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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to refuse to serve coffee to a 10 year old?

252 replies

ScarlettDarling · 24/01/2015 15:41

Ds just been to an outdoor sledging place for his birthday party. Three of his best friends have come back here and as they're all freezing I offered them hot chocolate. One said he didn't like it and asked could he have coffee instead.I was a bit taken aback and made a joke about how coffee wasn't a children's drink, but he looked a bit miffed and said he had it all the time at home. I ended up giving him hot apple stuff instead but now Im wondering if I was being unreasonable...I don't think coffee is an appropriate drink for children, but I happily served hot chocolate with cream and marshmallows to the others which, let's face it, isn't exactly healthy!!

OP posts:
sykadelic · 25/01/2015 01:47

YANBU.

I don't agree with encouraging children to take stimulants, and nor do I think it's safe for developing bodies to have caffeine (one of the reasons it's not advised during pregnancy). A quite google will show the effects on children are amplified so yep, I'd have pulled up my judgey pants on this one too.

Ignoring the fact it's coffee specifically, you don't run a cafe where he can just place his order. He gets what's offered and doesn't get to raid your pantry. He's entitled to ask of course, no harm in doing so, but I'd have said "you have the choice of X, Y and Z".

sashh · 25/01/2015 05:15

Back in the 1970s we were given coffee at junior school as part of school dinners.

1 coffee is not going to harm a child, if you were bothered you could have called a parent to check

BringMeTea · 25/01/2015 06:21

Slightly different but. A friend used to work in the cafe at Chelsea Harbour Gym (the Princess D i one). A child of around 8 or 9 asked for an espresso. She checked who it was for. Himself. She refused to serve him one. Cue boy's mother arriving and shouting at her for refusing. Her kid her rules. Friend still refused and was reprimanded.

Cherriesandapples · 25/01/2015 06:38

I was given tea with 2 sugars from when I was very little. YABU!

GoodbyeToAllOfThat · 25/01/2015 06:40

How strange. You're definitely not unreasonable to say no, because then your own children may well start asking for it. And quite right, you're not running a cafe.

MelonOfTroy · 25/01/2015 07:43

Op, I'd have probably done the same for the same nebulous reasons. I'd never think to serve coke or similar to visiting kids as mine don't have it (9, 7 and 2) and I don't have any decaf coffee in the house.

I would happily serve tea though to any child who asked for it but I don't know why I feel differently about it.

Blu · 25/01/2015 08:13

None of the children I mix with drink coffee, though DS ,13, has started to enjoy a weak 'hot milk' coffee and says he bought a 'mocha' from a van at a scout event.

If a 10 year old asked for coffee at my house I would probably ask how his mum or dad makes it, a small spoon of instant in hot milk would have seemed ok alongside the othrrs' hot choc, I wouldn't be giving him a double espresso .y

Welliesandpyjamas · 25/01/2015 08:20

What a bizarre and funny thread! OP I would have done the same.

How many 10 year olds does anyone actually see drinking/buying coffee day to day??

Coffee is most often deliberately and famously consumed for the caffeine hit. Why on earth would anyone give such a drink to a child without their parents' say-so?

We drink strong milky coffee two or three times a day. Our 11yr old has always loved 'stealing' little sips from them, ever since he was a toddler, but we still won't serve him his own, and won't until he is about 15/16, I reckon. And that's because his body reacts more strongly to sugar and caffeine than an adult's does. We as parents feel it is our job to limit that unnatural reaction/behaviour. And we'd never presume to allow someone else's child to find that out for themselves.

Hmm
StillStayingClassySanDiego · 25/01/2015 08:36

Late to the thread.

OP,I wouldn't have given him a coffee without asking his parents first and you were right not to, just because he said he does at home wouldn't have swayed me either.

JugglingFromHereToThere · 25/01/2015 08:40

DS recently decided he liked coffee after DGP offered him some. As it's real coffee it was probably quite strong too. But he is 13 so I don't mind too much. Grandparents Hmm (slightly raised eyebrows there!) DGM also has a freezer full of ice-creams (we don't have a freezer) and a little pot that's always full of sweeties.
But I guess that's a grandparent thing (don't have to deal with consequences)
and they did grow up with sugar rationing so DGM especially has a sweet tooth and as DD says treats sugar as gold dust (eg pinches sachets from cafes for various dubious reasons)

sanfairyanne · 25/01/2015 09:38

its definitely not the new olives (healthy) or hummus (healthy). more the new greggs or fruit shoot.

Degustibusnonestdisputandem · 25/01/2015 09:39

Two of my younger sibs used to drink weak milky coffee from around the age of ten...

Lweji · 25/01/2015 09:46

Next, there will be someone who has just seen someone buy a double expresso and pour it in her/his baby's bottle.

Original poster
ScarlettDarling · 25/01/2015 10:15

Lweji Grin
Well...a late return to my thread and the tide has turned ! After an almost unanimous yabu at the start and me thinking Im the only parent who won't serve coffee to kids, it seems Im not alone after all! However, after finding out just how many parents think it's fine, if this particular child asks again, I Will give him a weak cup of instant. Still think its odd though!

OP posts:
hoobypickypicky · 25/01/2015 12:32

BringMeTea, you do realise that you have a near-perfect user name for this thread, don't you? Grin So your friend should have been reprimanded after she'd learned that the child had parental permission for the coffee. Her job's to serve customers, not to decide how they should parent their children. I might not have shouted at her but I'd have had words with her and spoken to the management.

sanfairyanne, you're very right that coffee is for some people the new Gregs or Fruit Shoot. I said upthread that you only have to mention Gregs for the divide to become apparent.

Andrewofgg · 25/01/2015 12:39

If your friend had been my employee BringMeTea I would have told her never to do anything of the sort again if she liked her job and wanted to keep it. I would have been pissed off - but I hope polite - with anyone in her line of work who questioned my DS's choice of tea or coffee. Not her business.

kobebryant · 25/01/2015 12:58

Oh for the love of God!

Did I really just read that people give their children coffee in the hope of becoming or being accepted by "the middle class"

What a load of bollocks.

I'm about to have a sandwich, but I'm going to cut the crust off in the hopes that the middle class elite accept me.

pourmeanotherglass · 25/01/2015 13:14

Dd1 hates hot chocolate (too sweet) and prefers tea, she has had an occasional up of tea since she was 7 or 8, she's now 12. She also likes peppermint tea. Most of her friends like hot chocolate, I've not come across any coffee drinkers, but I would probably give them a small weak one if they asked, we don't normally have decaf in the house.

hoobypickypicky · 25/01/2015 13:33

"Did I really just read that people give their children coffee in the hope of becoming or being accepted by "the middle class""

I think it's the opposite, kobebryant. A PP said about the poor working classes traditionally giving babies bottles of tea and that's fairly accurate as far as I'm aware. It's the middle and aspiring to be middle class who are prone to reaching for the smelling salts about kids and coffee just like a lot tend to with Fruit Shoots or Gregs sausage rolls.

A lot of the middle class parents I know are very quick and proud to announce that their child/teen only ever asks for purfied, organic, fair trade, filtered through angels wings, ethically sourced water. And that's fine. Their kids, their rules, they merely differ from the rules of the majority of the working class parents I know.

squoosh · 25/01/2015 13:45

I don't think coffee is seen as the new fruit shoot. The fact that some people hold up a crucifix to ward off evil Coca Cola but are happy for their child to drink an altogether more sophisticated coffee make me agree with whoever said that that coffee must be the new hummus.

hoobypickypicky · 25/01/2015 14:02

Yea, I can see where you're coming from Squoosh.

kobebryant · 25/01/2015 14:15

A PP said about the poor working classes traditionally giving babies bottles of tea and that's fairly accurate as far as I'm aware

I know loads of working class people, I've never witnessed anyone giving their babies bottles of tea.

Regardless I'm sick of class bashing on here.

The middle class get it all the time!

You all moan about class segregation and yet you fan the flames of it.

In my every day life no one talks about class. It's never been an issue. In the MN world its considered every 2 seconds.

Theboodythatrocked · 25/01/2015 14:20

Good god you lot should have been kids in the 70s!

Amazing how we survived the tea with 2 sugars, coffee, fizzy drinks, sweets etcetera.

Amazingly most of us were skinny too and never ever was there a child in the class whose bad behaviour was put down to eating too much sugar!

You played up and you got a smack.

Funny how well behaved we were in school those days. Funny how we never dared cheek teachers.

Different world now. Most things better but definatly hysteria over parenting is the most irritating feature.

ilovesooty · 25/01/2015 14:37

I was offered tea from quite a young age. I expect I could have had milky coffee if I'd wanted it but I didn't like it as a child.
As Theboody says I doubt if children were any less healthy then.
I didn't even know there was such angst about occasional tea and coffee until I read threads on here.

hoobypickypicky · 25/01/2015 14:37

@ Theboody - Grin Well summed up.

kobebryant, in keeping with what Theboody said, it may be a generational thing. How old are you? I'd guess quite young because I know several people who served their children tea in bottles and/or were given it themselves and all to a man and to a woman are working class.