AIBU to ask a mum not to put her toddler on the counter

[saltyshakey]

Today a mum with a toddler was in a cafe and went to the counter to pay. She was carrying the toddler and popped the toddler on the counter as she got her purse. I said I’d feel a bit more comfortable if she took her off. She did so but then I heard her talking to her friend about how rude I was. WIBU?

Cafe worker or owner?
Im sure when i worked in a cafe we had a sanitary spray handy.
....imagining a explosive shat in nappy 🤣

Same in Aldi/Lidl - adults letting their kids sit on the benches where you are meant to pack your groceries - so unhygienic, rude, entitled and ignorant

It doesn't matter if the bum is clothed. Bums on tables or other food surfaces is something I personally was brought up to believe was unhygienic, basically because it is. If you did a food hygiene course you'd soon be told it's not OK to plonk your bum on a food preparation or serving area. And I don't think you'd be that keen if you saw staff doing that in a restaurant or takeaway. It's not nice, it's not hygienic and it's not done! Anyway, this toddler could quite likely have been wearing a soiled nappy.

I think it's really strange to say this to another customer. Also I reckon the average person's hands are more germy than clothing and what are you going to do- order that people remove their hands from the counter?

That wouldn't bother me because cafes have antibacterial spray to wipe the counter down, but was does annoy me is people sitting their kids in the main part of a supermarket trolley. Just no!

Since when is the space at the till a food preparation area?

Another post where I think I live in a different reality to MNetters!
It's a toddler on the side! The side where dirty coins, people's hands, the bottom of trays etc are.

YWBU telling a stranger off for this. And totally weird.

Only time I would be uncomfortable is if I happened to know it was a very fragile glass and dangerous. If you work in there for example.
Did you know theyve invented something called surface cleaner?

Obviously this all hinges on whether you run this cafe. If so, then it is reasonable to ask, but how reasonable it seemed to her will be all in the tone. If you were just another customer, then unless the kid was sitting bare bummed on the cake you wanted to buy or was standing up and the mum being totally negligent, then it was weird and unnecessary.

...And in todays episode ✨things that didn't happen✨

It wasn't up to you to scold people. It wasnt your cafe. Stop being a busy body.

Totally agree with you @saltyshakey. Our local cafe has an area for staff to put your drink and cake or snacks and I really object to mums sticking their little ones on this counter.
See also kids standing in shopping trolleys. No! My food is going in there, possibly uncovered fruit and veg or a French stick, I don’t want it contaminated by whatever is on your child’s shoes! Sit them in a proper trolley seat, surely it’s not that hard?

Lots of cafes put things like scones and cakes on the counter, to tempt people into an extra. If somebody is sitting right next to them, and then farts inches away from them - even whilst wearing clothes - that's not the most enticing prospect.

You realise trolleys are kept outside? If you’re lying unpackaged bread on it there are way bigger issues from pests than a toddlers shoe.

Oh dear

Unless it’s your cafe I don’t think it’s up to you to tell people whether they can plonk their kid on a counter. If there were uncovered plates of food on the counter then she probably shouldn’t have done it, but that’s for the cafe staff to decide. If you were simply another customer, and you felt the staff weren’t enforcing adequate hygiene, then the thing to do was simply leave and go elsewhere.

If you like pretending you have rule over the lives of others, you can be a parking warden? They are always in need of people, I hear.

Yes, exactly. Trolleys are kept in trolley bays on car parks! They’ve had rain, pigeons and flies on them; a toddler isn’t going to make it any worse. There’s a reason they give you paper bags for bread!

Also, do people not realise that goods in tins, jars and packets are kept in warehouses and stock rooms with minimal cleaning regimes and handled by factory staff, warehouse staff, stock room staff, shelf stackers and other customers before they put them next to their veg in their trolley? Bit weird for anyone to think the trolley could be somehow sterile 😂

Hygiene reasons. Child should not be on counter where food being served. And yes you were keeping the hygiene standard in your job.

The trolleys are kept outdoors where all sorts of nasty germs can get on them, along with fumes from cars and rats etc climbing on them. And the tins you put in the trolley with the rest of your food are stocked in warehouses, floors and are in no way clean.
Surely you just wash your fruit and veg before cooking them.

If I could just refer you back to every (anti) dog thread on here ever, we are not allowed to compare children with dogs.

Yes I do! And my bread is packaged and that bag will sit on my worktop.
And yes it is irrational but I still don’t like it.
I just put my shopping into my bags now as I walk round the shop.

Are you employed by the cafe? If not, I can’t imagine this even entering my head to say something about, much less actually do it.

Meh don’t see anything wrong with it if there was no one food on there.

I just never understand why people express themselves like this.

I mean, ideally keep your nose out. But if you can't, say clearly what you mean!

"I don't think it's hygienic to have your child on the counter."
"I don't think it's safe to have your toddler there as she might fall."

Not "it makes me uncomfortable".