It's a cafe, not a creche so leave your brats at home.

[MmeLindt]

I don't really read the DM of coursel

Lovely article.

Ok, I hate it when DC are allowed to rampage around a restaurant or cafe, but I do hope I never sound so smug and judgy as this journalist.

The noisy, misbehaving children are far more noticeable than the quiet well behaved ones.

"Life would be so much better if these 'mothers' would just stick to their own zones (toddler groups, swing parks and home), preferably wearing pinnies and housecoats and sensible shoes."

No, life would be better if all mothers controlled noisy, ill-behaved children when they are in an environment that is not explicitly for children. I expect mine to behave differently in Starbucks than they do in Kidspace. Mind you, they don't necessarily behave differently until I remind them.

As for the comment about dads - I find that mine behave better for their father because he isn't the one yelling at them on a day-to-day basis. Also, it usually is a mother with them because it is still more common for the mother to be with the children whilst the father goes to work.

Well ideally my dd's would be well behaved and thoughtful at all times, but doesn't everyone have an off day, or meet up with friends whose kids are more unruly than yours? Also I want to teach my children how to behave in social settings, rather than only taking them to child-friendly shouty places. They are pretty well behaved children, but sometimes babies cry and toddlers have tantrums in supermarkets, I think when these things happen the parent should do something about it and apologise to the people around them.

"I think when these things happen the parent should do something about it and apologise to the people around them."

And that is the point she was making. "I could have kissed her, for finally I had seen a parent actually keeping their child in check and not subscribing to the current trend of using coffee shops as drop-in centres for free childcare or a more adult friendly option to softplay"

Unruly children have no place in places that are not explicitly for children. If they can't behave, take them out.

And no, I do not have perfectly behaved children. I have a Good Child and 2 live wires (putting it mildly) who get removed from/not taken to places if they can't behave appropriately. It was a good 6 months before I took them back to Pizza Hut after DS2 would not sit down nicely.

exactly hazeyjane, parents should. but not all do. when there are toddlers zooming round a place where there are steaming hot mugs of cappfrappamochachinos, then my heart leaps into my throat. I used to work in a coffee shop, burning myself is one thing, burning a customer whatever their age is mortifying. i dont even carry a tray with a hot drink on it, until all dd's are safely seated.

its not jus the social niceties, its the health and safety aspect of it as well.

in response to the title

"It's a cafe, not Club 18-30, so leave your selfish attitude at home"

children have as much right to be in a public area as anyone else. Of course if they are misbehaving they should be pulled up and controlled. I wish there was less of a culture of assuming that children = trouble however, it makes life very difficult for everybody. Also think it's worth mentioning that adults too can be antisocial, self-centred, obnociously loud and irritating - we seem better able to attribute this to their individual personalities rather than clamouring for the banning of all adults, or all old men, or all middle-aged gaggles of women with fat arses.

I used to work as a waitress in a family pub with a soft play attached.

The kids would run riot.

I hated it as I was convinced that one day I was going to drop a boiling hot plate of food on some child's head.

I don't necessarily agree that children should be seen and not heard but it's true that they need to learn that certain behaviours are not appropriate in certain situations. And running around like a banshee in a pub is one of them.

Is it only me who has got to the point of not really giving a sh** what the child-free world thinks of me?

I am a lone mother of 2 boys aged 6 and 2. I live in a VERY child-packed area of SE London. Sometimes I have them with me and I want us to go and have a coffee for me and juice or milkshake for them. And sometimes they play up. I tell them to be quiet in the usual ways and usually say 'any more of that and we're going' etc. But I don't leap out of my seat and go as soon as ds2 squeals or ds1 raises his voice.

I haven't noticed anyone sneering at me, probably because the area is so full of kids mine are unlikely to be the worst ever, but if I don't take them out and teach them how to behave when are they going to learn? And (perhaps more importantly) when am I ever going to be able to sit down in on a rainy day and have a flipping latte without DM types judging me?

Children exist and tend to be louder and more active than adults. This should not require their exclusion from public spaces.

So how exactly are they supposed to learn if they are confined to burger bars and manky soft play places.

btw when I say 'any more and we're going' I DO follow through with the threat and go if they start up again. This inevitably leads to ds2 having a tantrum so I become the hassled mother piling screaming toddler into buggy while ds1 runs ahead and has to be called back. It's HARD to train kids to behave well in public places, this does not mean carers of children should be excluded from them if they are making an effort to control them which imo most of us do make.

TBH she sounds rather envious of the yummy mummies in their Ugg boots and designer jeans who monopolise 'her' cafe from, quote, 9am to 2pm. They sound as if they're having fun. She feels left out.

Thing is if the local Starbucks and Cafe Neros and whatever have been colonised by the yummy mummies, doesn't that make them their zones?

A lot of Starbucks would go out of business if Yummy Mummies (how I loathe that phrase) stopped going there.

They certainly would around here TheCrackFox.

morningpaper at wonga

i've always looked down on it as lazy prostitution of one's life, one's family, one's friends and one's associates but now i'll look up at it as prostitution of one's life, one's family etc

by it, i mean of course the vomiting of the minute detail of one's life and opinions thereof onto a newspaper column