Mother encouraging her child to scream in restaurant

[user1485342611]

I was in a restaurant and a mother with a baby aged about 10-12 months and in a high chair were at a table near us. The baby was playing happily with a plastic toy when the mother suddenly dropped her spoon on the floor. He thought it was funny and gave a happy squeal. So the mum kept pretending to drop the spoon to make him laugh. The problem was that each time the laugh got more and more high pitched and in the end he was literally screaming with excitement every time she went to 'drop' the spoon.

This went on for ages and people were turning around and giving her annoyed looks and two women at the table beside them moved away.

AIBU to think she was being really inconsiderate and that this went beyond just a bit of happy playing and strayed into noisy and disruptive behaviour (from the mum, obviously, not the baby).

Bold fail

Tigerlilymoon - the word is 'hypocrisy' - with a 'y'. Could not resist pointing this out!

Love reading Mumsnet messages here. I had four children in three years and at the same time moved house 8 times in 7 years, while living overseas. I reckon I know a thing or two about the behaviour of adults around their children.

The baby in this elongated ego trip was being treated as a toy. That is, being played with with no consideration to its proper well being. Hyped up kids well adjusted children do not make.

I think any adult that thinks the whole world should hear their conversation or interaction with their companions/children whoever it may be are incredibly inconsiderate.

I think any adult that thinks the whole world should hear their conversation or interaction with their companions/children whoever it may be are incredibly inconsiderate.

Ah but this is where people start making assumptions and getting all . That woman MUST be doing it on purpose. You don’t know that. It’s frankly weird to get so angry about someone else’s intentions when you have no idea what those intentions are. I bet her blood pressure is better than some posters on here... just saying.

SaoirseTheSeahorse It doesn’t have to be on purpose though does it? It’s inconsiderate all he same. I don’t get angry as I have a toddler myself and I’m used to noise and being around a lot of children. I do however not encourage my toddler to scream in restaurants and try to teach him as best I can.

the*

It’s very difficult when children are very young and they really don’t understand and think it’s funny to bang their cup off table or screams and shriek and that’s fine it happens. What isn’t fine is adults encouraging it and disturbing others. Adults without children can be just as inconsiderate, like Maisy said it’s nothing to do with the kids it’s the adults in question. Personally noise doesn’t bother me as I’m used to it but I know it does bother a lot of people and it’s rude to not show alittle consideration.

It wouldn't bother me in the slightest, but I know it effects a lot of people.

My little one has SEN and when ever he has become vocal I've always taken him out before it gets to the chewing-a-wasp situation.

That's not fair, kids can be loud, but to encourage it isn't fair. A friend told me many years before she had kids, she was at a cafe with a friend there was a family with two kids at the next table. The kids were loud, constantly getting up from the table, and bumping into their chairs, and generally being annoying. The parents did nothing to stop the kids. My friend started a conversation with the person she was at the cafe with about the BJ she gave her boyfriend the night before. She was loud enough to be heard by the family at the next table. The father asked her to please be respectful, and she said sure I Will be respectful when you are. The kids continued and my friends conversation got worse, then the family left mid meal.

I think I'd have had to go over gently pick up the spoon and walk away.

I'd expect a round of applause from other diners too.

Loud inconsiderate noise in a restaurant annoys most people - whether its a gang of office workers partying and getting a bit drunk, someone roaring into a phone or someone who talks in a loud shrill voice.

But no one comes on saying that people like that hate party goers or mobile phone users or whatever.

But you will always have somebody come on a thread like this tinkling complacently that they love children so a baby screaming doesn't bother them, implying of course that the OP obviously finds babies annoying.

That's such rubbish. It really is. Lots of people who absolutely adore babies still find inconsiderate parents a pain in the arse.

No, I totally get it - it’s not the children the op has a problem with, it’s the mum. Understood. I think what pps have said about children carrying on and running around on table tops etc is another matter, but this just doesn’t seem all that bad to me. Which is why I think it’s a “you had to be there” thing. I’ve heard babies screeching happy noises before and not once has it got on my wick. That’s not to say I wouldn’t have found this baby’s screeching a bit annoying. I don’t know as I wasn’t there. What I do think is a bit off is when people bandy about the infamous “performance parenting” label on here. It’s usually based on assumptions and always comes across to me as if the accuser has a tendency to make negative assumptions about strangers. Which is kind of sad.

And also, if it isn’t antisocial behaviour, I don’t see what the problem is; someone reading a book aloud to their child? Not antisocial. A child standing on the table, throwing drinks around etc? Antisocial.

And if it’s not antisocial but still annoying hardly anybody seems to mention to the parent before they come on here for a moan. I’m sure they’d feel much better if they just said something. If the parent is a dick about it THEN come on here for a moan !

I'm not missing the point, I just think that there are moments in life you don't have to get bent out of shape over.

For all we know that's the first time she has seen her child react like that. Sometimes a person's moment of honest joy is a little bit disruptive to the rest of us and doing it repeatedly would be inconsiderate, children playing, people proposing in public places, people getting excited. I guess you have to be there to judge it but I wouldn't clamp down every time without knowing - living with other people in the world entails a bit of noise from them sometimes and there are enough bloody miserable things happening that I would probably be heartened by simple joy like this and feel philosophically good about it even if I had to go somewhere else because it was threatening to give me a headache.

Different strokes for different folks I guess.

There seems to be a glut of screaming children. Can't seem to go anywhere without hearing one. Adults seem to detach themselves from controlling children. See it constantly, on phone, standing chatting without making any effort to have children behave in all sorts of public places. Children don't seem to be taught to stay beside adults in supermarkets, they think they should be allowed to treat them like playgrounds. Saw a girl say 10 years rollerblading round a furniture store recently. Of course everyone had to get out of her way. Parents - they were swanning about at their own pace oblivious to the mayhem being caused. Child was shouting "I need past". Total disregard for others.

I jade a similar experience of a train last week. Fell asleep and was woken up by a child screaming/screeching. Thought a one off, then it happened again. Lots of families on the train and so assumed it was a sibling winding them up. Then it happened again and again and so I decided to move. As I walked down the end of the coach to move into the next one, I go past the shreeching child to find that it's his dad/mum's partner making him make that noise by annoying him while both he and mum are laughing. WTF. Some people just have no clue how to behave in public.

Yes in theory it's lovely that s mum is happily playing with her child. But if the reality is that the game is causing the child to continually scream st a higher and higher pitch (and I have experienced this so I get where the OP is coming from) then its not lovely at all for the people sitting around, no matter how philosophical they try to be about joy in the world.

Amused by the posters admonishing the OP for not saying something to the mum. Even staff are afraid to intervene nowadays in case of a rude and hostile response.

I thought staff were scared to intervene for fear of a bad review on Tripadvisor? Not because they think the mum will suddenly go bananas and glass them. Oh the fear, the peril at every corner! Not only is she a performance parent who is “just using her child as a toy”, but she’s too dangerous to approach. Pfft.

@lydia, it really depends on the person. I have no issue in making my thoughts known and am not bothered by rude or hostile responses. I wouldn’t expect staff to intervene. I appreciate not everyone is like me, but if you’re not prepared to take the situation into your own hands what’s the point of complaining. It’s so passive aggressive and futile.

I think it's a combination of both Saoirse. Certainly for another customer complaining can be very uncomfortable if you get a defensive or sneery response.

No need for the sarcasm.

Well that's what AIBU is about strongmummy. Having a moan about things that bother you in RL and getting opinions.

How is it passive aggressive? Passive Aggressive would be making loud comments in front of the mum while not addressing her directly. Starting a thread on an anonymous forum isn't PA.

@lydia no, it’s passive not PA. however starting a thread about it is futile. You can’t do anything about it so just move on with your life !

No need for the sarcasm.

I’ve never heard such a moany thread about nothing, lots of posters making unpleasant assumptions about this complete stranger, saying it’s impossible to say anything to said stranger in case “she might be rude to me”. Boo bloody hoo sorry. And sorry again for the sarcasm (not sorry).

Well I'm terribly sorry Strongmummy that I started a thread that obviously bores you. But as the thread has 300 posts and a lot of posters have recounted similar experiences, some of us obviously do think it's an interesting topic.

Why not just ignore the thread, instead of dissing the OP for starting a discussion you, personally, don't find interesting.