Re children in restaurant

[Arbesque]

Four of us booked a table in an expensive restaurant last night for 7.30.
About 10 minutes after we'd sat down a couple came in pushing a buggy and with 2 other children in tow. They were seated at the table beside us.
One child kept bashing his spoon off the table, another kept crawling along the wide windowsill so that he was right behind my head, and the baby was kept amused by the father playing peek a boo while she screamed excitedly. This went on and on.

We asked to be moved to another table. There were none available.Then the baby started crying loudly and the toddler got tired and cranky and joined the wailing.

We left without dessert and complained on the way out. They knocked the price of a bottle of wine off our bill.

AIBU to think expensive restaurants, charging a fortune, should have a policy for dealing with situations like this?

We paid a lot of money for a meal we couldn't enjoy.

Some of us also work weekends

Exactly.

We "villagers" are expected to support parents but god forbid we express an opinion or rebuke. Sorry, that doesn't work for me. I wouldn't hesitate to remove Arlo's spoon.

Some names crop up a lot of any threads to do with noise from children or neighbours. I always think those people that comment on a lot of these threads and/or start those threads are probably quite intolerant as they’re a bit obsessed with any noise

See, I always think that the people defending the feral children and insulting those that want noisy-child-free dining are obviously parents of children that don't behave when out. They know it and are super defensive 🤷‍♀️

So many in the UK still want children to be seen (when acceptable to them) and not heard

Children being in a restaurant when they are behaving themselves and engaging in polite family chatter is a whole world away from some kid bashing a spoon on the table whilst their sibling is crawling on a window sill behind other diners. Whilst the ineffectual parents look on and does nothing. They would be asked to step up or leave in other countries too.

YANBU

That's why there are places like Pizza Express, Cafe Rouge, Nando's where you can get decent food & they're child friendly.

We aren't in the Mediterranean & yes it would be lovely to do the whole staying out late with kids in tow thing - but most of the year it's cold & likely raining which doesn't seem to have the same vibe as the Mediterranean.

How they behave (or not) isn’t necessarily down to parenting. Toddler gdc1 would have behaved angelically anywhere - Gdc2 was the human hurricane mentioned earlier. But that’s why he was never taken anywhere unsuitable until he was old enough to understand how to behave.

This, 100%.

Personally I think it's quite rude of the parents

We have a 6/8 year old boys who can be noisy or a bit annoying.

If we go for a nice meal day to a Indian restaurant we always book at 5pm as we know people tend to come about 7pm so we are gone by then.

We only started taking them to nice restaurants since they were 4/6 as any younger they were too loud so we stuck to Pizza Hut and such like.

Restaurants didn't formerly have to designate themselves as "childfree" because civilized people knew without being told.

Unfortunately, this is also a no go with such parents. You then get a 'who do you think you are talking to my darling Arlo like this. How dare you. We are raising darling Arlo to express himself and be friendly. If you have an issue with it, you are welcome to go elsewhere. You can be we win with these parents, no matter what you do, you're in the wrong and the one entitled!

Have a tactic for that, but it requires them to be at the next table and able to hear our conversation which then veers to reading, books and Stephen King and the like. All in gory graphic detail. Or the scenes in GoT that i found particularly galling (what with all the tits and so on)

Also jogging their table if it's close enough while getting up to go to the loo, swing my bag around when leaving, etc. It is supremely PA but i enjoy it.

Having said that. It doesn't happen that often that we are disturbed by very noisy or intrusive children. But even if it's happened in a KFC or Nandos I've complained. Because, yes to the village. And yes to children learning that different scenarios require different behaviour.

« public restaurant » ?? Do you mean private business @undecided112

Of course parents are entitled to a meal out… they just need to either book a baby sitter or have good manners (parents taking DC out when they are noisy, not get DC excited by playing peekaboo, no tablet with sound on etc).
The issue is when parents don’t make any effort to mitigate the impact their DC are having on others…

This is very interesting, and a bit depressing, that there is a stereotype in these countries that British children behave badly. Maybe all those people banging on on this thread about Mediterranean countries being more welcoming to children should take note. Perhaps they welcome children because those children generally know how to behave.

We were once staying demi-pension in a hotel in Southern France with 8yo DD. Every night we went down to dinner and the lady waiting on asked us if we wanted the set menu and we always said yes. Then she would raise one eyebrow and ask about "la grande fille?" We nodded and said she would have the same. After a while when she had seen that "la grande fille" knew how to behave in her restaurant and would try everything that was put in front of her she warmed to us considerably and eventually confided that she had seen so many children where this was not the case. Not sure whether she was talking about British children specifically or all her customers.

How they are allowed to behave when around other people is down to parenting though.

I have an angelic child, a hurricane and one in the middle. All parented the same. That doesn't mean they were allowed to misbehave without consequence.

The key words are ‘holiday’ and ‘once’.

I have spent a lot of time in Italy. The owners of more ups market restaurants ( ie with uniformed waiters and tablecloths) had no compunction in turning prams and pushchairs away at the door. I once saw a family with a small child who was running around the restaurant being ejected after being asked by the owner to keep her at her table. The other diners applauded.

When I lived in France, our local restaurant (in a tourist area) seated families with young children in the bar area which had access to the garden. The restaurant was a place for adults enjoying good food in a quiet and pleasant environment.

I think children who are so used to going out to eat they don’t need to run around and draw attention to themselves all the time.

Took dc out regularly from when they were babies in prams. It was 2nd nature to them to sit in their seat. I would have colouring books and little games to play with or I would talk to them and have a conversation.
Friends children were the same.

Maybe it was a poor choice of the family with young children to go to what might have been their local restaurant, albeit an expensive one for dinner that night. As adults, surely we are all used to having to endure other people's poor choices from time to time.

Honestly, I am beginning to feel a level of guilt enduldging in a thread that is debating a very minor first wold problem.

You probably shouldn't leave your house if you honestly think that you have the right to so something like that. Who on earth do you think you are to actually think that you have the right to try to parent someone else's children?

If the parents don't parent their kids then what to they expect? I'd have told Arlo to go away back to his own table and bother his parents. If they didn't like it, tough, I don't like their kid crawling near my head!

No, it's NOT "just bad luck". Parents of loud kids aren't a passive force of nature, they are adults who can make decisions

The decision this family should have made us to go to a kid-friendly restaurant and stay away from places where other diners expect a grown up environment or at least some peace and quiet.

There are some things you have to sacrifice if you choose to be a parent of very young kids, and this is one of them. The world isn't your play park.

It might have been a poor choice to take them there, but once they realised that, then why would they stay. I'd have taken my children outside if they were behaving like that. If they had ever been out of control in the way the op describes, I would have left, or if I'd already ordered, I'd have asked the restaurant to bag up the food so I could leave.

Yup. British parents lauding the “everyone loves children in Italy” attitude don’t seem to realise that everyone in Italy also loves having an opinion about your parenting and will vocally share it with you, whether you want it or not. Probably one of the key reasons children are better behaved, unless you want all the elderly village ladies wagging their fingers at you and gossiping about your poor standards, you make sure you don’t give them anything to wag and gossip about.

Well, if telling little Arlo to stop crawling on the window sill at a restaurant (any restaurant, including McDonalds) isn’t within their definition of parenting I guess others have to do it for them.

I'd have found this annoying too, OP. But I would also never take small children to an expensive restaurant, I'd be mortified if my kids were annoying other diners.

Of course parents are "entitled to" a nice meal but they can get a babysitter if they want a posh date night, or go to Nando's if they've got a troupe of noisy kids in tow.

YANBU.

I can’t stand my lovely longed for evening out ruined by annoying noisy children running round and/or loud (mostly male) diners who think everyone in the restaurant wants to listen to their tedious anecdotes.

Why don’t these people have some consideration for others instead of thinking they’re entitled to inflict their annoying habits and children onto complete strangers?

Cheeky Fuckers the lot of them!