Didn’t realise my mates wouldn’t take their wailing kid out…. defriend?

[Newstart2024]

I have a group of parent friends from maternity leave with my kids…
Sort of a recipe for disaster but yesterday we had planned a 3:30pm cinema trip to see Moana 2 with the kids and a 5pm pizza and express/early new years.

My parent friends have young children as do I but I left Dad and our 1 year old home, took my 4 and 6 year old who I knew would do okay through a film or if not take them out….
Sat next to a friend and her just 4 year old and for 20 minutes halfway through the film he was crying/wailing. After a few minutes I said “why don’t you take him to the lobby” there’s seats and it’s quieter there but she just kept saying to him “we can’t leave.” And Shushing him! Her husband was there and they have another older child, but one parent could go out and one parent could stay surely?
People started staring and I was cringing so hard!
Finally after 20 minutes her partner got up and took the little kid out. Not least he was clearly tired/upset and not enjoying it?!!
I didn’t realise my friend would be the be the type to sit there with a wailing child and not leave. It totally ruined the trip!

Then after in pizza express my husband and 1 year old joined us and another friends 4 year old boy is basically obsessed with her and at some point, despite us on our guard against it (which isn’t relaxing) and even his own parents warning and watching him he tries and sometimes succeeds at whacking her on the head. Which he did last night whilst I was sorting out my own kids food and dropped my guard for a second…..
I don’t know why, he always gets told off but he always does it!
AIBU just to keep it to chats and the odd at home play date?
(Granted cinema and pizza express never going to be easy but felt like those two things potentially avoidable and sitting next to a crying child was mortifying!)

Yeah, other people are assholes. Dreadful
behaviour from the other parents but seriously nothing surprises me anymore.

There's quite a chasm between total silence and screaming for 20 minutes.

And an even greater chasm between screaming all the way through the cartoons and main feature, as happened back in my dad's day, and 20 minutes of wailing.

I think expectations may have changed a lot more than children in that time. It's normal for children to be noisy and active. They were at a screening of a kids film. I don't think it's quite as serious a transgression as the OP imagines.

I'd be more concerned about the four year old hitting your baby to be honest, your first duty is to keep her safe, and she's not safe around him.

I'd have no time for that at all

How much did the evening end up costing you??

Sitting for cinema then sitting again in. Restaurant is too much for young kids

I have to agree it seems ridiculous to me you were changing a nappy and unable to protect your own child from a four year old. Frankly if it took you stopping and removing the child with poo covered hands that would be preferable to an injury to your baby. This ongoing situation is not acceptable. If you decide to continue the friendship, there must be consequences each time he approaches your baby, she is not a punchbag. This may sound harsh, but if you are scared for the safety of her eyes it may be too late next time.

I would not be wanting to hang around with children who are permitted to ruin trips out.

I say that as a mum who has removed my overwhelmed autistic child on many occasions. There's no point in letting him ruin a film for 20 minutes, he's not enjoying it, I'm not enjoying it, no one else in the room is enjoying it, so a swift exit is the answer, as frustrating as that is.

My first action would be to be selective about where we go to avoid situations that the child doesn't cope with. With my own child, even as a teenager, a "nice" meal out is something predictable and formulaic like Nandos or an Indian or Chinese. There is no point attempting anything fancy where he'll start panicking over not knowing what something means on the menu. When meeting other families, something active like soft play and walks always worked best. They could vent energy and they could choose between being sociable or doing their on thing.

I would not be mixing my baby with violent poky child. There's no point in socially meeting in that combination if I'm having to double parent my own children and watch out for a poorly parented child that will harm mine. The child's parents need to be hawk-like with him.

If these are friends that you've met solely through having children of similar age and there's nothing else to bind you together without the children, then incompatible parenting values are something worth letting the friendships slide over. I can't enjoy time with people who will let their children ruin other peoples' experience or cause harm.
If they are trying and struggling despite doing their best, that is different.

What kind of message do you want to send to your children about friendships? Are these friendships the type that you'd want your children to make in school? How do you want your childrens' school friends to treat them?

I'm not a smug parent (child last escorted out of McDonalds at age 11 because he was brewing for a meltdown, and no body went to McDonalds to listen to him escalating from grumbling mood to rage mode- staying would have done no one, including him any favours), I'm just a tired parent who'd rather have a few good quality friends compatible with my family's needs than to compromise my child's coping zone or feel compromised by other peoples' less than half-arsed efforts at parenting (and I encounter plenty enough of them at my youth groups...)

I actually get this, I have a friend who has a child who is 5 now. I absolutely cannot stand spending time with my friend and her child when they are together. I have no idea what happens because I enjoy time with my friend when she doesn't have said child with her. I can also happily look after her child when my friend is not there. But I actively avoid any meet ups involving her and her child together.
So it's not even a dislike of my friend or her child, it just that when you are with them together it is very very stressful

I experienced something similar but not identical with friends whose children would always fight loudly and aggressively in public. Neither child is neurodivergent or has behavioural issues. They were just very used to behaving like this, unchecked. The older one would always be aggressive first and the younger one would wail. This was way beyond your usual sibling arguing. Always happened. Every restaurant meal, every park trip, every playground visit. It was every single time, every hot chocolate trip in Costa etc etc I found it super stressful and my children were alarmed. It was screaming and hard hitting, not a bit of mild arguing.

Friends would tell them to stop but nothing beyond that. After a few hopeful attempts we adjusted how we socialised with them. We continued with home and outdoor stuff (I feel like sound is absorbed better outside!) but minimised going out for dinners. Their children thankfully grew out of the magnificent tantrums. And my nerves remained intact.

surely it's on the parents of the child who wants to hit a baby to remove THEM from the situation.
that's like suggesting that the parents of the children not crying at the cinema should take their children out of the screen

that doesn't justify them being allowed to hit people. the parents should stop him.
I'm autistic myself, and it makes me really angry when people think that someone should just put up with being hit, and ignore the behaviour because "they can't help it" if they really can't, the parents need to make sure it doesn't happen.

child, hit's a baby, and people are expected to just accept it because they're ND?
BS.

doesn't sound like they're the sort of people that would stop him running around a restaurant, does it.

could have shoved the nappy in his face.
he sounds spiteful. if his parents don't supervise him properly and enforce boundaries, he's going to go through life as a bully, and maybe worse.