to have said what I did to a perfect stranger in the library?

[Dragonbrandybutter]

This morning I went to the medical library at the hospital to request some journal articles and get some advice from the library staff. The library is open 24hours a day but only staffed during normal working hours. I'm about to start a new job and need to study.

I decided to go this morning with my 18m DS2 while DS1 was at nursery.

DS2 was babbling away while i was looking for the books i wanted, he yelped a bit while i was filling some forms but was quickly entertained with a pen and paper. He wasn't throwing tantrums or being especially loud. The staff said it was fine to have him with me and gave him a teddy to play with and said people do sometimes bring their kids in.

Out of nowhere a bloke walks up to me in one the aisles dressed i think in a nurses shirt and says, 'Do you think it's appropriate to bring children to the library?'

Here's how the conversation went...

nurse: do you think it's appropriate to bring children to the library?

DB: sorry?

nurse: i said do you really think it's appropriate to bring children to the library?

DB: yes, i do, i am just as entitled to access this library as you. i won't be reading here i've just come in to collect what i need then i will study at home.

nurse: well i don't think you should

DB: do you think it's easy to study when you have kids? why don't you go away and mind your own business?

nurse: it's supposed to be quiet, the quiet area is just over there

DB: well go to the quiet area!

nurse: ok, but if i can hear your kid from there...

DB: then you come right back and tell me about it and see if do anything about!

nurse: walks off muttering "no respect"

DB: no, i don't (pmsl, what possessed me to say this bit i don't know, perhaps some pathological need to have the last word)

So, was i assertive or rude or should i just not have been in there at all?

Why does it have to be so difficult to get my career back on track after having kids? Don't people understand that?

combustiblelemon, but i did look around and most people were on pc's and wearing headphones so i knew i wasn't bothering them.
Mobile phones and bleeps are allowed as some people go there for a break and to facebook while they are on call. In the area i was in there is also photocopiers and printers. It's certainly not that quiet.
There is a big quiet area and i really wasn't in it. I wouldn't have gone in there with a child.

I would have said

"Would you have challenged me if I were a man?"

Because that's all it is - bullying.

DB - I second Stayfrosty. people get v. weird with mums. I'd add that it has something to do with ambivalence towards their own experience of being a child.

I used to take ds into Birkbeck library. I'd have taken him out in seconds flat if he'd made any noise. I'm completely anal about noise and food in research libraries. Apparently it's written into the constitution of Birbeck Library that children can be taken in by students. Part of their policy of inclusion.

it would have been awful if somebody had come up to me and made all sorts of assumptions in a quite aggressive way. You feel so vulnerable a. when you're out with children b. when you're venturing back into the world after children.

It's your world too. Good luck.

mayorquimby, you're right he wasn't being silent. maybe with hindsight, a bottle of milk might have achieved that, but maybe not.

do you think that once we become parents our perceptions of what is noisy change? maybe i just have a different idea of what noise is now that i live with two toddlers.

Blimey, it's a good job he wasn't in my town centre library the other day then. I explained to DD (3) before we went in that libraries are quiet places and you mustn't shout, run around etc when bugger me, two school-aged boys came in and shouted about whilst wrestling each other on the floor! Their mother calmly wandered off to another area without a word to them and eventually a member of staff came over to tell them to stop fighting and to be quiet! I could understand if your LO was behaving like that but he clearly wasn't so well done you for standing up to him!

"You may not consider it appropriate but it is necessary

"I am afraid I am quite unable to fund a childminder for a whole morning so that you are not disturbed for ten minutes.

"If you had not stopped me to make your very rude complaint my child and I would no longer be troubling you."

well i didn't think DS was being that noisy but then maybe my perception of noise is all out of wack because my house sounds like a home for unruly boys at times.(that includes DH )

i think you were very polite.

its a library-not a morgue.and the staff were fine.

"do you think that once we become parents our perceptions of what is noisy change? maybe i just have a different idea of what noise is now that i live with two toddlers. "

that is precisely what i meant to convey and much better put than my post which reading it back now did sound a little attacking.
when people have kids perceptions of noise change completely but also where and when it's accceptable to make noise. e.g. noise is acceptable earlier in the morning with regards neighbours because what do they expect from a family with young children.ditto an occassion like this where you had to get something done and had to bring your kid along so noise was a by-product and while this guy probably could have bit his tongue for 5 minutes i'd imagine he equally believed that you could have organised to attend somewhere which is a by-word for silence without a noisey kid in tow (and as much as we drown out our own kids noises think how much we amplify others noises when we need absolute silence like this guy did)
or think of how parents react to noise e.g. builders or neighbours (especially teens or early 20's) playing loud music late at night when they have finally gotten their young children to be or they themselves have finally gotten a precious few hours to themselves for peace and quiet?
so yes both probably in the wrong and both most cetainly could handle it better. i don't know if i'd immediately go down the route of painting him as a woman hating bully as many on here seem to have. if he was working as a nurse i'd give him the benefit of the doubt that he's a decent sort (even if that is my own stereotypes shining through)

"people who will glare stonily at a mum with a babbling baby often become miraculously deaf when confronted with a large group of drunken lads swearing at the tops of their voices "

there's that factor too.i'm a young guy and am sporty enough that i wouldn't be viewed as an easy target. but i'd have to acknowledge that my principles seem to carry a lot more conviction in situations when i reckon standing up for them won't get me stabbed. although they did once get me hit with an emergency hammer on the train.

DB - If your child had been making a disruptive level of noise, isn't it likely that the librarian would have come over and said something? Nicely, but definitely have said something. Frosty's right, there is definitely a bit of a sliding scale of noise in libraries, some are noisier than others and there is always a certain level of ambient noise in the open areas.
"Inclusion" is a contested area at the moment, as we struggle to work out what the values governing our public spaces should be. The point about the Birkbeck policy is that it recognises that, in order not to actually exclude some students, children may have to be admitted sometimes, along with, I guess, a certain level of "noise". That level will have to be negotiated by library users. However, the librarians make clear that the starting ground is one of accepting that compromises must be made in the interests of access for all students.
Birkbeck is a v. quiet library, as it goes, probably because a lot of the users are mature and it is the only place they can study. Equally, i found it a place where students were incredibly tolerant towards the presence of a child. I think we all had a great deal of respect for each other.

My uni used to allow student parents to bring their children into the libraries and lots did - tbh, the worst culprits for noise were the mature (very mature!) students who used to sit in the quiet section and then clap each other in some kind of group study session . The children weren't much bother at all.

I don't think you were UR but maybe the nurse was feeling stressed himself and he took it out on you (wrongly).

snort at the emergency hammer
what you say makes sense. and of course taking DS with me to the library is not my ideal scenario either but on this occasion could not be avoided unless i was willing to pay £8 for two hours childcare (i already had to pay £3 for parking).
and i was only in the library for 30 mins!
it seems trouble found me very quickly.

Hmmmm, not sure about his people skills if he is planning on being a nurse...they could do with a bit of work!

Well done you for handling is so well - I would have turned red, muttered a bit and then cried

You were great, if it had been me the conversation would have gone:

nurse: do you think it's appropriate to bring children to the library?

DB: sorry?

nurse: i said do you really think it's appropriate to bring children to the library?

DB: yes, i do, i am just as entitled to access this library as you. i won't be reading here i've just come in to collect what i need then i will study at home.

nurse: well i don't think you should

DB: Well I think you should feck off because I really couldn't give 2 flying fecks as to what you think you insolent wanker.

So on balance I think you were very restrained!

so it's possible he was getting stressed about his work that he'd left til the last minute because his girlfriend tried to dump him at the weekend and hates him because he's a whinger and he doesn't want kids...
just as it's possible that i was finding it a total pain in the arse to have to take DS with me, meaning i wouldn't be able to fill in 15 journal request forms and instead would have to just pick them up and take them home to do later while the kids wrestle in the livingroom, then go back to the library once they were done...

when the two meet in the aisles of the library then what you get is a showdown of two people asserting their entitlement to study!!!!!!!

that's it isn't it!

Agree with the sublimated aggression theory. FO SHO.

what? sublimated what?

Wot StayFrosty said. Innit.

Aaii

I would defo ahve told him that he should eb quite and sit down seeing as we are in a libray.