Really upsetting letter

[agaazaa]

I am not normally upset by such things as other peoples letters, but today in the Travel section of the Times under Readers Rants - someone has written in complaining about a flight they were on for 3 1/2 hours and it was ruined by children either behaving badly (ie like children) or screaming. This has really upset me. Travelling with children is really difficult and quite stressful, but travel does broaden their little minds.

Did anyone else see this letter? Should I respond? I don't like to get into a slanging match about it, and think most parents who read it will respond anyhow.

One of the things that annoys me is when you hear people who havent got children and arent teachers going on holiday in school holidays and complaining about the number of children on the plane/beach/by the pool etc. One of the reasons we try and go abroad is that countries eg france, Spain , greece, Portugal, turkey etc are extremely child friendly. Eating out as a family is much easier and cheaper on the whole than in england.

God, I hated people with kids before I had mine!

This country is so anti-family that I regularly want to emigrate. For one of the highest birth-rates in Europes we are remarkably anal about children.

Also, we are regularly harrassed by non-parents going on about their taxes going on our children's education etc. (we'll probably have to cough up for ours due to long waiting lists).

I am too kind to remind them that their retirement years and nursing fees will be subsidised by my irritating child, tomorrow's tax-payer.

You are kind Clucks because I have pointed it out at work before now. My colleague claimed he would have sufficient savings to pay for is retirement. But I pointed out that it would be my DS he would be paying to empty his bins, give him medical care, pull his pint etc.

Not to mention changing his bedpan, taking his blood-pressure, and, eventually, digging his grave!!

Imagine a world that was just one big old people's home - minus the staff. Yikes! I wonder if the childless moaners ever imagine that.

Aloha you really get to the point don't you?

Has the Sunday Times gone completely anti children. This Sunday it published a letter from somebody regarding Rick Steins restaurant in Padstow. Apparently a baby in a pram was not allowed in - fire regulations. The person writing the letter said the real reason was probably because the customers wouldnt want to be subjected to a screaming baby. It was in the review(Winners Dinners).
On a positive note thumbs up to Raymond Blanc. We went as two families early evening to his "Petit Blanc" bistro in Birmingham. The kids were made verywelcome. They had their own menu of good quality.
Most importantly there was a note on the menu saying that children were not just accepted but positively welcomed. But then he is French
helen

I wonder which of Rick Stein's restaurants it was, helenmh? The Seafood Restaurant does not allow children under 5 (or 7, can't remember which), which I think is fair enough as it is quite an 'adult' restaurant where I don't think it would be appropriate to take very young children. On the other hand his other two restuarants, St Petroc's Bistro and Rick Stein's Cafe do allow children and whenever we have been the staff at both places have been fantastic with dd.

Clucks

so are so unbelievably right, I never understood why the English have so many children, yet it seems like they're not welcome anywhere and you have to go to family friendly resorts, restaurants etc.

I do travel quite a lot withh dd on my own, and every flight has been a nightmare, I remember after a really exhausting one a fellow passenger came to me (by that time, drenched with sweat, cheeks red with scracthes, dirty clothes, witch hair and breathless), 'your dd has behaved so well, we haven't heard her at all''yes I said because I killed myself to make sure you didn't!!!'

Anyway, i can understand that some older children may be ill behaved because of their parents, but Mr Edwards also refers to screaming infants, now that's a good one!! Babies cry, that's tough!

I believe however, that he's not just against children, he seems to belong to a more general group of 'complainers' who are intolerant towards everythign and everyone.

I remeber in my working days, when I was reading the Metro magazine (free mag in London), every day someone would rant against all of the following:

mobile phone users
laptop users
people wearing hats
people with umbrellas
people with bulky lugagge
women (not men funny enough)with endless shopping bags
people with coffe
etc etc

I get a feeling that people have just got a lot more intolerant towards each other and are just looking for excuses to get angry, Mr Edwards is just a very good example!!

(having said that, he does not deserve to go unpunished, as he had teh guts to write this to a national newspaper, but more to the point I would like to know, why the Sunday Times would print such an idiotic and useless letter?????)

Soothepoo I think the point was that the baby concerned was only 4 months old so wouldn't really have disturbed people but I can understand that it would be hard to say for example no children between 1 and 5 years.

Wasn't there something in the media (think it might have been on the Today prog I heard it) about there being a new 'class' of people in this country who could be referred to as 'The Meldrews'. The grumpy, intolerant, Mr Edwards type of person who never has a good thing to say about anything and spends their whole life with their blood pressure up about something. Shame really, because I think it is their own lives they ruin by being constantly angry.
Anyone who can hear much of a noise from children over the racket a plane makes must be out to listen for it anyway!

I would never eat in a restaurant that didn't allow my children in. We take our son (2 years old) out with us 95% of the time and he has eaten in all sorts of restaurants from the local indian to some of the fanciest restaurants in london, los angeles and new york. He is always well behaved and eats everything we give him. He generally makes less noise than many of the diners around us and doesn't annoy those around him by lighting up a cigarette just as their main course is delivered. Granted he is a little messier than most, but we always leave a generous tip to make up for the extra cleaning. If he were ill-behaved we wouldn't take him out and subject others to him. Similarly, my stepkids had terrible manners when I first met them. You couldn't even take them to the supermarket much less a restaurant. It didn't take long to teach them what acceptable behavior was in public and now I can take them everywhere. No one wants to be around screaming children, but that doesn't mean you should never be allowed to take children anywhere. Like most things, it should be up to the discretion of the parents to determine whether their children can behave appropriately in a restaurant and make their own decisions whether to bring them out or not.

Both our kids have fabulous manners (or at least, my dsd has, and my ds just has an angelic nature - truly!) and they go everywhere with us. We took dsd for afternoon tea at Brown's Hotel in London for afternoon tea (v snooty) and baby (11months) came too and I was sooo proud of both of them. perfect. Today in Ikea (yes - I know - I promised my mum and as she was robbed at knifepoint on Friday (seriously), how could I refuse) my ds and all the other kids I saw were behaving beautifully, which was more than I can say for the adults. I saw one little girl who had hovered in an aisle for a moment when her mother said to her (very unpleasantly) 'If I push this trolley over your foot, you'll cry. So MOVE!'.' What a nasty-mouthed bitch. A simple. 'excuse me, darling' would have been perfectly adequate.

Oh my God! I think that mother with the trolley was me!!

Tinker

Tinker, I was just thinking the same thing. Ikea brings out the worst in people! I don't think I've ever been there without getting into a slanging match with someone in the parking lot and I normally never fight over parking spaces. A few months ago when I was 8.5 mo. pregnant I was loading ds out of the car in the Ikea parking lot and this couple shows up to get into the car next to mine. As I was not moving fast enough for them (being pregnant does seem to slow you down), the woman pushed past me and slammed my car door shut (luckily i had the keys in my hand) while I was still getting stuff out of the car so that she could get into her car.

I wouldn't eat in a restaurant that wouldn't have my kids either, sophiaAmes. We've been eating out with ds weekly since he was a baby, and we can take him anywhere. DS2 is following suit.

I don't have a problem with restaurants which do not accept children, particularly for dinner. All restaurants aim for a certain ambiance & clientele and a no kids policy may be part of that. I too am aiming for ds to be well-behaved in restaurants - we try to take him out once a week - but I also enjoy going out to dinner in an adult environment. There is a place for both child friendly restaurants and those not allowing children.

I agree that beautifully behaved children shouldn't spoil anyone's meal out - but suppose the problem is that not all kids are beautifully behaved. I take ds out quite a bit - to child friendly restaurants, but there is no way I'd take him to some smart gastro-extravaganza place. He wouldn't sit still long enough, he would get grumpy, he would get vocal, I'd have a breakdown etc etc. That's not to say he's badly behaved, he's just two and 3/4.
Equally I've been in smart restaurants and not noticed the children sitting at the table next to me - and been to smart restaurants and had the meal ruined by badly behaved children sitting at the table next to me. I suppose that a lot of restaurants have imposed bans rather than risk the latter. And to be honest, I can understand why.

A few weeks ago the Editor of the Winchester Chronicle (in his 50s, childless) wrote that all parents with prams should be banned from the the town centre on Saturdays.

This was in the editiorial of the paper and his reason was that the prams got in the way of other people tyring to do their shopping and why can't they shop during the week when everyone else is at work and not barge their way through the shops on a Saturday.

I phone the paper to complain but I was soo angry.

Tinker, you had to be there. I'm absolutely sure you don't talk to a timid-looking four year old as if you were a prison guard dealing with a particularly unpleasant paedophile. And I'm not joking about the threatening tone of voice. She was just plain a nasty person. It really took me aback. I wouldn't speak to anyone like that. I always console myself that one day her daughter will talk like that right back at her. It wasn't even crowded.

I've been to a smart restaurant and had it ruined by sone a* next to me constantly taking mobile phone calls. And as SofiaAmes points out, children don't light up a cigarette just as your food arrives. Well, mine don't anyway.

We did once tip a waitress £10 when she took our rather lively children away to an empty table and kept them amused by drawing and playing games with them.

Susanmt, there's nothing new about grumpy old g*ts. I vividly remember my db and I doing our best to irritate the ones that lived near us, teehee!! And my mum remembers her tetchy grandparents and neighbours. Maybe these folks just get crabbit with encroaching old age and we actually ought to feel sorry for them.

aloha, I was in a cubicle in Top Shop with DD2 and heard a woman in the next one tell her mildly whingeing small son "if you don't shut up I'll punch you in the face".

Mind you that was in Burnley.