To think coming down for breakfast in a hotel in your PJs is really bad manners

[Nurserywindow]

We were away at the weekend in a hotel with a couple of friends whose teenage daughters insisted on coming down to breakfast each morning in skimpy pyjamas. We were embarrassed and could see hotel guests looking a bit askance. However, their parents didn't say anything so there was nothing we could do.
They also lounged around the general reception area for about an hour afterwards using their ipads, before going upstairs to get dressed.

AIBU to think this was rude and they should have been told firmly to get dressed before coming downstairs?

Thats my preferred order of events Still apart from the gravel.

I really can't believe how outraged everyone is! How do you know that these girls definitely slept in these pyjamas and they're not just loungewear to wear to breakfast so they're covered up?

I travel a lot for work and bring 3 outfits with me:

1. Shorts and a sports bra to sleep in
2. Suit to wear to meetings
3. A pair of trackie bottoms and vest top / long sleeved casual top

I wear 3. in the evening to relax in and chuck it on again in the morning to go to breakfast. I don't want to get dressed and then go and sit in the dining room which always smells of frying, letting that smell get on me / possibly drop baked beans down me.

I can see how they'd look like pyjamas but I had no idea that anyone would judge or give a shit!

Last time we stayed in a hotel and we couldn't get the lazy dcs to get ready for breakfast we went without them !

Out of choice i wouldnt do it but the morning after my wedding my clothes were locked in someones room who had gone for breakfast so I had to. Luckily I had a pair of pj bottoms and a vest top (not some skimpy wedding night arrangement!)

PJ's, acceptable.

skimpy PJ's not acceptable.

Keep in mind then that also walking around everywhere only wearing a bikini would also not be acceptable.

QueenBean - the OP States that they were "skimpy" pyjamas.

So it would seem that it wasn't "loungewear" - mind you I have no idea what constitutes "loungewear"...

Is that tracksuit trousers and stuff?

Surely tracksuit trousers are distinguishable from pyjama bottoms?

And pyjama tops are usually easy to distinguish from a t-shirt? Well mine are anyway!

She then clarified that "skimpy" meant "skimpy material", not short shorts.

If everyone is up in arms because people may have slept in these clothes, then what is wrong if they've changed clothes to clean ones - even if they look a bit like pyjamas?

There are many on here who think it's perfectly acceptable for teenagers to come down for breakfast I their nightwear. So if it's good for them it's good for anyone I presume. Would they feel the same as having some sweaty 20 stone hairy bloke rocking up dressed in skimpy underpants and vest.

I think the reason this is raising hackles is that - as with so much on Mn! - wearing pyjamas in a public place is partly perceived as a social class marker.

Though I think it's also cultural and generational. Long before you ever saw people outdoors in pyjamas in the UK (and I have to say that I personally have seen this with my own eyes just once, and that was in Ireland), I taught briefly at a major US university (late 90s, I think), and was a bit taken aback on female students attending morning lectures in pyjamas, having clearly just literally rolled out of bed and stuck their feet into flip flops. (Although a lot of the time 'pyjamas' meant short athletics-style shorts with side vents and a tee shirt or vest.)

When US students came on JYA schemes to my home university, they sometimes did this initially at the start of their first term, but soon stopped because it caused so much comment/laughter among the home students, who were always fully dressed for 9am lectures. (Also because it was cold and wet.)

From talking to the U.S. women students, they regarded being fully dressed, especially wearing actual boots/shoes rather than flipflops, and being made up and having your hair styled 'just to go to class!' as weirdly 'formal'.

But to go back to the original question, I think that, apart from spas, where the clothes dynamic is different, 5 star hotels wouldn't allow guests to breakfast in night clothes because their ethos is more formal. I stay at the St Pancras in London reasonably often, and the only time I saw a couple coming into the Chambers Club at breakfast in the hotel robes, they were intercepted by a staff member at the door. Don't know what nationality.

Seems reasonable to me needsasockamnesty. One of the places where I work is freezing. This month it's been terrible. It's lovely and warm outside but you step in the office and start shivering.

I can't wear a onesie - well I suppose I could, no one would object because it's bloody freezing. Everybody wraps up. It's just I have nice clothes and like to wear them. So I wear fluffy socks and a big cardigan at the desk and then take them off to go outside at lunchtime to warm up.

I have friends who did this, in their mid-20s. Mystified me. They once went down to the corner shop in their PJs to get breakfast stuff. I'm aware this is not a big deal, but I'd be mortified to walk down a busy street in my nightwear. Personally, I think you should stick some day clothes on for public appearances.

The reason it raises my hackles is that people seem to 'pick and choose' which conventions they will comply with. I don't care what people do at home but, if they're in a public place where I am, I expect conventions to be followed because it demonstrates social norms.

For those who are working hard to think up new and meaningless 'what ifs', how about this one... we don't attend funerals in nightwear. That is a social norm and is respectful... if we keep pushing it and allowing others to keep pushing their own wants regardless of others, then perhaps we can expect this in future, I mean, comfort is everything, right? People's rights to do what they like is important, yes?

I do get a bit fed up of the 'too try hard' crew. Those who are so accepting of what others do might find themselves swallowing their words if actually confronted by people who really don't give a stuff.

Do what you like at home, be as permissive as you like at home. Don't inflict yourself on others in a public space. That's it really, that's the crux of all the annoyances.

I think my eyes are more offended by people wearing swimwear without a cover up in restaurants on holiday than the idea of teenagers in PJs at breakfast.

I would think they looked like inmates in a long term institution but they wouldn't bother me for long as long as their behaviour was otherwise good.

The last time I wore PJs in a public dining area was when I was in hospital and popped down to the canteen with visitors. Under the circumstances I thought it would be okay to let my sartorial standards slip.

Lying - spot on. Absolutely.

Wearing pjs in public is just silly. Teenagers can usually get away with silly.

limited... as an admitted patient it's acceptable, isn't it? I think you know that, you're just making.a.point.

Or would you include people who go to the hospital, to visit somebody, and they themselves dress in pyjamas and slippers?

Your first scenario is clearly acceptable and on par with the silly AIBUs we get like, "Am I AIBU to have a coffee before I do some housework?". The visitor scenario I gave is hideous and really quite likely.

Back... only if they have ineffective and themselves attention-seeking 'parents'. I just can't believe that they don't catch sight of themselves in mirrors as they're sallying out out of the door/window/cat-flap/whatever. It's just disrespect for others and attention-seeking, in equal measure.

Needasockamnesty - I used to work in a building where it was felt necessary to have a sign on the wall instructing staff not to walk around barefoot.

waterrat - Believe it or not, but twice now I have been forced to book a hotel because there weren't any airbnb rentals available near to the place I was visiting.

Also, when I feel like I am not penniless, I do like to spend money on a posh place to stay.

I expect conventions to be followed because it demonstrates social norms. Hmmm.... It's a good job we've not all this rigid,attitude to life otherwise we'd still be doffing our caps to the local squire whilst working as serfs in his fields....as God forbid we should ever challenge conventions! Why should conventions be followed for their own sakes just to keep you in your comfortable world where everyone abides by a set social norms? It's very intolerant in my view.... It reminds me of Lady Grantham in Downton fulminating at so-and-so for not wearing 'white tie' dinner.

Social conventions (as long as they aren't ridiculously extreme - like wearing a white tie at a dinner) help us to navigate through life though?

It's knowing where to draw the line between what's good manners and what's not - if someone does something that makes someone else feel uncomfortable then the are guilty of bad manners. Like, for example, asking very nosey questions about your personal life.

Or wearing your PJs out in public...

But who should decide where the line is Salmon?

I think it should be me

I do get a bit fed up of the 'too try hard' crew.

Perhaps, but the 'my (conventional) way or the highway' crew that you appear to be a part of are worse. As a rule, we should be tolerant of others differences of view/behaviour etc. It's not a blanket position and needs to be nuanced to reflect the example of funerals you gave, but you appear to be selecting an extreme example such as that to justify railing against any behaviour that doesn't fit in with convention or social norms, even something as innocent as teenagers wearing comfy clothes normally associated with sleepwear to breakfast. How do you react if I wore a sari for instance? They're comfortable clothes, that are unconventional for those not from the Indian sub-continent (and I'm not from that demographic). Would it similarly get you agitated that they weren't dressing accordingly to 'convention'.

(as long as they aren't ridiculously extreme - like wearing a white tie at a dinner)

Not extreme at all for 1920's upper classes! Why was that any more extreme at the time than a modern convention?

Someone wearing a Sari isn't wearing sleepwear though are they?

It's the wearing of sleepwear in public that's inappropriate.

ok white tie was a bad example - all I mean is that social conventions nowadays are about appropriateness more than stuffy etiquette from a bygone era.

But whatever the era - wearing PJs in public is inappropriate and frankly sloppy.

IMHO