To Want to Complain(& to think DH handled this like a wuss]

[RockinHippy]

Or am I over reacting because DD is already having a really tough time & just didn't need this upset too

As her 12th birthday treat DD wanted a day of shopping with her best friend, including a meal in her favourite pizza place & then onto the cinema.

Sadly due to health problems, they were both too exhausted & overwhelmed by shopping in town on a Saturday - so they skipped the meal & headed home to chill out to recharge for the cinema instead (bizarrely not only do they share a less than common name, they both share the same health condition, which includes CFS & anxiety as symptoms :( )

They are both very sensible, mature 12 yr olds, who look & act older

On proudly arriving at the cinema to see a 12A film on their own, they were refused entry & told they need proof of age - nothing on the cinemas website or notice board says proof of age needed for a 12A, (only 15 & 18 - which is fair enough) SM was quite happy to take their money for over priced popcorn & drinks though, but not for cinema tickets

DD rang us, obviously upset & embarrassed to be stopped in front of a queue full of teens & preteens, but holding it together & acting maturely.

DH ran down to the cinema with her passport - that not only proved her age, but clearly showed it was her birthday - he told the staff member that it was DDs birthday & that they were both 12 & had parents permission to be there on their own.

Staff member was having none of it, refusing because he only had ID for one of the girls - DH said SM was polite & Young & he thought she might just be new & over zealous, so he didn't want to make a big fuss, but this SM refused point blank to back down no matter what DH said.

Though unfortunately DDs friend got so flustered that she accidentally gave her wrong month of birth, making her a week under 12, she corrected this, but SM refused to believe & insisted that they could only go in, if DH went in with them - At this point I would have been discretely demanding to see the manager - DH sadly didn't want to make any further fuss because the SM was polite & "sorry"

This ended up with DD running off to hide her tears as she was so upset & humiliated - on her birthday! :(

DH ended up having to go in with them - even more annoying, as I was at home just finishing off cooking a meal for us both

AIBU in thinking this was a bloody ridiculously Jobsworth thing to do & on DH arriving with passport the SM should have just backed down & apologised & to want to make a formal complaint?

TIA

I cant believe people are calling this cinema employee a spiteful jobsworth.

It's their job on the line if they make the wrong call!

Are you also a spiteful jobsworth if you work in a bar and refuse to serve a very young looking 18yo? Or refuse to sell another pint to someone who is clearly very much the worse for wear? because you are clearly just out to ruin their fun and embarrass them?

we are in danger of raising a generation of spoilt brats who think the rules apply to everyone bar them. And once they think they are in the right (cos mummy always sticks up for them) this will spill over into adulthood - crap driving, crap parking, and zero consideration for others in any way shape or form.

I'm afraid a 16 year who joins the army, whether or not deployed on active service, is still defined under UN law as a soldier. Also, several British chidlren have ended up on the front line in Iraq and Afghanistan. There are plenty of NGOs trying to end the recruitment of minors.
I made the point as it seems non-sensical that you can sign up for the army, but not buy glue.
www.standard.co.uk/panewsfeeds/seven-uk-child-soldiers-in-mid-east-8626205.html

They ended up on the front line by accident, apparently. It's not supposed to happen.

The fact that we have 16 year olds still able to join the army (although not deployed on the front line) doesn't have any bearing on this thread....the rules are there for everyone, take ID and don't roar at the SM who is simply doing their job.

If you don't like that particular rule then what are you going to do about it?

12A is such a bullshit rating, the strangest thing they ever did. It's just fucking confusing. It's basically PG except you have to be 12 or over to watch it alone... Why, just why? Should have kept it as it was with the regular 12 rating IMO, makes it a lot easier. I've seen a few 12A movies where I think that is definitely NOT suitable for anyone maybe 10 and under but because it's a 12A they actually could see it.

Anyway I haven't read the whole thread... I don't think complaining is the wisest idea. The clerk was doing their job, much like bar staff or shop assistants asking for ID for over 18 products. All it takes is for a child under 12 to pass as a 12 year old, be terrified by the movie, tell their parents, parent complains to cinema and BHAM! that person has no job and is fined £££. Plus the friend messed up and said they were younger, I'd instantly be even more suspicious. They got to see the movie in the end even if dear old dad had to go into the cinema with them. My dad used to do similar things, he'd just sit miles away so we still felt alone. Also as I read someone else said he could have left a few minutes in for all it was worth.

12A is absolutely a blush it rating the later HPs=the second Hunger games.

I don't think so, I saw how shaky DD2(13) looked coming out of the latter, and she had read the book.

As for making a generation of spoilt, rule breakers, I'm 46 and we were far far worse. We drank at 14, bought kids cinema tickets one week and over 15 tickets the next. We didn't do a lot if our HW or ever do up our top buttons, our shoes didn't have to be black. No one cared, nothing bad happened, the world didn't end and less of us had sex and no one got PG until they were 16.

We worked when it really mattered and got into good universities and collage corses that lead to jobs my DFs are still do, but we didn't suffer from 1/10 the idiotic shit that stresses out teens today.

I'm 46 too and agree, we did far worse - but as for nothing bad happened, that's a lot of rubbish. Of course it did. Or perhaps you were just very lucky. I got into some very, very dodgy situations a result of the laissez faire attitude of the time) and can think of several occasions where I was damned lucky. Not something I want for my teens.

However, there were still rules and we knew that if we were going somewhere with an age restriction we took ID. Difference was, if we got caught out our parents didn't go roaring to Head Office about staff doing their job - it was just tough luck.

elephant I could have written your post. I refuse to teach my dc to blindly obey every bullshit rule as though the rule itself is what is important. Watching a 12 film when you are 11, or getting an older mate to buy you cider is really not where the issues lie.
At 15, I was going to Greenham Common, and CND rallies with other politically-active teens. My parents encouraged me to question and challenge -- and I could not have had my career without a healthy disregard for some rules.

That's fine - encourage your child to ask questions, but if the rule is such that it isn't going to be changed for you then either take your business elsewhere or put up. Don't go shouting and stamping your foot at someone who is just doing their job.

Sirchenjin I'm around the same age as you, as well. I don't remember ID schemes existing in the 1980s. I thought they all came in much later. We got into places based on how old we looked to the doorman, and how much make-up we were wearing.

Sorry, haven't read the whole thread, Im just wondering what ID a 12yo is expected to have? Lots of them don't have passports.

I've never been ID for anything ever.
As for scrapes, they were far more my heavy drinking disreputable BFF in university holidays when we were older and far less sensible.

When we were younger, we generally didn't have the money to get drunk and a parent picking us up.

elephants I live in the US now, so am constantly asked for ID despite being the same age as you. I give them my UK driver's license, which they cannot read (date order confuses them) and cannot enter into system since the expiry date is decades away . Another ridiculous rule, asking someone my age with a trolley full of family shopping to give id for one bottle of plonk.

Driving licences and passports were around in the 80s - I remember carting them about religiously, esp. as I looked much younger than I was. We didn't have the money to get drunk either - that was solved by regular raids on parents drinks cupboards and necking the resulting mix known as a 'bomb', which rendered me almost unconscious and certainly incapable of looking after myself. Parents were regularly fed stories about sleepovers to avoid the lifts home.

The Odeon chain accepts the following as ID - Passport, Photo Driving Licence, Student Card/School Pass with Photo and DOB, ValidateUK card, PASS-Scheme card, Connexions Card, Prove-it Portman Card or Citizen Card

I honestly can't remember if we had to wave our passports in the states to buy booze or having clearly English accents meant they didn't bother.

Sirchenjin as I said, I was talking about ID schemes, as we were going out pre-driving age, and no-one would have considered taking their passport not even those cardboard one year ones Your area must have been well ahead of the curve on worrying about age restrictions. I was being served in pubs from the age of 14.

Apart from the fact that I'd have had have had DD1 in elementary school not to be 21

elephants that doesn't stop them asking for ID. I was staying in a business hotel, booked on a platinum corporate AMEX card in DC, and was asked for id in the bar by someone who was younger than my stretch-marks.

I don't know if they were ahead of the curve - I suspect it was because I looked so young that no pub was going to risk its licence serving someone who looked about 12.

It depended very much where you lived in the '80's.

My rural mid welsh pubs knew exactly how old were (we went to school with the land lords DCs), they didn't care, the one local policeman didn't care, so long as they shut at 11pm.

However, I had London flat mates at university who were used to being ID.

Yep, our drinking was done in a Scottish city. There were some pubs who would serve you without ID at 15 - but not something I want for my teens, who fortunately seem a lot more savvy and a lot less stupid than I was at their ages.

Tbh, in the same situation I'd've just bought a ticket for myself alongside tickets for the two girls, and then let them go to the cinema on their own (or, if the cinema were being really arsey) accompanied them in and them promptly left.

When DS1 was 12 and going to the cinema with friends, I just went with them to stand with them when they were buying the tickets and never had any problem. I always suspected they'd get questioned because they were all really short. Now he's 14 and no one is going to mistake him for 11 so it wouldn't be an issue.

I think the growing insistence on IDing everyone for bloody everything is a scourge of contemporary life, and not one that has improved anything in any way whatsoever.

I've never been IDed for alcohol in the states. Not even when i was 25. I must look positively ancient.

I disagree - having been in some really risky situations as a teen I'm bloody glad mine are prevented from doing similar. A vast improvement in that respect.