Our comfort chat turned into an ear slitting screaming session

[Bridget05]

Ok admittedly I'm possibly much older than you lot out there, so I might need to call a taxi but here goes.
It's just after Christmas and I live in a tiny village with one coffee shop. We attract loads of families walking on weekends which is fine. But of course the shop is heaving. Again it's OK.
My friend had an awful Christmas day with an adult autistic son, a missing pet cat = son meltdown and she just needed a shoulder. Could not go to either home as hers contains adult son, mine contains old husband watching Wheeler Dealers on full volume.
So we luckily find our usual table and get a coffee ....okaaayyy I had cake as well.
A group of grandparents, parents and a toddler arrive and sit next to us..still OK.

Now I fully understand toddlers are noisy, I get it. But to keep the already overexcited child entertained they then began an interminable game of peek a boo, who's got your nose, piggy toes etc, which then turns a chatty chirping child into a screaming harpy , creating such a noise that no one can speak. My poor friend was almost in tears from the stress.
Eventually I nicely said (yes I can do nice) that while everyone understands children's noise, could they please not add to it by encouraging her.
Seems walkers from the big city find it difficult to take polite requests. Enough said.
So AIBU to just expect a parent not to encouraging loud noise in an already packed out Cafe or us it open season on quiet breaks now.

The people in charge of the cafe are the ones who get to make that decision. They evidently were willing to permit both the other family and OP to be there, despite the impact both clearly had on each other in this clearly fictitious scenario. Which means the pp is correct, they were all equally entitled to be there.

By your logic then no babies/toddlers/children would be allowed in any public places until they were in school.

Goodluck teaching an 18 month old how to behave.

So do l - l would be embarrassed if l was with you op.

How is it triggering? 🙄

A packed out cafe is not the place for a quiet break.
I hate the noise of kids, so actively avoid cafes and similar places.
Them being tourists is not relevant.

LTB

Maybe they wanted to get out of the house?

It's not an unreasonable expectation that there won't be ear-splitting levels of noise in a rural cafe.

Exactly.

If the parents/grandparents wanted noisy play they should have gone to a soft play.

Adults need to teach children how to behave when eating/drinking out.

Screaming and running round should be stopped and not encouraged.

I don't think she was expecting deathly quiet. But ear splitting screaming (albeit excited screaming) is not on in a coffee shop where people are trying to enjoy conversation and cake. There is such a thing as an indoor voice and this toddler was not being shown how to do this.

Parents / grandparents are responsible for teaching children expected behaviour for different social situations so they grow up learning this. Those parents who think their children are somehow exempt from this are quite frankly really selfish.

OP can chat with her friend at home.
Why should a child and their family be unable to enjoy themselves? There's so much complaining on here about children just being children from entitled older people who think the world around them should bend to meet their wants.

😂

No one should be encouraging their children to be loud in indoor public spaces. Basic courtesy that funnily enough, the vast majority of parents seem to be able to manage, otherwise no one would ever be able to hear themselves think when children are present. Always surprised at the number of people on these threads defending it, when out in the real world I think its very rare parents would do this. Most are considerate and have a repertoire of games to amuse their DC, including quieter ones when the situation requires.

I think you are not being unreasonable except for your assumption that they come from a city. Not everyone who doesn’t live in your village lived in a city!

I'm with you OP. Performance parenting drives me insane I love to see people out enjoying themselves but we all need to respect each other

Those who say they were 'playing with the baby', any half competent parent knows the difference between playing/interacting/entertaining, and ramping up excitement levels to fever-pitch.

And if fever pitch is reached for whatever reason, it's time for a little toddle outside, surely?

She explained why she could not have this chat at home. Coffe shops are public places, not playgroups

100% with you, OP. I detest people like this. Mannerless, selfish idiots.

There’s a difference between interacting and winding the child up so much that it’s screaming.

Given her friend has an autistic child, so has likely been that parent with the noisy child, I think her friend may well have been embarrassed or offended by the behaviour too.

It's not the OP's fault you find that GIF triggering, either.

No-one expects silence, but encouraging screaming is a bit much.

The place for screaming toddlers is outside, unless they happen to be at home.

They were playing with their baby. No doubt if they'd used a screen to keep the toddler quiet, you'd have posted some snarky comment about parents these days not interacting with their children. I think you were being unreasonable to expect a public space to be quiet. It's a cafe not a library. If your friend was almost reduced to tears by a baby, then maybe she shouldn't have come out into public.
People are so intolerant of babies and toddlers.

She can't expect people in public to be quiet if she can't ask her husband to be quiet in her own home.

@GCAcademic
Well it's just semantics really, isn't it. "Winding the child up so it's screaming" (presumably happily), versus "playing with a child enthusiastically to keep them entertained and happy". I'd call it the latter, OP would obviously subscribe to the former description. Either way, my view doesn't change that is not an antisocial behaviour.

I say this agreeing with the sentiment of your comment entirely as it relates to the OP’s AIBU question… But yours is such an unnecessarily mean post. Why do you have to pick her apart like that?