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?

Math one more time, just for you, because you're clearly having a few issues with comprehension. This is not about breast feeding. I support a woman's right to breastfeed anywhere a child is allowed to be

Oh god, you are definitely right and he is definitely wrong. A small baby, even if just for a while and BF, would really change the atmosphere. It sucks, but it'll pass as baby gets older.

Actuallymath it cut off the word steak, it was your whole attitude, you paid $99 so you know better, along with your comments regarding the types of clubs other people must frequent ( not you obviously) and types of kids that other people on here must have

rest math ofcourse this is about bf ( everything is or the thread will be turned around to be about bf somehow).

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

I have addressed that.

What I said was that people who choose to go to restaurants like that are contributing to the problem of mothers adapting to motherhood because you are contributing to the isolation mothers feel and the feeling that their old lives are over and that society doesn't want to know them now that they have new ones.

Munster:
This absolutely is about mothers and breastfeeding babies. Restaurants could easily make allowances for mothers and breastfeeding babies. The fact that they do not illustrates what pariahs babies and small children are considered to be, and by extension those who are their primary carers.

So Kali, you have no comment on a post that contained details of the cost of a dinner and also the cost of the babysitter, that seemed to agree with your pov here?

Curiously, this thread is actually about breastfeeding. You can check the OP if you wish. There are all sorts of problems mentioned there that are caused by this restaurant's refusal to understand the concept of breastfeeding.

It was other posters who stated they needed a break from their children. What conclusion would you draw from comments like that? That all children must be exhausting just because some people's children are?

It was also other posters who pointed out that babies might be exposed to foul language in a club or that it would kill the ambiance if people were to be reminded not to swear or whatever because there was a baby present. Naturally, this made me wonder what sort of clubs people were in the habit of frequenting. It didn't sound very grown up to me. More like the school disco in my old secondary school.

Restless:
This is not about breast feeding. I support a woman's right to breastfeed anywhere a child is allowed to be
Then you clearly do not understand at all the problem of breastfeeding mothers being excluded or the ramifications for women's right to go out and about regardless of parental status.

You can only be supportive of women's rights to breastfeed or supportive of the right to exclude children and babies. You cannot be on both sides.

NNChange:
The soft play wants to prevent potential paedophiles from gaining access to children. The safety of the children is its primary concern. A health and safety concern on the part of a soft play business is light years away from restaurants promoting the perfidious notion that the presence of a baby is going to ruin an evening out.

You need a new hobby math. Just saying.

The soft play wants to prevent potential paedophiles from gaining access to children. The safety of the children is its primary concern.

You do realise how ludicrous that us, and how it profits from the fears of parents like yourself while providing no additional protection for children?

Paedophiles are not solitary old men in grubby macs

You know what Math mothers and babies are no important than anyone else in this world. Their rights do not trump mine.

Your self-righteous and entitled views are thankfully not the norm. There are millions of parents out there doing a fantastic job every day without feeling the need to demonstrate it to all and sundry on a daily
basis. Some might say that you need to feel a bit more secure in your own parenting before you realise this. Stop telling the world what terrible parents they are and maybe look to yourself and question why you feel the need to constantly put others down.

Don't tell me what my views are.

Carry on math i'm not going to engage you anymore as i realise this is what you want as this is what you do on every thread.
I'll let you have the last word ( as i know you'll do that anyway!)

restless yes thankfully not the norm. No idea what type of clubs they frequent either, though atleast they won't be in mine, the music might hurt their little ears all that bad language

Parents like math are the reason childfree people roast us all the damn time. The vast majority of parents have a brain, a sense of decorum, and a sense of humility, but then people like math come along and ruin all of our credibility.

Jessica, you are saying the vast majority of parents understand they need to pander to the shrill complaints directed at them. They know their place in the sad society that seeks to relegate them to the sidelines.

There are millions of parents out there doing a fantastic job every day without feeling the need to demonstrate it to all and sundry on a daily basis
Thanks for your condescension, Restless. There are thousands of parents bringing perfectly well behaved children to restaurants too. Nobody asked your opinion on how parents are doing. And I repeat, nobody is doing what they do with their children in order to impress you or court your approval.

It's a shame you confuse a restaurant that uses an ugly attitude to babies and children as a means of overcharging you for your night out for evidence of your 'right' to live in a tightly sealed little bubble.

If you look through this thread you will find it is people who agree with you who have told the parents of the world what a terrible job they are doing, ruining your nights out with their babies and children's alleged bad behaviour. Maybe start feeling a bit more secure in your 'adulthood' and you will find yourself unclenching a bit in the presence of babies and children.

No matter how much you pay for your night out, you do not pay enough to entitle you to support those who are making money by promoting a discriminatory attitude towards breastfeeding mothers and their babies.

If math is a parent, s/he must have a very bleak time of it, with her/his ludicrous fixation that s/he is actively being sidelined 24/7

Makes me very glad that I enjoy parenting- including the occasions I chose to book a babysitter and have exclusively adult time.

Maybe start feeling a bit more secure in your 'adulthood' and you will find yourself unclenching a bit in the presence of babies and children.

Don't be so ridiculous and deliberately goady.

It's fine piglet as I've said a thousand times you can't engage with batshit. I give up.

a restaurant that uses an ugly attitude to babies and children as a means of overcharging you

I can't decide if this is a socialist political statement or paranoia

Math is absolutely batshit crazy, if it isn't a troll. Don't engage.

Mathanxiety you do you realise that you are the 'shrill complainant' I want what I want regardless of how that affects anyone else.
You do understand that not everyone has to like children around them all the time it doesn't make them a monster it just means they have different opinions to you.

All this frothing at the mouth because others don't see themselves only as parents would suggest to me that it is YOU that needs to 'start feeling a bit more secure in your adulthood.'

-shudder-

S/he called me Jessica. Only my mother calls me Jessica, and then only when I'm in Big Trouble. And I haven't been in Big Trouble since I was about nine. I would have thought "Jay is for Jessica" sort of implied that I get called Jay, but ah well. There's a lot I thought was implied that has been (deliberately or otherwise) misconstrued by this person, so you just can't tell, can you?

Regardless, I'm choosing not to engage anymore. Einstein defined insanity as "repeating an action and expecting a different outcome". The action here is engaging with this person. The different outcome we keep expecting (and are "insane" for expecting, by Einstein's definition) is for this person to engage in a rational manner with our comments.

ZoeTurtle i believe this is the point as all threads go one way.

Just noticed this is still rumbling on.

math I can see your point (I think) but you're going about it all wrong. Yes, mothers (breastfeeding or not) shouldn't be sidelined from society just because they are mothers.

As it happens, I AM a breastfeeding mother. I want my baby to be sidelined. There is hardly anything in life that is full on, 100%, 24/7 demanding as being a mother to a breast fed baby. And this is exactly WHY I want my baby to be sidelined. I WANT to feel the way I did before the baby was born (ie not sidelined by society), because in that previous life my world, the one I freely chose to be in, did not revolve 24/7 around children. Nothing should revolve 24/7 around anyone or anything!

If you were talking about Chuck e Cheez, or Pizza Hut - fine. But you're talking about a restaurant that has no appeal to children at all. Taking a child there is actually pretty unfair on that child: it's unreasonable to expect them to behave in an un-childlike fashion. (And before you start, if you accept babies you have to accept toddlers and older children).

I think your point (or what I think your point is) is fair enough. You've just picked the wrong thread and the wrong fact pattern to make it.

Finally, I was the one talking about swearing and drinking and talking about race religion etc. On this one you come across as snooty, superior and up yourself. I'm a highly educated, non-white wine snob with strong views on Trump v Clinton (yes, we exist), and I have never in my life enunciated the word cunt ("shit" counts as sweating to me). But would it matter if I were necking strongbow from the tin and effing and blinding every other word? You don't help yourself with this argument.

If being 'sidelined' or 'excluded' means choosing, occasions, to entrust my baby with another carer in order to enjoy a child free experience and environment- hell yeah, I was sidelined quite a few times as a new mother and I bloody loved it!

But you're talking about a restaurant that has no appeal to children at all. Taking a child there is actually pretty unfair on that child: it's unreasonable to expect them to behave in an un-childlike fashion.

FabFive - I disagree that there is automatically a category of places that would not appeal to children and places that would. Children do not come into the world full of preconceived notions about what they like and do not like.

They pick up what they are exposed to. The way to teach them is to expose them to everything you want them to absorb, whether that is classical music or Roxy Music or an interest in maths and numbers, or a wide vocabulary, or how to behave themselves in a church or a restaurant or museum full of art. If you start when they are very young you will find they manage to behave themselves well and appreciate what you are showing them.

You absolutely can expect them to behave themselves. I see hundreds of children doing exactly that day in and day out. If you are happy never to challenge them or broaden their horizons, and in fact to expose them to behaviour that you yourself might not particularly like to see them picking up, bring them to Chuck-e-Cheez's every weekend. If you want them to learn to behave themselves, bring them to some activity on a regular basis where you can teach them to sit quietly. Church springs to mind but that is not everyone's cup of tea.

I WANT to feel the way I did before the baby was born (ie not sidelined by society), because in that previous life my world, the one I freely chose to be in, did not revolve 24/7 around children. Nothing should revolve 24/7 around anyone or anything!
Parents don't have to go stir crazy waiting for a chance to escape the world of Peppa Pig and playdoh and children get to understand that there are bigger and better things in life when they are all permitted to go places together. It only feels like a pressure cooker vs. magical escape situation because each separate world is hermetically sealed and there is no coming and going or mixing and mingling tolerated.

I don't see how setting up two different worlds for children and 'others' benefits anyone. I also don't see how feckless self-indulgence counts as 'adult' or fun, but would you not discuss politics or Donald Trump in front of children and if not why not?
........
LOL at the 'rational outcome' rant there 'JayisforJessica'.
This from someone who expects me to divine the origin of her moniker just by looking at it.
There was me thinking it was just a case of stating the bleeding obvious...

Mickeysminnie, no - you have it completely backwards. It is in fact you who 'want what you want regardless of how that affects anyone else.' Your insistence that you have a right to a personal bubble contributes to the huge problems experienced by many women as they try to adapt to motherhood. Women who have accepted the dictat that it is women who must adapt to the world set up by men are a huge part of the problem faced by women seeking to combine motherhood with being perceived as adults, fully fledged humans no matter what their parental status is, just as men are. Clearly none of that matters to you.

I think at 3 months, you should be able to go out and have a meal without her needing to feed. My DS was a frequent feeder in the evening at that age but I did have the very occasional evening out and he just had to wait until I got back (only 3 hours or so max, and a bottle of express milk was offered, which he refused).
DH found that he actually wasn't as bad as we thought. Without me around he didn't fuss so much and could be distracted with cuddles until I got back.

Feed lots before you go and she'll be fine. e.g if you're heading out at 7:30, offer feeds at 5,6 and 7.

If you start when they are very young you will find they manage to behave themselves well and appreciate what you are showing them.

Ah - you're one of those! Had compliant children, like my own DD.
It came as a shock to me to discover that not all DCs don manage to 'behave themselves well' or 'appreciate what you are showing them'. That's why you hear about DCs damaging priceless museum exhibitions - their parents haven't adapted family activities to suit the DCs limitations.

I am disappointed that you're so dismissive of the need for parents to have child free time. As someone who was at high risk of post-natal mental health problems, I'd have sunk into dispair if I'd known there was nowhere that I could go where I wouldn't be exposed to DCs. I needed to be away from them for my health.

I feel like I'm flogging a dead horse.

Look, I have a significant birthday coming up. I want to celebrate it with nice food and wine. My DH and I are booked for lunch at Eleven Madison Ave. Its fancy pants, extremely expensive and for many many people who will be there it will be a once in a lifetime experience. The food is exceptional, and extremely expensive. There is absolutely no way, even if they did accept children, I would take either my 4yo or my baby because (1) although my baby is docile and placid, he is a baby and therefore unpredictable. Nobody wants the waft of baby poop passing their nostrils when they're paying $500/head for lunch, because it's gross and doesn't need to be normalized (2) no way am I paying that much money for a 4yo whose palette isn't remotely sophisticated enough to appreciate $500 of food nuance (no 4yo's would be) (3) I do not want to have to keep telling my 4yo to stop fidgeting, talk sotto voce, not drop her napkin on the floor etc (4) I want to eat my amazing food without having to stop to cut hers up for her first, explain which fork to use and which spoon to use. And a million other reasons. What's so difficult to understand????

As it happens, because we live in NYC, at 4yo my DD eats ramen with chopsticks (broth everywhere, noodles clinging to table etc but mostly it works and you have to start somewhere), Indian food with her fingers. We take her to our local diner for pancakes on a Sunday morning. She behaves herself. She's a better behaved 4yo than many many others I see out and about. And she enjoys this stuff: the chopsticks and food is secondary at this age, she just loves being out with us. And her brother also benefits, even though he is still a baby. None of these places bat an eyelid when I nurse the baby at the table. It's just not an issue. Eleven Madison Ave is a different kettle of fish. It's really not that hard to grasp.

As for Trump, no I won't discuss him in front of my DD. I have never lied to her and hope not to. There is no way I can talk about him in an age appropriate way without lying or being economical with the truth. She's smarter than that and deserves more.

And that's it. There really is nothing more to be said. Your obstinacy is bordering on a total lack of common sense, I'm pretty much done with this "discussion".

I also live in a major American city, FabFiveFreddie. I have five DCs, all born in the US and all very used to being out and about with me and en famille in that environment.

Eleven Madison Park would need to offer a heck of a lot of food nuance for that price. Some chef must take himself very seriously indeed to charge that much. There are many absurdities about the American fine dining experience. Would you feel you could send something back in a place like that? There is a whiff of The Emperor's New Clothes about destination dining. Maybe the presence of a four year old should be encouraged.

However, I do not think the resort restaurant the OP and her DH are headed to is quite in that category. How much less than $500 or so for a couple, drinks not included, can a restaurant charge and still claim to be hoity toity enough to warrant the exclusion of a large class of people from its august confines?

My DCs were a very mixed bag, temperament-wise, NNChange. Yet they managed to learn to eat without fuss, to sit on their chairs in restaurants, to use their indoor voices. This is because I taught them to do that, mainly at home but also when we were out. I love the idea that some children are 'naturally compliant'. Maybe some parents make it look easy?

My DCs were not 'naturally compliant'. It took a lot of work to get them to behave themselves, and a lot of practice. You do indeed have to start somewhere.

Maybe when you have five DCs you are a bit more motivated to get everyone to pay attention to you and behave themselves. Certainly it behooves a parent of a larger than average family to make sure the older children are not forced to miss the sort of social opportunities their peers in smaller families experience just because there is a three year old who 'can't be taken anywhere'.

It's perhaps easier when a family is smaller to shrug and say, 'This too shall pass'. If I had indulged that attitude I would have been sidelined for over a decade and my oldest children would never have seen the inside of a restaurant or a museum.

Also, there are many women who have PND or are at risk of PND who would benefit greatly from being able to go out and bring their babies with them and not be given the stink eye by entitled restaurant patrons. It would make the transition from 'human' to mother a good deal easier if their mother persona were to be made welcome.