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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

AIBU to be upset/angry at older man complaining about children in restaurant.

431 replies

Wakingwillow · 26/01/2019 22:52

Just that really. This is my first post but I've been a long time fan of AIBU. We're visiting the UK for a family event.
We're a family of 6, four kids age 11, 9 and 15 mth twins. Staying in a chain family friendly hotel for the weekend. Extended family here also.
After activities today everyone was tired so we decided to have a group family meal in the hotel restaurant. Total 7 children and 8 adults. 5 of the older children (age 8 to 11) sat at a table together next to us. All were very well behaved stayed seated, coloured pages and chatted. The twins sat with adults and made usual toddler noises but nothing too disruptive imo. We had items to keep them entertained and also took them out to lobby area several times.
We arrived at 6pm but due to under staffing there was a delay taking orders and getting food to the table. Kids were served food about 7.20 pm. Adults at 8 ish. (That needs another thread 😐)
After the toddlers had eaten my husband and I took them upstairs cleaned them up, got their pj's on then went back down with them to eat our own meal.
Just as we started eating an older man came over to our table and said that we had ruined his and his wifes night with all our noise.
I really didn't know what to say. I felt an array of emotions, embarrased, upset and finally annoyed/angry. We apologised for the toddlers being disruptive, explained there had been a long delay in them getting food and said we were doing our best to keep them occupied. I also asked him what else could we do, they had to eat to which he responded they should be feed in the room.
I'm so surprised and upset by this. I've never had this happen before and I'm usually very considerate of other diners when we're out as I'm quite shy and don't like to draw attention.
This has really upset me.
I'm just wondering what others have done / would have done in this situation.

OP posts:

Lizzie48 · 28/01/2019 10:03

despite the fact that OP stated they were kept quiet

^She also said she took them out to the lobby a few times.
Why would she do that if they were quiet and well behaved?^

But that indicates that she was doing her best to be considerate to other diners, otherwise she wouldn't have cared!

Some posters love to assume that the parents are in the wrong.

derxa · 28/01/2019 10:21

Who brings their children into a restaurant wearing their pyjamas? What would Nancy Mitford say?

HoustonBess · 28/01/2019 10:32

Why did he sit through a whole meal instead of asking to sit somewhere else or asking you if you could keep the noise down? It's grumpy gittery to wait until the end and then just be rude to you. He must have been a child once.

I bet secretly he really enjoyed getting worked up and it's the most exciting thing that happened to him all week.

BertrandRussell · 28/01/2019 10:35

“Who brings their children into a restaurant wearing their pyjamas? What would Nancy Mitford say?”
Nancy Mitford would be fine with it. It’s the lower middle classes who are bothered by that sort of thing.....

derxa · 28/01/2019 10:45

Nancy Mitford would be fine with it. It’s the lower middle classes who are bothered by that sort of thing.....

BloodyDisgrace · 28/01/2019 10:52

To be honest, I try to avoid children and large family groups with them when I have a meal out. I would never have come up directly to you and say anything, especially rude, I would just ask the waiter to be seated elsewhere, far away.

PBo83 · 28/01/2019 10:54

Sorry, you DON'T bring children into a restaurant in their pyjamas. You just don't do it. I agree with most people who say that, without being there, it is impossible to judge whether the gentleman's complaint was justified. However, we should all be able to agree that pyjamas in a restaurant are unacceptable at any age.

BertrandRussell · 28/01/2019 10:56

“However, we should all be able to agree that pyjamas in a restaurant are unacceptable at any age.”
I don’t.

Charlie97 · 28/01/2019 10:59

@PBo83 absolutely no issue with 15 month old babies being in pyjamas in a restaurant, no issue whatsoever.

Greenlightredlight · 28/01/2019 11:00

This is one of those threads where it's impossible to comment fairly without knowing the other side.

Perhaps the children were just making ordinary level kiddish noise and the man over reacted.

Or perhaps they were being really noise and disruptive and the parents were making only token efforts to keep things down a bit.

We don't know.

Gromance02 · 28/01/2019 11:01

If the man couldn't hear your children, he wouldn't have any need to complain. So obviously he could hear them. I would complain too.

Lizzie48 · 28/01/2019 11:02

It's the restaurant for the hotel where they're guests. I wouldn't have an issue at all with 15 month old toddlers in pyjamas. I wouldn't even notice quite frankly, as it would be none of my business.

Charlie97 · 28/01/2019 11:03

If the man couldn't hear your children, he wouldn't have any need to complain. So obviously he could hear them. I would complain too

I presume that you're of the era that children should be seen and not heard...... things have moved on, it's 201.

PBo83 · 28/01/2019 11:04

@Charlie97 - Babygrows etc.are fair enough but to actively change your children into their pyjamas (from normal, daytime clothes) and bring them back into a restaurant is simply not acceptable behaviour and shows a total lack of respect to the restaurant, everyone in it and simply to standards as a whole.

Charlie97 · 28/01/2019 11:06

Charlie97 - Babygrows etc.are fair enough but to actively change your children into their pyjamas (from normal, daytime clothes) and bring them back into a restaurant is simply not acceptable behaviour and shows a total lack of respect to the restaurant, everyone in it and simply to standards as a whole.

Ridiculous, stuffy, old fashioned and I do not understand what issue having babies in PJS would cause to anyone..... you do know this wasn't a Michelin star restaurant don't you?

Lydiaatthebarre · 28/01/2019 11:09

If it was a family friendly restaurant then presumably there would have been other children there as well. Why did the man single out your children in particular? There must have been a reason.

Lizzie48 · 28/01/2019 11:13

I think the PP may well be right who suggested that this was because they were making too much noise as a group, not just the children. I generally find large groups of adults far more noisy and annoying than children (especially if they've drunk too much, though that probably wasn't the case here).

marymarkle · 28/01/2019 11:22

A restaurant attached to a hotel is not family friendly, it is merely guest friendly. Truly family friendly is Hungry Horse that caters especially for children.

BertrandRussell · 28/01/2019 11:25

So basically, the only thing we know for certain is that lots of Mumsnetters are shockingly ageist.

MRex · 28/01/2019 11:28

I've never been in the Hungry Horse near here, it's loud even from outside the door and it looks quite grubby. It just looks like a mucky wetherspoobs. Are they supposed to be good for kids?

sollyfromsurrey · 28/01/2019 11:32

Typical be titled baby boomer. It was a family restaurant. You were not a roudy group. Most likely the fact that you were a big group coming and going just disturbed his sense of what dinner should be like but in all honesty that's for him to suck up. If he wants a quiet atmosphere, he shouldn't be at a family restaurant.

sollyfromsurrey · 28/01/2019 11:35

Should have told him that 'this is a family restaurant and we are a family'. If he wants no family noise perhaps he should have chosen more wisely. And told him by the way, he has now ruined YOUR enjoyment if YOUR dinner.

PBo83 · 28/01/2019 11:36

@MRex, At the risk of sounding snobby (which I will be accused of anyway), the restaurant part of my local Hungry Horse allows you access to possibly the lowest rung of human civilisation there is. Five minutes inside and you will be a 'no children in pubs' convert. Every annoying, disruptive child and every feckless, ignorant, entitled parent you have heard described on this thread will be housed under one neon-lit roof. I genuinely believe that, if we were to experience a Pompeii-esque eruption and were frozen in time, in thousands of years, highly evolved primates would dig up a Hungry Horse and draw the hypothesis of how humans, as a species, devolved and ended up bad in the sea.

P.S - The burgers are OK though.

PBo83 · 28/01/2019 11:37

*Back in the sea

marymarkle · 28/01/2019 11:37

MRex Basically if you go into a Hungry Horse it seems to be that you need to accept kids running riot.
And I think this complaint was about the group as a whole, including adults.

I have also heard people in this situation complaining somewhere is anti kids when they are asked to keep the noise down, when the place is full of kids, and no one else is being spoken to.

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