Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

45mins is plenty for a 5yo to sit at a family lunch

193 replies

anxioussister · 31/03/2024 20:48

Had an extended family Easter lunch today - 4 courses over 2 hours at my SIL’s house. My children 6 + 3 are the only children there - it’s not a very child friendly house - or set up. 15 people at a very formal table with lots of cutlery - host has (utterly madly in my oppinion) laid out formal cuttlery for the children to have four courses as well…

they were polite through the starter - no one was making any effort to engage them in conversation and were visibly frustrated that my husband was focussed on them. the children made it about 10 mins into the main course after which 6yo quietly asked if they could be excused to to their sticker book + colouring in the next room. 3yo follows soon after - has a backpack with trains + duplo in. All is quiet for another 30 mins.

the children have been so good - they have also been playing independently for ages by little people standards. They would like to go into the garden for a while to play. DH and I have finished our main courses + excuse ourselves to play in the sunshine. There are 11 other adults at the table who all know each other.

we came in for pudding. Helped tidy up, chatted for a bit and then left as other people were leaving.

I’ve just had a long message from the hosts telling us they were shocked by how rude we were - and that we need to teach our children to participate better in family events.

I know I’m not BU really but please soothe my outraged soul…

YABU - your children should have sat longer at the table

YANBU - this sounds fine - family are being mad.

OP posts:
Hoplittlebunnyhophophopandstop · 01/04/2024 13:14

AnxiousRabbit · 01/04/2024 13:09

In England KS1 school day is barely 6 hours long and includes lunch and two breaks.
The actual time sat at desks will be at the very most 4 hours broken down unto no more than an hour at a time.....and they will be engaged an an age appropriate activity during those periods.

Like I said in my previously posts my comments are replying to a poster who was claiming that a 6 yrs old is a preschooler and needs 1:1 supervision and an adult is in capable of supervising a 3 yr old and a 6 yr old. I wasn’t suggesting the kids should be expected to sit quietly at a table for hours on end.

DelphiniumBlue · 01/04/2024 13:23

Am a bit shocked to hear no one was engaging the DC in conversation. That's quite rude. Do none of them like children? And were there no family members who wanted to spend time playing with them ?
I'd be thinking twice about visiting these people again - they sound really uninterested in children. Very sad.

harriethoyle · 01/04/2024 13:31

I'd have no issue with the kids leaving the table but I think you were rude to both leave after main course. If kids needed supervision, one of you should have gone rather than both buggering off.

zurg123 · 01/04/2024 13:45

It sounds like you didn't want to be there from the start and you were bored during the meal. I think it was rude for both of you to just leave the table with the dc. The dc were a good excuse for you both not to engage. At their ages, they could've sat in the next room unsupervised (with regular check ins) watching tv or playing with toys. Or at a push you both tag teaming.

ginasevern · 01/04/2024 14:02

DelphiniumBlue · 01/04/2024 13:23

Am a bit shocked to hear no one was engaging the DC in conversation. That's quite rude. Do none of them like children? And were there no family members who wanted to spend time playing with them ?
I'd be thinking twice about visiting these people again - they sound really uninterested in children. Very sad.

Why do adults constantly have to play with children? Children should learn to adjust to the adult world they will very soon inhabit. They should also learn that they are not always the centre of attention and that their non essential needs do not always get met at the drop of a hat. Including children in adult focused social occasions are important learning curves and helps their development. Even learning how to use formal cutlery. I do however think it's wrong that none of the adults engaged in conversation with the children. Children should be encouraged to converse and ask questions, although not dominate the conversation.

DelphiniumBlue · 01/04/2024 14:10

I don't think I mentioned "constantly" playing with children. But in normal, loving families I'd expect playing with children to be a fun thing that at least one or two relations actually want to do, and I think it is a bit sad that they patently weren't interested. I think OP said there were 11 adults, that's probably grandparents, aunts and uncles and maybe cousins, and no one wanted to talk to or interact with her DC. That is quite miserable really.

ZoeCM · 01/04/2024 14:18

I was a real goody two-shoes as a six-year-old, but I would have been bored to tears sitting through entirely adult-orientated conversation for forty-five minutes at that age. Yes, children need to learn manners, but it doesn't sound as though the kids were rude. They're not mini-adults.

I can't believe the other diners were annoyed that your husband was focusing on the kids during the meal! You know what they say: I was the perfect parent before I had children.

RickyGervaislovesdogs · 01/04/2024 14:34

I had to sit for two hours sometimes, I can recall being bored stiff. Children nowadays seem to need a constant conveyor belt of amusement- DD does. 😳Different generation I guess.

I wouldn’t think you rude for leaving to play with the children though, leaving room for adult conversation. I couldn’t get worked up over it, you helped tidy up, you thanked them.

PaperDoIIs · 01/04/2024 14:59

Medschoolmum · 01/04/2024 12:43

Tbh, as an adult, I don't think I would want to stay at a dinner table for 2 whole hours if nobody was engaging with me and if I was unable to participate in the general conversation, e.g. if everyone else was speaking a language that I couldn't understand. It sounds pretty miserable to me, so I don't blame your kids for deciding that they had had enough.

The really rude behaviour was from everyone else around the table who failed to include everyone present.

This really, and as an adult I have options, even if those options seem rude. Like OP and her husband leaving the table to play with the children to play outside.

Just another example of kids being held to higher standard in situations where they have no control over.

Would I fuck sit about for hours at a table where no one talked to me, or spend time again with those people.

WillYouPutYourCoatOn · 01/04/2024 15:55

zurg123 · 01/04/2024 13:45

It sounds like you didn't want to be there from the start and you were bored during the meal. I think it was rude for both of you to just leave the table with the dc. The dc were a good excuse for you both not to engage. At their ages, they could've sat in the next room unsupervised (with regular check ins) watching tv or playing with toys. Or at a push you both tag teaming.

This is exactly how it reads to me too.

They sound very different to OP. She's not interested in the way they do things. I love a four course Easter lunch all cooked for me and my family. (And in fact we were, 8 of us.) We used the correct cutlery too. I'm not sure what all the gasps about stuffiness for using the right fork are about. It's literally picking a fork up.

Our DTwins are 4, and asked to get down after each course. DH and I told them no, we wait for our meal to finish, we distracted them, people chatted to them, we made things out of the napkins, and they sat. It's less relaxing adult conversation for us, and more keeping them engaged, but this will ease each year as they mature.

However, a meal this time last year? No chance. So...we hosted at ours, every single time. Every Easter, mother's day, Christmas, whatever it was. For 3 and a half years. DTwins would not sit nicely at any table. So we didn't ruin other people's expensive restaurant meals by taking them somewhere we knew they didn't have the table manners for, and we did the entertaining here, so if they were being grouchy 18mth olds, or shouty two year olds, we could deal with it/put one to bed/one of us could disappear off with them, and we weren't affecting someone else trying to host.

My DC are far from perfect. I don't expect them to be. I think it's a real sad state of affairs though with a basic expectation such as table manners, that to so many, the very concept of table manners is seemingly lambasted with silly comments like "oh well sorry my kids aren't all perfect like yours". How low is the parenting bar for the very basics like table manners to be "perfect." FFS.

I think the hosts fall into the camp of having a basic expectation of table manners (certainly of adult OP and DH) and OP falls into the camp of thinking it's preposterous any of her family shouldn't be allowed to leave the table halfway through a main course, all go and sit in the garden, and return for pudding to be served to them, whilst everyone else sits at the table eating the meal that has been prepared for them.

I think as PP has picked up on, this will likely not be the only difference between how the hosts conduct themselves and how OP conducts herself, and it's come to a bit of a head. The thing that did it, I suspect, was both adults leaving their food, so four plates were left unfinished because both parents, went out to watch their children (one more than old enough to sit at a table) play, in the middle of a high effort home cooked meal. It's very rude of the hosts to call her up and highlight this though. It didn't need highlighting, everyone there had eyes.

OP and them are clearly a mismatch. She shouldn't go back, but not because they are arseholes, their expectations were not unreasonable, certainly of the adults. But because OP genuinely can't see the issue, and they can't comprehend how she can't see this. Just raised very differently to each other, and it's really incompatible, and it's likely to be a "thing" now it's been called.

cherish123 · 01/04/2024 16:10

From what you describe, they seem quite well behaved. I have witnessed awful behaviour from kids in restaurants. I think parents often need to be stricter with children at meals. However, I would have been happy with the behaviour you described if they were my children. I also think the hosts were rude.

cherish123 · 01/04/2024 16:11

I guess you could have had sticker books at the table.

CrispieCake · 01/04/2024 16:20

I'd give them a swerve in future. They're obviously not small people people and don't waste your DC's precious family occasions on people who can't even show a normal amount of tolerance towards them.

And of course you couldn't have let a 3yo loose in someone else's child-unfriendly house. Imagine if something had got broken.

Livelovebehappy · 01/04/2024 16:21

People saying others at the table should have engaged more, there is very limited conversation you can stretch out over dinner with a 6 and 3 year old. A lot of kids this age are not able to have a full blown lengthy conversation about much, and I would maybe have just checked with the hosts that it was ok for them to play with their sticker books/colour in at the table. If they got visibly bored and fidgety, I would then just have one parent going away from the table/outside. Not necessary for both parents to leave the table.

Sunnnybunny72 · 01/04/2024 16:28

"Your text is ruder. Fear not, we won't be eating with you as a family again. Have a nice Easter."

LuckySantangelo35 · 01/04/2024 16:32

What I don’t get is why BOTH Op and her husband had to leave the table to entertain the kids

why op?! @anxioussister

i do think that was quite rude and have a clear message to them as to what you would rather be doing

LuckySantangelo35 · 01/04/2024 16:33

Arrestedmanevolence · 31/03/2024 21:00

My DC would have gone full on badger and started throwing mashed potato so I think yours sound delightful in comparison.

@Arrestedmanevolence

would they really!?

LuckySantangelo35 · 01/04/2024 16:36

BingoMarieHeeler · 31/03/2024 21:43

Oh Jesus Christ that is so so dry. That does not sound like a fun Easter even for a grown up. Sounds like your kids behaved beautifully. Hosts are up themselves.
I wouldn’t be going back next year and would plan a lovely chilled fun Easter either at home or take a trip somewhere.

Edited

@BingoMarieHeeler

youre getting a nice meal cooked for you, presumably there’s wine, presumably food adult company …what’s dry and unfun about that? What would you class as a fun Easter for an adult?

PaperDoIIs · 01/04/2024 17:15

@WillYouPutYourCoatOn do you really no see the difference between what you describe and what happened with OP's children?

None of the other adults talked to them, the other adults looked/were frustrated at even their dad engaging with them.

They did have activities to entertain them , but you don't know if there was space at the table or if the other adults would've approved of this since their dad simply talking to them seemed to be an issue.

Kids(and their parents) always do better and last longer in a relaxed, warm, welcoming environment.

starfishmummy · 01/04/2024 17:16

It was a family meal, hardly a formal banquet Id expect allpwances to be made for kids getting bored and needing some sort of distraction. And perhaps it would have been better for just one person to go with the kids for a break, the comments about it not being a child friendly house or garden might make that difficult

Astartn · 01/04/2024 17:26

LuckySantangelo35 · 01/04/2024 16:32

What I don’t get is why BOTH Op and her husband had to leave the table to entertain the kids

why op?! @anxioussister

i do think that was quite rude and have a clear message to them as to what you would rather be doing

Yes this. I think if anything this is what the relatives should’ve challenged rather than picking at the children who didn’t do anything wrong. I wonder if thats what their real problem was but they slipped the kids in there as an easy target?

My friends 2, almost 3 year old, managed about 1.5 hours at the dinner table over Christmas but personally I do appreciate everyone’s different. However perhaps OP relatives have came across a similar toddler to my friends who set the bar for them and now they had rigid expectations for other toddlers.

CrispieCake · 01/04/2024 18:05

They sound like the sort of people who think parents can switch their children off and store them in a drawer to attend "child-free" events at will.

PaperDoIIs · 01/04/2024 18:07

@Astartn how did he manage that? Simply sitting there eating, not saying a word, no one giving him any attention?

Astartn · 01/04/2024 21:16

PaperDoIIs · 01/04/2024 18:07

@Astartn how did he manage that? Simply sitting there eating, not saying a word, no one giving him any attention?

His dad and I were interacting with him at some points, but tbh he was mostly happy to just eat, play with his food, eat some more and then play with his toy he had brought! But yes, I appreciate it wasn’t an identical situation.

I was also making a wider point in that some kids can sit for longer at dinners though and the OPs family may have witnessed such, and now be assuming every child can, in every situation.

Astartn · 01/04/2024 21:29

they were polite through the starter - no one was making any effort to engage them in conversation and were visibly frustrated that my husband was focussed on them. the children made it about 10 mins into the main course after which 6yo quietly asked if they could be excused to to their sticker book + colouring in the next room. 3yo follows soon after - has a backpack with trains + duplo in. All is quiet for another 30 mins.

I don’t get why they were frustrated your husband was focused on them. That’s surely what parents should do rather than letting them run riot across the table or something!

If they weren’t keen on toys or colouring books at the table they should’ve been ok with one of you leaving with both kids, but I agree with pp it seems a bit odd for both of you to have left.

I think that’s the main issue and if only one of you had left I’d definitely say YANBU. On this occasion I think both sides were BU to some extent.

Swipe left for the next trending thread