Mother's have it tough

[Zenab1]

Hello mothers, so I had an incident which left me humiliated and angry today. I went to Chatham House, a policy institution in central london to attend a talk that was happening there. When I get to the conference hall, I was told that I was not allowed to get in with my buggy in which my baby girl was peaceful sleeping. Their main excuse was, it's gonna block the way in case people need to evacuate for emergency. I said but this information is not communicated anywhere on your website and I even called to double check and the person I spoke to said you are mother friendly. Anyway, they insisted that I leave the building because they won't let me in. I got so emotional and told them that was unfair as I came from a long way and the whole thing seemed to me some kind of discrimination. They escorted me out and told me that I should complain if I like to by sending an email. I felt so humiliated and degraded. Do you think this was right ladies, it happening in this day and age and in one of the worlds developed countries, that a mum should be mistreated like this for simple being mum?

Someone coughing persistently at either talk at CH or talk at TH would surely leave the room if they were a disturbance.
Likewise someone with a crying baby or noisy child.
But you don't ban them in the first place!
That's what is unacceptable.

wheelchairs are harder to accommodate than buggies
But some people need wheelchairs. The baby doesn't need a buggy.

I'm not surprised they don't allow buggies, I would take a sling for that kind of event.

In any case, my point was that this thread doesn't give mumsnet a bad name

Ridiculing someone for the phrases they use or the grammer or spelling is shitty.

There are always people who do that, so using that thought process, the majority of threads give mumsnet a bad name. May as well shut us down.

wheelchairs are harder to accommodate than buggies

Oh ffs. Wheelchairs and buggies are categorically different things. Having a baby does not make you disabled.

I think people are being pretty bitchy but sadly that's all you get on the aibu board.

I don't think it's the place to take a baby to be honest but if they had told you it was ok in advance then fair enough. I think the issue was there was nowhere for them to store the buggy for you and also they were perhaps concerned that they would be liable for loss or damage. Next time try a sling. Personally I wouldn't take my 6mo ds to a 'serious' thing like that in case he became bored or upset....

unlimiteddilutingjuice - I too had a child who was exclusively breastfed and refused the bottle with expressed milk. Even without that I simply knew that for some time I would have to give up on some things and hobbies I'd enjoy. A full lecture hall in the middle of London isn't my idea of how to spend my time with a baby. Nobody wants the discomfort of having an interesting lecture interrupted by a crying baby so unless you have to attend because your education/future career depends on it and you seriously simply can't get a sitter, find other venues which both of you can enjoy.
There are places where you simply don't want to stumble over prams and be interrupted by crying babies.

Mother friendly and baby friendly ar not the same thing. For mother friendly I would expect an area where I could express milk if breastfeeding and possibly somewhere refrigerated to store it baby friendly I would be looking for baby change facilities, I would hope that the pram would be accommodated but would be prepared for just somewhere to store it. I get the feeling that the op just wasn't prepared to take the baby out of the buggy which is a different scenario entirely. Even my local surestart won't allow buggies in the building you have to store them in the entrance but babies are more than welcome.

"A full lecture hall in the middle of London isn't my idea of how to spend my time with a baby."

Well everyone is different but both mine were fine in that environment. Looking at the lights, watching peoples faces...theres more than enough to keep them amused.
If they start fussing, you take them out. It doesn't have to be an inconvienience to anyone else.
Once they start crawling and/or walking then, OK I get your point- its off to the purgatory of soft play. But with a tiny portable baby, I dont see why OP should miss out.

Wow, I haven't been so depressed by responses on a thread for a long time. OP, I totally get what you're saying.

It wouldn't kill our society to be a bit more baby (and by extension mother and female friendly). Why on earth should you be isolated from more grown up, intellectually engaging activities because you have a baby to look after? Childcare isn't always available to mothers. And let's face it, the vast majority of care still falls to mothers.

But no, no. Let's keep the hallowed halls of serious pursuits free from babies and their mothers - while we here on mumsnet argue about the semantics of whether your baby 'needs' a pram .

Meantime OP, society would prefer if you spent your time at a mother and toddler group - you know, not bothering the important people.

You phoned, they said OK. YANBU and they are horrible.

I get quite a lot of Chatham House lecture notices but have never attended one. Some of the topics do look quite interesting.

Do you think this was right ladies, it happening in this day and age and in one of the worlds developed countries, that a mum should be mistreated like this for simple being mum?

You weren't 'mistreated' for being a mum! You were told that the buggy would intravene H&S policy. If you offered to hold baby, fold buggy and leave it in a corner in the event of evacuation, then maybe you could cry discrimination. But that's not the case.

Oh give over LaurieMarlow. That's not what has been said at all, talk about cherry picking certain comments and daft nonsense! 'Not bothering the important people' - this just made me laugh.

Op I am with you completely. Loads of people complain about maternity leave being long, dull, lonely and isolating. Why shouldn't you be able to participate in public life.

As for being mother friendly, maybe we should talk about that a bit more? Lots of posters seem to think we live in a utopia where all fathers are absolutely equal in everyway to mothers, conveniently forgetting that it is mostly mothers who take maternity leave and only mothers who breastfeed. I couldn't be without my DS for more that an 1hr when he was tiny because he was a bottle refusing breastfed baby and I couldn't express very well. My DH is a brilliant dad but there have certainly been more times where I need things to be more accessible than he has.

The UK today is run by mainly men, more MP's, AM, MSP's. More men sit on boards, more men in the FTSE 100. Women make up the low paid, part time economy, often because they are trying to fit everything in and juggle. It would be great if things were a little more accessible to mothers as we spend a large portion of our lives as mothers.

((appludes LovelyBranches))

YY LovelyBranches

And LaurieMarlow too.

It's certainly what it felt like to me paul. There were many moments in my maternity leave where I longed to do something grown-up and stimulating. But there wasn't much outlet for that.

So off to the library for the umpteenth time to spend way more mental energy than is really warranted dissecting 'foxes socks'.

Don't get me wrong though, I was bloody grateful for the library as somewhere to go. And baby cinema was an absolute godsend.

It would be great if things were a little more accessible to mothers as we spend a large portion of our lives as mothers.

Yes - but there is only a very little time, even if we have an exclusively breastfed bottle-refusing baby on our hands. That's 6 months of your life max. Afterwards it's solids and the child will normally get used to a bottle or a sippy cup without any problems.
Being a mother is a part of my life but it doesn't define me. I'm also an adult craving adult company and interest in adult matters. A lecture is an adult matter for me so I wouldn't be dragging my baby to it. There are times in our lives when we simply have to give up on things we used to do before or will get a chance to do later on. Having a tiny baby on our hands is one of those occasions. If I can't leave it with anybody else, I'll just cope with that but don't make others adjust.
I remember being on maternity leave and while there were times I craved adult company I also knew that my primary task is my baby. Looking back it was worth it and while I'm enjoying my professional life now and have never had the desire to be a stay at home parent, I took that time to lay foundations for my baby's future life and development.
If we complain that our society is still run by men, we shouldn't define ourselves through our ability to breed but our brains and capabilities. Men run the society because they know that you can't be in a public office/politics/business role when your primary definition of yourself is Mum/Dad. That's for private life. When I'm at work, I'm not a Mum, I'm there in my professional capabilities. When I attend a lecture for adults, I'm there as an adult with interest in the topic discussed and I want to dedicate my full attention to it, without having a baby as my primary subject of care and attention.

If you don't have or can't afford childcare you can't go out for years...

A lecture may be adult matter. A mother is an adult.

OP did not ask them to adjust. She phoned up to check. They said OK.

Why shouldn't you be able to participate in public life.

Who said she should participate in public lifeZ

The pushchair wasn't allowed. It wasn't 'no....no mothers in here'

Your mistake was to mention going to a Talk at Chatham House, the inverse snobbery of MN would have allowed a discussion on benefits at the local town hall, in that case they would have been behind you all the way.

I have no clue what Chatham house is. So that's not the case

LaurieMarlow
It wouldn't kill our society to be a bit more baby (and by extension mother and female friendly)

Came here to say this. I wish this kind of event was more inclusive.
Would it really be so impossible to put more stuff like this online so anyone could access it?

YABU. Get a grip. And maybe Google what actually constitutes as humiliating and degrading to women.