To think FFS re sad faced breast feeding mums in the Daily Fail?

[Chihuahualala]

Single-mother, 33, thrown out of West End show for breast feeding

dailym.ai/2bdctPE

Fuck off ... And fuck off some more! Ear defenders or not this WAS NOT the place for your offspring! Aggggh!!!

From the box office website

^Age Restriction:
Recommended Age is 14+ the performance contains some adult themes and strong language^

Only a very selfish person or an idiot or a combination of the 2 would take a baby to it.

I am sure anyone else who can remember punk is welcome to pile in too. But maybe they're all off on their hollyers or watching the Olympics or whatever old punks do with their time when they're 50something, and so I am happy to fill in my impressions of punk to those who clearly don't really understand what it was all about. To those who are still confused about why I mention what punk is all about, I'm pointing out that this incident is dripping with irony.

I am not posting a comparison between highbrow and lowbrow. Nor am I being a snob about punk. That is a peculiarly British take on things. (And I never sang God Save the Queen at a punk gig when I was younger as that would have got me stabbed, in Dublin.) This show was basically 'uninterrupted chaos' according to the review I posted and I really don't see how a crying baby would have detracted from the experience. There is nothing wrong with spending an evening experiencing uninterrupted chaos. As I say, I lived through punk.

I am interested in how this baby went from crying to 'screaming' in people's heads. I really think there are people here who are quite intolerant of babies.

Regardless of what DM articles seek to do to bash the idea of public breastfeeding and divide breastfeeding women into 'sensible' and rabid 'lactivist' camps and to encourage hostility against women who want to exercise their right to public breastfeeding by highlighting individual cases where this is taken to what they wish to suggest is an extreme level, the fact remains that women have the right to breastfeed in public.

If the idea of EBF with the implication of spending most of your time with your baby is offputting then it is society in general that is at fault for bombarding women with the idea that this is a weird and abnormal thing to choose and that it results in a net loss for the woman. This suggestion is very much in evidence on this thread, with people posting about getting away from their babies (their 'screaming' babies no less).

It would be interesting to log comments of theatre goers when they leave a production, with particular focus on how much their fellow audience members annoyed them on a scale of 1-10, what exactly they did to annoy them, and what age bracket the annoying people fell into. I've personally been to plays where people kicked the back of my seat, chewed gum with mouths open, chatted together, rustled sweet wrappers, crunched sweets loudly, farted with wild abandon, fell asleep and snored loudly, etc. People tend not to be so quick to run off to the house manager to complain about annoying adults, in my experience, but they tend to feel free to complain about babies and small children.

The driving while breastfeeding analogy doesn't work because that would be dangerous, while a baby crying in a church or a theatre, etc. isn't.

Nobody said the baby crying was dangerous, I think. Just annoying & spoiling other people's night.

The breast feeding is completely irrelevant.

I bf all three of my dc. I was out, at a goth gig as it happens, a week after giving birth to one of them. Left EBM with doting grandma. Leaked all down my top. Left gig early...it was a mate's band & I'd said I'd look in to catch their set. Hadn't occurred to me to drag dd1 along because, duh, noisy music venue. She's not that keen on gigs 10 years later, to be fair...

You really can't rely on lugging a baby everywhere you might want to go because sometimes they are noisy & annoying, & sometimes it's not a nice environment for a baby.

What you are feeding said baby on is not the point. How would this be a different story if this parent had been feeding formula? Baby still noisy, disrupting others' expensive night out & probably having a crap time itself.

I am interested in how this baby went from crying to 'screaming' in people's heads. I really think there are people here who are quite intolerant of babies

The reports of screaming were from other audience members who were there in the theatre - unlike you.

I've personally been to plays where people kicked the back of my seat, chewed gum with mouths open, chatted together, rustled sweet wrappers, crunched sweets loudly, farted with wild abandon, fell asleep and snored loudly, etc

Really? In many years of regular theatre attendance in London I've never experienced this. The thing about the London West end theatres is that most of them are surprisingly small venues- bad behaviour would be very noticeable and very disruptive for a significant portion of the audience.

This is a stupid, selfish woman who thinks she's on to make some money out of her ridiculous complaint.

You just keep banging on about the right to breastfeed in public as if that trumps every one else's right now matter that this right is being exercised in a place where children would never otherwise be.

There was a thread a while back from another silly, self-obsessed, compensation demanding attention seeker frothing about being denied the right to breast feed at Chelsea Flower show ; apparently the age restricion of no children under 5 didn't apply to hers.

Not really seeing the problem here. The child had ear defenders so no problem there. I didn't read that the child was creating a disturbance, so unless I missed something, no problem there either. Mum was breastfeeding, well obviously no problem there, the law backs her up on that one. So yeah, thats a load of shite really. Whether people agree or not that a child should have been there is totally irrelevant if the child wasn't disturbing anyone else.

The show, I've seen it several times, is actually an opera. Minimal dialogue, lots of music/movement and story telling through those the songs My experience was ruined by adults shouting and singing at the tops of their voices whilst I was trying to watch. A screaming baby would have had the same effect. It doesn't matter what the content of the show was, it really doesn't. It is a theatre production. There is an etiquette that should be followed whether you are watching Shakespeare or a school production. It isn't the place to take a 10 month old who isn't likely to sleep peacefully through it. I teach Drama. I take kids to the theatre a lot. They have etiquette drilled into them out of respect for other patrons. Why this woman thought she could ignore that is beyond me. Why you are so obsessed with how 'punk' a baby in the theatre is has me completely befuddled. You completely miss the point.

Well I can't hear the video as the sound on my phone doesn't work, but no where in the write up does it say the child was crying or screaming??

DancingDinosaur - the problem was that the child was distressed & noisy. Absolutely it was creating a disturbance - that's the point.

The parent was asked to leave because her upset baby was disrupting the performance.

Nobody, at any point, had a beef with the breastfeeding, which this mum is trying to pick a fight over.

Baby could just as well have been being reared exclusively on unicorn toenails. Still yelling head off (because it's a baby & they do that).

So parent & baby quite rightly turfed out of theatre & should never have been allowed in by staff in the first place.

The theatre released a statement which someone posted up thread. The baby was crying. Three separate people complained, as you would if you has spent all of that money on tickets.

I didn't read that the child was creating a disturbance, so unless I missed something, no problem there either

Yes you did. The theatre had 3 complaints about disturbance. I can't now find it but I'm sure I saw one site with a comment from the theatre that referred to screaming.

I take it you weren't there either, Lass?
You weren't there either when I experienced all the disturbance I mentioned in about 30 years of theatre-going, so you and I are going to have to agree to disagree about incidents that I have first hand knowledge of.

Sometimes people remember the story they have made up in their heads and not what was actually stated or what actually happened. When it comes to babies and mothers breastfeeding in public it is most definitely the case that people are willing to assume the absolute worst, in order to back up their misogyny.

You start out with 'This is a stupid, selfish woman who thinks she's on to make some money out of her ridiculous complaint,' and then you make up the facts you need to back that up.

I've done a lot of googling to see what the Arts Theatre's take on all of this is but I came up empty handed.

The word used in the DM article was 'distracting'. Not 'disturbance'.

I posted the arts theatre statement earlier in the thread, which stated 3 other customers complained and the account of the disturbance was 'corroborated'.

The lady concerned is on Facebook saying she intends to sue and is taking recommendations for solicitors.

The statement is from the creative director and is on their Facebook page here:

m.facebook.com/Samialucas/activity/10154359448733454

The alleged statement is obviously completely at odds with what the woman stated. It would be nice to have a source.

I've seen a clip of the show on the Arts Theatre FB page. I would be very surprised if anyone could have heard a baby crying over the din. NeonPinkNails confirms upthread that the show is loud. While it apparently has its quieter moments, the mother, her sister and her baby were given the boot within ten minutes of sitting down. (And the baby had ear defenders).

To those complaining that 'people' paid good money to see this show, presumably the mother and her sister bought tickets too and paid the same as everyone else.

Yes the mother paid good money and had the experience ruined by their own baby. Bonkers.

I don't want to be distracted at the theatre surprisingly.

What do you mean a 'source'. It's the theatre's creative director? The executive director of the theatre also comments further down.

If you mean, as the mother is apparently demanding, that the names of the people who complained are released, then your bonkers. That would be wrong and also illegal.

One half of the creative directing team (Hook and Hartshorn) said one thing:

'On this occasion we received three complaints about a screaming child during a production and took the decision to ask the patron to leave to calm the child. The patron was advised in advance that the production was not suitable for infants and agreed to sit on the end of a row near the door in case it was necessary to leave.
The front of house staff have confirmed that they were unaware of any breastfeeding, and as the audience complaints state that the child was screaming this appears to be corroborated...'
[BBHook]

...but the other side said this:
'Dear Ms Lucas,
I'm Louis, the Executive Director of the Arts. I'd like to meet you to discuss this occurance [sic] and learn more about what happened. Our policy is extremely supportive of breastfeeding so I'd like to know what went wrong on this occasion.

I would really appreciate it if you could get in touch with me. You can email [email protected] or call our main reception and they will put you through.'
[Louis Hartshorn]

So one apparently shot his mouth off and his partner is not quite so sure what happened. Apparently BB Hook has neglected to tell Hartshorn what he allegedly learned from the front of house manager.

It looks as if they are not singing from the same sheet. The 'facts' provided in the Hook statement are hearsay/second hand.

(It also appears from one comment that tickets cost £50 a pop, which is interesting in light of all the suggestions that this show cost an arm and a leg, making the woman's decision to being her baby even more or a selfish one.)

It also appears that people are pretty vicious when it comes to mothers breastfeeding in public, and really seem to hate babies, breastfeeding, and mothers who breastfeed. I was expecting it but I really was gobsmacked at the hatred.

£50 is an arm and a leg to some people math. The theatre is a treat.

If the baby was bottle fed the disturbance woukd have been identical.

I've personally been to plays where people kicked the back of my seat, chewed gum with mouths open, chatted together, rustled sweet wrappers, crunched sweets loudly, farted with wild abandon, fell asleep and snored loudly, etc

Reminiscing about one of your beloved punk gigs again?

the baby was bottle fed the disturbance woukd have been identical.

This is the kicker and absolutely true = no discrimination for breastfeeding.

It also appears that people are pretty vicious when it comes to mothers breastfeeding in public, and really seem to hate babies, breastfeeding, and mothers who breastfeed. I was expecting it but I really was gobsmacked at the hatred.

It's weird how you're outnumbered on this thread when most threads about breastfeeding in public have a huge amount of support on this site, myself included. It's almost as if IT'S NOT ABOUT BREASTFEEDING.

Trying to explain common sense to math is like trying to teach the cast of Geordie Shore nuclear physics.

IT'S NOT ABOUT BREASTFEEDING FOR FUCK'S FUCKING SAKE!!! Woman takes baby to unsuitable environment. Baby screams. People complain about the distraction. Woman is asked to leave. All perfectly reasonable. Stop trying to make it about breastfeeding, for the love of God!!!!

(It also appears from one comment that tickets cost £50 a pop, which is interesting in light of all the suggestions that this show cost an arm and a leg, making the woman's decision to being her baby even more or a selfish one.)

What a snob you are. I go to Royal Ballet at Covent Garden fairly regularly and pay considerably more than £50 but £50 is a lot of money for theatre tickets for anyone. Although the cost is actually irrelevant to the issue here. Babies should not be in theatres. The box office staff should not have been kind enough to let her in in the first place and she was a chancer turning up with her baby. Bet she hadn't bought a ticket for it.