DH being U about baby in restaurant?

[StripedSwad]

We are on holiday with 3 month BF baby. There's a fancy restaurant on site which we are booked in to

we have his mother with us, who will babysit, but she would need to bring baby down to us if he needs to be fed. Restaurant has said no to this as is adults only.

DH thinks this is terrible and wants to complain as baby will only be down a short while and purely for feeding, whereas I think it's just one of those things you accept with a baby and we will just have to eat elsewhere. So who is right?

Actually I think promoting the idea mothers should act like Mary Poppins 24/7 and never talk about serious global or social issues because it's somehow unseemly for a woman to have a brain is a lot more problematic.

Of course it is problematic. The situation where they can't go to 'adult only' restaurants where they could chat with their husband or their friends about all of that unless they leave their baby behind contributes to the notion that women can only engage their brains when they are nowhere near their babies. It contributes to the false dichotomy expressed so clearly on this thread between mother on the one hand and 'human' and 'adult' on the other.

Things don't happen in isolation, indeed, SleightofMind.
I agree 100% with this:
It's not about our little precious darlings being adored by everyone; it's about enabling women to span the bridge between motherhood and being seen as an autonomous adult.

I would say 'empowering women' though, instead of enabling.
To make them choose between baby and night out is to disempower them.

Littleprincesssara -
In previous centuries women were discouraged from any form of intellectual activity, even reading, because 'scientists' believed it would redirect "uterine energy" towards the brain and anger the uterus, causing infertility and hysteria. You'd hope we'd have moved on since then.

You would indeed hope, wouldn't you?
And then you run into a thread like this where women themselves call other women who think they can have a night out and also breastfeed their baby, and talk about politics or global warming or whatever, all at the same time, 'entitled' or 'selfish' and other ugly words of the oppressed class made uncomfortable by the challenge of women who are not prepared to sit quietly at home and behave themselves. Clearly the presence of babies and their nourishment in the way nature intended is a real drag. Women who are neither 'human' nor 'adult' owe it to other women to stay home and let those who are 'human' and 'adult' enjoy their much needed break.

Society is still very much defining women by our reproductive status, isn't it? Aren't we? We are society after all.

Of course being women, the definition turns around and bites us. We are acceptable in 'human' and 'adult' company when we give no hint of having recently manufactured and brought into the world and nourished another human.

And we do this to each other. We collude in the misogyny.

No colliding here. I chose to have serious adult conversations while with my babies, sometimes while
Bf them, and yeap, sometimes without them, because I didn't
Need to be physically attached to them 24/7 to live a full human adult
Woman life.

Do keep going though- this is quite funny

Glad I amuse you, but it really is sad to see how many have drunk the Kool Aid here.

By Kool Aid, I mean prioritising solutions to the work/life conundrum that involve the model built around couples and the fantasy that the woman is unencumbered by any concerns apart from the relationship with the man.

In this model women are the ones challenged to find ways of working around the status quo and are called names if we question it, by other women no less. Women have to adapt, feed the baby in the lobby or the loo, have an obliging assistant upstairs in your hotel room, or get a babysitter. The male oriented structure of leisure and the workplace must be left standing.

*To make them choose between baby and night out is to disempower them.
*

What? If most restaurants banned children that would make sense but they don't, its the opposite.

Math are you reading the same thread as I am?

The majority of posters are not saying ahe shouldnt go out but saying her dh is unreasonable to wamt to go an over 18s venue with a newborn.

Personally as someone who is still ebf an almost 6 month old the adult only fine dining sounds amazing although not if it meant I had to go on holiday with my mil to me!
Eating one handed luke warm food whilst feedong a baby is not a particularly enjoyable experience imho!!!

Persevere with the bottle op, express and get yourself some baby free time if you so wish!

I work with children 11 hours a day, 5 days a week. I have my 6 year DD who DH and I (obviously) spend the majority of our leisure time with. We eat out regularly and for the record I breastfed for 3 years, only stopping when DD felt it was the right time. I volunteer as a breastfeeding supporter and help women establish and continue feeding as long as they want to.

Now, bearing in mind 95% of my time is child focused you are damned right that the 4 evenings a year we don't have DD with us I don't want to be around other children. I don't care how well behaved they are a restaurant at 10pm is no place for a little person. I have been asked not to swear or discuss certain topics in case their little one gets upset.

Honestly math, you sound like one of those insufferable gits who thinks it's adorable that little phlebotomy is showing off her dancing and singing for everyone in the restaurant or little Noah wants to have just a little taste of someone's scallops and what a meanie for getting cross.

Hmm.

I am in support of the principle of child-free restaurants , but not sure of that principle .

If someone works with old people day in day out, would that make it OK to bar elderly folk?

If reasonable adults behaved well with children in restaurants ( only took them if they no joyed sitting down, eating food and conversing quietly ) these bans wouldn't be necessary . I didn't take DS out to eat between the ages of 6m and 6 because he was so unwilling to sit and eat beyond the 4 mouthfuls it took for him not to feel full. But as a bf baby before that he would snooze silently in his portable car seat, no problem.

I would be surprised if the glimpse of a mum feeding a 3 month old quietly in a corner table would ruin anyone's night . It wouldn't mlne, I would be glad for her.

But sadly the people who would say 'oh, then I can bring my shrieking 2 year old? My racing toddler , my 15 month old who chucks food everywhere, and my 8 year old with his loud beeping toy' are the ones who make this impossible.

Another one here who bf long term and adored being with my babies. However, even from when they were quite small I chose on occasions to book a babysitter and have an
Evening somewhere adult-only. On
these occasions, I would have found it an encumbrance to feel obliged to bring my child along. So quite the opposite of what math is banging on
about. No feelings of being a
Second class citizen, or bending to some patriarchal structure... my CHOICE.

Must be very limiting to not be able to embrace the fact that women don't all feel exactly the same way and want the same things

Well, if there's no adult only restaurants or venues anywhere, what you're saying to mothers is you can NEVER ESCAPE being around kids...yours or other peoples! Your entire world will revolve around them.

Math You see when I asked if my choices were less valid because I was child free and you answered that you didn't care if I had procreated or not, what you actually meant to answer was 'yes'.

Because that's what you said.

You think that the tiny amount of restaurants open to adults only should not exist. You took away my choice.

You said that I should not be able to DISCRETELY ask to sit at a different table than at a one near children. You took away my choice.

You would like to take away the choice of
every other woman on here because you think that they should be attached to their child 24 hours a day. You want to set women's rights back 50 years because you want to be seen by everyone else restaurant as the 'best mother EVER'.

I bet you were a delight at mother and baby groups.

I'm still at the suggestion that having discussions about sociopolitical issues is "crass, crude and coarse" and comparable to getting drunk and swearing.

Single fathers and gay male couples raising babies are not being included in the debate. And dads in general. It's not just women who raise babies.

Hear hear restlesstraveller

For all her/his supposed concern for women's status in society, math is failing to realise that s/he is actually denying us women the right to choice. Nope, not gonna collude with your misogyny math... I enjoyed cuddling and bf my beloved babies, and also enjoyed booking a babysitter and being in adult only company. My choice .

Youre right. Would you be able to do a nice lunch or early evening dinner to try and get it in before the evening cluster feeds? Just so you can relax and enjoy it more

No math doesn't care about all women restless if you don't have kids you and your opinions don't matter
If you have kids and want an evening away from them then there's something wrong with your kids
Why did you bold me anyway math? Why would i care how much someone paid for their lunch am i supposed to be shocked/appalled? ( because i'm not, people can buy what they want).
Stop trying to make this about bf( which is what you did on the last thread) this is a place that doesn't allow KIDS

User 147 - It's more hooliganism than fun though. Imo it's not really adult behaviour either

You think drinking and talking about religion and similar topics is akin to hooliganism and not adult behaviour? Isn't it the very essence of adult behavior? It's not child behavior is it?

Plus bet you're a riot at parties .

When it comes to bringing up your children to be responsible adults, is it a case of 'Do as I say, not as I do'? How does that work?

Isn't it obvious how that works? Everyone does it. I drink wine, they are not allowed. I swear, I drive, I have sex and smoke pot and make rude jokes. All things I do not allow my children to do.

If you tell your toddlers to do what you do, you're the one fucking it up!

YABU. The restaurant has that policy for many reasons, and if they say no kids, you do not bring in a baby and breastfeed in their restaurant. If it's that short of a time, you go to the baby, or you pump, or you time it so the baby can feed before and after.

Do not take that baby into the restaurant. You will only be insulting the establishment, and all the people who left their babies behind, or who came there specifically to get away from babies for a few hours!

It matters if you choose to be snooty and ask to be moved when you encounter a baby in your restaurant of choice. It matters because of what you are telling the mother of that baby about her status in society.

You're reading a lot into this that in most cases, just isn't there. There are a zillion reasons why someone would want to be seated away from a stranger's kids, and guess what, most aren't about you, and none are about your "status in society." People need to taking it so personally if someone doesn't want to sit next to their kids!

The restaurant has been pretty clear telling you it's 'adults only'. It would be pretty high handed of your husband to ignore that.

I think it's great that the husband was thinking of complaining. Too often issues surrounding breastfeeding are seen as 'women's issues' and are therefore ignored, or you get the eyerolling seen in abundance here.

Restless:
You would like to take away the choice of every other woman on here because you think that they should be attached to their child 24 hours a day. You want to set women's rights back 50 years because you want to be seen by everyone else restaurant as the 'best mother EVER'.

You seem to be confusing the private decision to do something private with a baby in a restaurant with a decision by a mother to flaunt (to use a DM phrase) her motherhood or her boobs. You seem to think that a mother breastfeeding is doing it with you in mind as audience, hoping for your adulation. As a mother who has breastfed in public, I can assure you it is not done for the delectation of other (alleged) adults or anyone else. It is done for the benefit of the baby. Your mistake is to assume other people's decisions are all about you, in other words.

In your eagerness to paint yourself as the victim of some sort of monstrously narcissistic parents, you are ignoring the fact that breastfeeding mothers are being excluded from so called adult venues despite the fact that they are performing a task that is by definition adult, in the company of people who lay claim to adulthood and who therefore should be gracious enough to get over themselves.

I fail to see how women exercising our newly legislated right to breastfeed in public involves setting women's rights back 50 years.

Kali, you seemed to be trying to make a thing out of my '$99' detail, so I wondered if you wanted to mock someone else who included details of the cost of her evening out, or if it was just me you prefer to have a go at.

Adult only restaurants exist because some adults would bring children to a formal restaurant, who have not learned to sit at a table and not screech or scream. Of course there are kids who wouldn't be any problem at all. But if a restaurant makes an exception for one, it would have other parents complaining or asking them to make an exception for them.

I remember being in one restaurant while 3 kids played as if it was a playground. Waiters a few times sent the kids back to their table. But they soon started playing again. And there were other children in the restaurant sitting eating and talking to their parents. I had no problem with them. I did with the 3 kids.

It's not a bf issue math- it's a child issue. The situation would be the same if it were just the husband wanting to take his baby in and bottle feed it, so I don't know why you are making the 'thinking about making a complaint' into a gender based issue.

I notice you are also avoiding responding to everyone who has said that you wish to deny us (as bf or former-bf mothers) the choice to go to an adult only restaurant.

math Does your desire for equality extend to people without children, too?

My local soft play prohibits adults without children going along - part of their marketing is that they promote a safe environment. They've got some of the best coffee in town, but I don't have a child so am not welcome.

How is that fair?