AIBU to wonder where all the badly behaved children were?

[cariadlet]

I went out with dd and decided to treat us to lunch at a café. The one I chose is fairly big, known to be family friendly and all but 2 or 3 of the tables had families including children. There were a mixture of babies, toddlers and older children.

At one point I looked around and realised that every single child was sitting down (either on a normal chair, in a high chair or in a buggy). Moreover, every child was quiet. They were either eating (very nicely), chatting to the others on their table or doing something like playing with the toys or sticker books that their parents had had the foresight to bring with them.

Not one child was shouting or screaming (I wouldn't count a couple of minutes of crying from one of the babies), throwing food or running around the café.

That's not what I'd been lead to expect from some of the MN threads. Was I incredibly lucky or had I wandered into some strange parallel universe?

They were all at soft play...

They're all the children of WOHPs so are locked up in daycare

Or the Single Parents are too poor to visit a restaurant

Or the spoilt MC children are all in the South of France

Mine are on holiday.

Haha, sticker books, that the parents had had the foresight to bring with them!

Running up and down the tiled concourse at my local gym, shrieking and screaming and cannoning into people carrying hot drinks.

Mine are in holiday club burning off all their excess energy

Spoilt mc kids are stuck in Calais? Seriously tho I love Aug in my home town all 'those' families seem to be away

Were you in Madame Tussauds?

Max
Or the single parents are too poor to visit a restaurant

Apologies if I've got the wrong end of the stick but you seem to be suggesting that the kids of single parents would be 'unruly' when in a place like this.
And that single parents are too poor to.take their kids to a restaurant?

Well, I've been a single parent (who worked to provide for my kids) and we've always visited restaurants etc and they have always behaved extremely well.

In other words please don't catetgorize single parents!

disco why pick put one sentence of what is obviously a joke?

I'm MC and a wohp - I can still laugh at the joke. ffs.

Seriously though if I stuck my head in there id take my noisy baby and toddler else where.

Oh dear, everyone else got it Disco. I listed a number of conflicting MN stereotypes

The cafe are obviously spiking the water/fruit shoot supply with downers.

not here...

They were all with me

Dd's bickering
ds sat on a felt tip pen with the lid off getting pen on the sofa, whilst playing the ipad, drinking a drink not from the cafe, and getting biscuit (again not from the cafe) crumbs everywhere
our big wet buggy getting in the way wherever I put it....

me sobbing gently into my cappuccino having given up the will.

(hugs hazey)
'tis ok darling, some of mine are running around naked

ha, at least they all managed to keep their clothes on - a triumph!!

Well my very active 3 year old wasn't there. We struggle to control him. He can unstrap high chairs then stands up singing and shouting. Sticker books get torn up. Crayons get destroyed and chucked about. Food gets spat out if judged of an unsatisfactory standard. If we're really lucky cutlery goes flying through the air aimed at other unsuspecting diners. He sings songs loudly and if he possibly can jumps about to create a thumping accompaniment. Meanwhile me, DP and DD struggled to control him and hold him down, keep the cutlery from him and ensure he didn't get hold of any glass)

And that's on a good day :)

(actually he's pretty good on the whole but I still shudder when I think of the resturant visit described above. After the starter we had the rest of the order packed into takeaway boxes and took it all home where needless to say he behaved like a little angel.)

They'd never made it to the cafe as they refused to get dressed

Yes minipie!
They were on holiday with me
If you have any kind of machine that has buttons on, it's not working now, and it was my DS!

Actually I'm wondering if the Calm Cafe phenomenon is somewhat contagious, even through the Internet - my children are unusually calm today

oh fuck, they are not all coming down with something are they?

Mine is too difficult to manage on my own. You will find us in a park at 9am with my flask of caffeine.

Thing is running round type behaviour is contagious. Probably if there had been one starting to run around and be noisy others would join them and you could have started a thread about these badly behaved children.