To wonder why it's such a big deal to take children for dinner in the UK

[tinypop4]

Not originally from the UK- where I'm from it is totally normal to take children out in the eve.
Last night we had guests staying so we went for dinner at the local curry place. We took our dd who is almost 5 and our friends Dd who is almost 4. We went at 7pm, they behaved well- stayed at the table other than to go to the toilet, chatter, coloured, ate off the ordinary menu. They didn't shout, run around or cause any drama and we left at 9.15.
In the course of this 2 hours I had 4 different people telling me that it was 'very late for young children' 'they should be in bed' and one whispered loudly and in ear shot that it's 'cruel to have children out as late as 9pm'.

Now if they were over tired toddlers ,
Screaming, tantrumming etc I could understand if people might feel annoyed by their presence but in this case I didn't get it.

We were stared at a lot and were the only people out with children and despite having a nice calm evening, felt quite annoyed by the end. Why are children so unwelcome out in the evening here? Maybe I'm being unreasonable and children shouldn't come out in the evening but I think ta a shame

Omg @Muncheys how judgemental are you? How do you know what they'd have been happier doing? Both my daughters have always struggled with an early bedtime and it isn't through lack of trying, but they're more comfortable with a slightly later bedtime, as I'm sure some of the dc of the people on this thread are. Still not sure how you know OPs children so well, unless you possess the powers of ESP...

No need to take kids out for tea ( tea we call it in Northern UK) regularly. Who can afford it ? Maybe a treat once a week more than enough. How does it fit around getting home from school/ work etc. No, it's not normal. Not more than once a week max. Its expensive too. Believe it or not, London is not the whole of our country. Think people honestly think us Brits are all based in posh parts of London. Oh dear....reality check needed.

Yeh. Routine of school/ work. Reality. Expense 🖒

I've never witnessed this. I've frequently taken my DD when she was young to restaurants in the evening,also with my DGD and I've often seen families with young children in restaurants as late as 10.30pm. Not once have I been on the receiving end of,or witnessed negative comments to other people.

I've taken my DD out on many occasions and I've never had any comments or anything, she's always well behaved and people like talking to her (normally ransom old people)

There is a tendancy here to start a bedtime routine early and stick to it. Worked for mine but common sense says it can't work for all. We've had negative comments because we don't allow our child to stay up after 7 but the kid is hanging if we force him to and nobody wants to be around a tired and tatty child! I literally get slahged off for not taking him to evening family parties but he just can't cope with it. Clearly your kids are absolutely fine with your routine or let's face it, they wouldn't be sitting nicely to eat dinner, so keep doing what you're doing and ignore silly comments.

I'm from the north of the country and we would go to our local working mans club every Saturday evening with my parents as did most of my friends ! Then we would walk home ! A coke bag of crisps and watching a group ! It's such a shame a lot have closed lovely memories, always taken ours for meals at night at weekend as do Most of my friends it's not a treat for children go for a meal at night it's the norm a lot of places are child freindly, our local Indian is amazing with children

Did ye aye?

Some people are weird about it...my DP is one of them!

He'd never dream of taking his 2 kids out for dinner later than 5pm as it messes with their bedtime etc. Whereas I'd be happy to do the odd deviation from the norm so we could have a nice evening out.

I wouldn't worry about it, it's nobody else's business

"(tea we call it in Northern UK)"

You're up around Wick maybe, andiacc?

In my part of the Highlands, if we go out in the evening for a meal, we call it dinner.

We went to my dads 75th birthday party last weekend, kids were buzzing because we rarely go out in the evening. I got asked if we could stay until the end... my 11year old was fast asleep across three chairs by 9pm!!

I totally believe the OP as people do sometimes make comments if you're out "late" with children whether at restaurants or not. Agreed, if the children are causing a fuss then it's fair enough to be annoyed, but I've had people comment when a child is asleep in a pram travelling. Nobody know who you are, what you've even doing and what your routine is so they can think but it's rude to make a remark.

And that applies to quite a few early posters on this thread!

LOL at quiet kids should be gone by 8pm so that adults can be sweary and rowdy. As a fellow customer, I'd rather have the kids!

tinypop4 You have obviously raised your children properly. Our two have always been great in restaurants as we brought them up that way, too.
Unfortunately I've come to the conclusion that many British people hate children - just seeing them gives them the arse ache. Then, at the other extreme, you have parents who feel that their children can do what the hell they like, not matter how annoying to others - the entitled crew.
Well behaved children eating out should be no problem to anybody.

Wow some unnecessarily judgemental comments here! I doubt OP will make this story up, at least tinypop you are having a laugh about it - good on you :-)

tinypop - we eat out a bit in London with the kids - usually one of the family friendly chains and it is usually not a problem. I did have a similar experience as you one time though when we went to a smartish pub 7pm in a posh part of the country- it was an 'older' crowd who maybe did not bring their kids out to eat much 'back in the day'? One lady went up to my mother and said we were being 'unfair' to the children. I did resort to the iPad as my son was getting restless and it drew quite a few judgemental looks! It left me with a not nice feeling either. But don't let it stop you- if the children are not overtired as you said, then hopefully people's mindset will change slowly :-)

I believe you but I think it depends on where you are in the uk, we spent a week in jersey on holiday this summer with my parents and our 2 children 4 & 8. we go out regularly at home to a couple to local pubs and occasionally to the chain restaurants in town and always eat out with them on holiday in typical seaside resorts in the uk, up until then we haven't had any problems, like your own children they know how to behave in a restaurant and are very good . We found it so hard to eat over there none of the local restaurants in st Hellier had children's menus a few offered smaller portions of the normal menu, very few could seat 6, tables were for 2 & 4 and they didn't want to go to the trouble of putting them together when they saw the children and then as soon as 9pm came you weren't even allowed to sit in the pubs outside areas with the children at one place we were sent away by big burrly bouncers it was awful! we asked the staff at the hotel where they could recommend to eat with the children they told us macdonalds ! We even stoped a few family's and asked where they ate to be told the country pubs were more child friendly but there was nothing in town! We live on pizza all week thanks to pizza express and Bella Italia who thankfully welcomed the children. It made the holiday so stressful you enjoyed a lovely day then had a nightmare of trying to find somewhere to eat each evening 😢

Yep OP, in the UK, it's seen as crazy to not have a child that age in bed by 7.00pm.

By who?

None of my kids ever had a 7pm bedtime. If they had have, they never would have seen my DH midweek.

No-one saw that as 'crazy' as far as I'm aware.

There is so much tarring a whole nation with one narrow brush on this thread, it's silly.

my dd1 (6yro) bedtime has always been 7pm we've just upped it to 8pm as we've had another dd2 (4months) and dd2 has gone into a routine of going off to sleep for the night at 7pm so we let dd1 stay up for an extra hour so we can get dd2 off to bed then read dd1 a story at 8pm instead, she's chuffed.. anyway back to the point, both children even dd2 if we go out to a family event/meal or Sunday dinner with my parents both children stay up past bedtime but the next day are straight back into their normal routine with no qualms I do feel extremely lucky as I know my SIL has to have her son in bed for 6pm or he is a nightmare won't sleep (as if he gets over tired) he's a little terror anyway tbf

We don't take our 3 year old regularly due to finances but wouldn't have an issue with her being out later than the norm. I can't actually understand how people get their kids to bed for 7 if both parents work. We both work, get home for 6 ish, prepare and eat tea, bath her some nights - not every night and let her relax but our daughter would not be ready for bed for 7pm. 7:30 onwards and it's not strict in our house.

Never seen or heard this being an issue.
During the week I think it's a bad idea because children need their sleep ready for school.
However...on a Friday/Saturday night I don't think it's weird or odd.

I wish we could bring my child out for a meal in the evening. She sleeps 7:30 to 7:30 with an hour's nap in the daytime and just really needs her sleep (sorry, please don't hate me) and despite generally being a lovely little girl she turns into the devil incarnate when overtired. If she could cope with it we'd definitely bring her out. As it is we have no family help and nobody to babysit so if we want to go out for a meal it's lunchtime or nothing.

No judgement from me OP but a bit of jealousy :)

LJLsmum

makes complete sense when both parents work long hours, I only work 8.30am till 3pm if I worked until 6pm I definitely wouldn't be putting DC to bed at 7 I'd never see them

Could never get a 7pm bedtime (although would have loved to on weekdays). I work ft and ds at after school club. We don't get home till 6pm. How the heck do I cook dinner, do homework, spend some free time with ds and then bed and bath in an hour?
Ds doesn't need that much sleep.

We were always welcomed in restaurants.,the only time I got bitchy comments was at a wedding in Italy - ds 4 and very bored at an all day wedding. He saw a bit of space and just wanted to run up and down. Other kids just sitting there for 5 hours looking stupefied.

We tried to manage it because we were aware of staff trying to do their job . Many people tutting and the very next day the local shopkeeper said he was so sorry that I had a special needs child. WTF!

Never had a problem in uk but generally ds could sit around for an hour with no issues (but not for 5 hours).

Sorry I find this very hard to believe. Every Friday we go out after swimming. We get to where ever we are eating between 7:30 and 8:30 we never leave the restaurant before 10:30 at the earliest. This has been our routine for 5 years. I have a nearly 5 year old and a 10 month old. I have never once had a comment. Never! We eat in different places every week, 4 local Indians, the local carvery, Chinese, three local Turkish, prezzo, zizzis, pizza express and three local harvesters, in fact we have just walked in for zizzis now and with non of these types of restaurants all with different types of customers and different prices, never has anything ever been said.

Reasons we didn’t do it when ours were little 20 years ago:
*Till almost the end of primary school, our kids slept from 7pm to 7am on school nights and were cranky when out of this pattern. (Later, as a teacher I taught many young kids whose concentration at school wasn’t the best because of regular late nights. Some kids can cope with only 8hours sleep but many couldn’t)

• In order to be a stay at home mum, we had to make many financial sacrifices. Apart from the occasional mc donalds where it seemed ok for the parent not to order anything as long as the kids were eating, we could never afford to eat out as a family. We only did it on our yearly (caravan in Britain) holidays and even then the kids were ratty by about 7, so it was not a pleasure. Once I went back to work when they were in secondary, we did go out more for meals but I could never shake the feeling it was wasting money. Even now, I still panic when it’s the best part of £80 for two courses and drinks for four of us. Seems like chucking money away to me but then DH thinks I’m an antisocial miser.......

I know Spanish kids tend to stay up late. What time does school start there. They seem to manage ok but is the siesta the secret?