how nice to have a child who could hold a pencil, let alone understand the concept of colouring in) shook his head at me, looking like he'd stepped in something. Un-fucking-believable - idiot.

Anyway as we drove off the ferry I told DH to ring his mother & tell her we were never visiting her again. Which he did & we didn't go for about 4 years - the next visit my parents drove the length of the country & back to help us across on the ferry in both directions.

So you know what if people can't tolerate ds1 standing in the wrong place in the queue - fuck 'em. We do consider other people but I no longer live my life around them. I don't take DS1 somewhere where his disabled behaviour might be an issue - eg the theatre - but if he does something slightly wrong in a sodding cafe who cares. How else is he going to learn?

LoveSardines
I can't believe you are really being serious here.
People were talking about parents thinking people shouldn't object to generally anti social behaviour. Most people are simply suggesting that consideration for others is appropriate not that children shouldn't breathe or exist in public or should stay indoors until they're adults.

I won't remove ds from a public place ijf he is making unpreventable noise due to his disability unless it will benefit him to leave.

I think also there are lots of annoying people in restaurants, not just children. The drunks, large group parties, people eating with their mouth open, extreme gluttony, swearing, people who have to moan about everything to get a free dessert. It's not just about kids and you would think mnetters would be more tolerant towards children.

Yes not all though do you see. You and katie might be more tolerant but not everyone is like that soem people have very little toerlance at all and they need to be catered for also this pitch thing I don't think there's anuthign can be done abotu that but teh pster said it's not volume so even if they child is beign normal or quiet it's the pitch that;s the problem

I have definitely seen the intolerance love talks about directed at ds1. Sometimes he is doing something difficult (& if I can do something about it I will, often can't though - they may have to put up with a few minutes of difficult behaviour), but other times he's doing nothing that could possibly affect anyone. So I completely ignore the huffing & puffing then.

Luckily there are usually nice people around as well - they often reveal themselves when the behaviour becomes difficult, or someone else becomes unreasonable.

i will talk to dh abtu teh party he often knwos what to do

they do serve coffee in the place that we have booked and also some light snacks

Tbh in the case of the OP I would have spoken to the children/family myself if they were that noisy 'oh dear are you hungry' - strange ladies can sometimes shock a child into silence and I would have assumed that had the noise got really bad they would be taken out.

I haven't seen loads of really bad behaviour amongst children though - but then I don't expect ALL children to be able sit nicely all the time. Lovely when you have a kid that does (I used to collect complements for ds2 & ds1 when he was a toddler - his disabilities then made him very quiet, ds3 and post toddler ds1 a different matter ). If I see a kid kicking off I'm just pleased it's not my problem to deal with.

Definitely had more meals ruined by ghastly loud braying adults than children.

There are some ridiculously intolerant views on this thread - people shouldn't be able to hear children at all? A problem with the pitch of their voices / crying at a GP surgery? But I don't think anyone would seriously expect a parent to take their child off public transport would they?

Children are part of society - how are they going to learn to partake in it if they are kept at home?

No one has been critical of children with disabilities.
No one has suggested that children should be seen and not heard.
No one has claimed that all adults behave impeccably at all times.
Most posters felt that the OP could have managed her toddlers` screaming and shouting more proactively and that she was BU.

Even though another customer stood up for her. My son doesn't look disabled btw - which is partly why those with rods up their backsides get cross when he stands in the wrong place.

If you have perfect children you may not have come across the staggering level of intolerance shown by some. People aren't always right just because they're annoyed. This time I'm guessing I'd have been with the customer who stuck up for OP. My friend with twins had a lot of similar issues to me with ds1 when her twins were little.

Sure they have sooty a poster just recetly said "I shouldn't be able to hear your children" and another said volume isn't the thing that even if they're not being loud there is still a problem with the pitch of their voices. Soemone upthread said people with yung children shoudlnt' go to cafes but i can't find that post now the thread has got quite long.

I would be mortified if any of my children did this and I couldn't do anything with them. If it got to the stage someone had to say something then I would be even more mortified, but because I hadn't done enough. I wouldn't be upset at the waiter- but then I'd have taken them out before then, because I'd already have been mortified. See where I'm going here?

I think that most people are tolerant of noisy, shouting children if the parents look as if they are trying to do something about it. If the parents appear to be doing nothing, which may have happened in the OP's case (she says she was waiting for them to settle which seems rather passive), then people get annoyed.

Mine are really quiet and well behaved becasue I am so alert to others and that they might get angry or pissed off or whatever and still poeple get angry like the peopel on the bus. I really don't know what we were doing wrong tthere.

I have taken the approach that going out shoudl be avoided ifp possible and if you are out and someone gives a look or whatevr then you apologise and leave. I dont' think my approach is particularly healthy though yet it seems to be approved on thsi trhad which I think is sad as I dont' think parents should haveto take that approach.

although havign said that DD did drop a spoon twice yesterday adb also they were talking and stuff so maybe i need to revisit that I had thought things wer egetting better but really with this pitch thing

For those saying that Britain is not child friendly, I can say that I know many countries that are child friendly where children are welcome and fussed over in restaurants BUT, in all those countries, it is generally understood that parents do not allow their children to have a "bit of a shout" in the restaurants and are happy to take them out to smack their bottoms if they do not stop the noise.

I obviously disagree strongly with the idea of smacking, but I also disagree with the idea that strangers have to put up with screaming children at the restaurants just because "kids will be kids".

Manners are about consideration to other people, it may be that they are too young to have good manners but as an adult, you have to and should have sorted the problem, because having loud and misbehaving children in restaurants ruins if for us all, I hate finding places where children (including mine) are no longer allowed just because some other parents allowed their children to run riot in them before.

one customer said she didn't have a problem. The others did not say a word - so perhaps they did find it disturbing to have screaming and shouting children whose parents did not say or do anything to calm them down?

There is no indication from OP that her children are not NT.

I don't think it is intolerant to wish a parent would not just leave her children to scream and shout in a café without doing a single thing. Sitting and ignoring the situation as if it has no impact on other people is selfish. I do think OP was then intolerant to have a problem with a perfectly reasonable request, which was that she did something to stop them making so much noise. She is effectively denying that her childrens' screaming and shouting does not have an impact on other people - which it does.

I don't think a single person on this thread has agreed that just leaving NT children to scream and shout in a café when it is obvious they are creating a disturbance is considerate or reasonable.

Sooty - thread has grown so I'm not scrolling back to find the posts but people have said they shouldn't be able to hear children and they should be kept at home.

OP has vanished but she did reply to say she wasn't passive and they were trying to quieten the kids.

It sounds as if they were screaming/ shouting

A couple of minutes of that would be ok, but if it had been difficult to quieten them down or if it continued its time to take them outside or leave

There is no need to get upset though...it's just one of those things but you do have to consider the other people in there who want to chat etc

"I shouldn't be able to hear your children"sans in my view " You shouldn't let them be noisy in such a way that it impacts on others - ie if they scream and shout please address the situation"

I'm sorry LoveSardines but I think you're exaggerating and have blown this out of proportion.

exaggertain about what

I didn;t go out unless i absolutely had to for abut 3 years due to post natal depression and anxiety and fear around peopel gettign angry with teh children i felt liek we were in the way all teh time and was very scared

i have been getting a bit better these last few years with the children beign bigger so they dont' cry or anything any more but this thread has made me feel quite twitchy indeed and some of teh comments have set me thining that actually poeple might stil be angry with us like the pitch thing how do I know if I am near someone who is upset by pitch what can i even do abotu that

There was only one other table there & no indication of whether or not they complained.