At what point is it rude to take a baby to a performance or event?

[expatkat]

There are weekly art openings and readings in my small town due to the artist and writer-heavy nature of the place. I take my kids to the openings because of their social naturepeople even bring their dogs!but I tend to leave the kids at home for the readings UNLESS I can manage to get the little one to sleep in her buggy. And if she does wake up I am out of the auditorium in half a second, so as not to disturb the reader or the audience.

Isn't this the normal, thoughtful way to behave?

But there's a mother with a 3-month-old who takes the baby to readings. Often the baby "talks" over the reader. You can see the mother in the back trying to calm the babyrocking her, walking herbut that, to my mind, is even more distracting. Sometimes she'll traipse loudly through the auditorium to the loo area to calm the baby there, but I think she should just GET OUT OF THERE. So do most other people--but no one has said anything to her.

Now, as it happens in April I'll be reading with her husband, an up-and-coming novelist. They will obviously bring the baby and I just KNOW she'll be making distracting noises and I find it terrifing enough to read. Do I say something to the mother in advance? Bear in mind that if I do, this mother, who is a much more successful & known poet than I am, will tell every poet in America that I am an uptight bitch PLUS her husband, whom I quite like, will hate me. Or do I wait and see if the baby makes noise andif she doesmake some sort of a joke at the podium like, "I'm sorry--whenever I hear a baby I feel like I should whip out a tit or something. . ." (Not that that's a good joke, but you know what I mean.)

AM I uptight? Or am I right to want to read without competing with a baby? How would you handle this, knowing that even a polite chat will make waves with this kind of a person.

You have the right but she has the connections, I wouldn't say anything at this reading but at the next one when neither you or the baby's father are involved.

Who knows, maybe ife her husband experiences in his own flesh how bad is to be distracted by a baby they may not allow for the next time...

good luck and lots of patience

Good for you, Expatkat, in being so sensitive and sensible in takig your own chld out. I would do the same.
However, I think you have to hold back on saying anything about your own reading, unless the venue can be prompted to do anything - not just for your reading, but for all others too.

I run a theatre, and tho' we are user-friendly to all sorts of people's needs where we can be, if people come wih a child or baby, we make a point of being helpful and friewndly, and reserve them a seat closest to the exit and say "for the sake of other members of the audience, and out of respect for the actors, if your baby cries, perhaps you could bring him straight out and we'll give you a nice cup of coffee in the cafe"How well do you know the man you will be reading with? He's unlikely to feel distracted by his own child, but could you say to him "can you read when you can hear your darling crying? It completely throws me" in a freindly way?

But all in all, i think it is the venue's responsibility to manage the audience!

Good luck with the reading, hope it goes really well.

ExpatKat, you took up your scholarship then! Congratulations.
I think Blu is absolutely right - any intervention would be best coming from the venue management (and now you're going to say it is run by a collective of yours and the couple's friends and literary contacts). Or could a third party who doesn't care what anyone thinks take up the cudgels on your behalf?
However, dare I say that, given what you have told us about her especially, you might need to start focussing on techniques to minimise the distraction from the baby and just assume the poor little mite will kick off at some point.
But you are most emphatically not uptight. It's bad enough performing other people's words but to be on a stage being yourself and reading your own stuff? Eeek. Good luck!

Offer to look after the 3 month-old for a few moments in the hour before the reading starts, take her/him out of sight and get 5 mils of Piriton or other sedative down her/him!

ExpatKat - so pleased you went to the US and took the scholarship. I think it is quite rude for her to stay with the child. I can understand if it is her contact time with the rest of the world and a true love of hers to be at these readings but some consideration to the reader and listeners is needed.

I agree that it is the venue's responsibility so why don't you get them to do the dirty work of letting her know she should leave when the baby makes too much noise. If it's a small close community and you don't want to approach the venue face to face then write them a letter and don't sign it. Knowing you, you'll be diplomatic to say the least.

Otherwise, at the next reading offer to take her baby for her when it makes a noise as this might start up a friendly conversation between you both and maybe a friendship. Let her know you're offering out of her best interests so she can finish listening to the reading and you know how important it is for her to be there or some such other stuff like that.

Hope you are well.

Piriton, Blu

What excellent advice, all of you. What's interesting is you all agreed that I shouldn't be the one to talk to the mother. So I won't.

There isn't exactly venue management, here, but there is a guy called the Writing Coordinator who has a very adaptable job description and wouldnow that I think about itbe someone who could nicely & inoffensively address this. I will whip off an email to him. I'm pretty sure he'll be discreet.

Yes, I took this up, Marina, thanks partially to yours and others' encouragement. Will be back in London soon, though, as the 7 months are coming to an end!

Meanmum, hi, just saw your post. . .(you were another one who helped with the decision to move!) Nice to see you back, even if only temporarily & congrats on new baby! What a good idea to offer to take the baby for part of the next reading. I think I might try that.

ExpatKat I can't believe your 7 months are almost up. If you're returning to the same area you lived in London before you left (same area as me) then I would love to catch up for a coffee when you are back. There's a great new coffee shop in the are with very yummy cakes.

would love that meanmum. We're practically down the street as I remember. I've sent you my email address via 'contact another talker.'

Just to follow up on the original topic. . .I spoke to said Writing Coordinator who is friends with these people and clearly not enthusiastic about doing anything. He suggested that maybe the audience should all take the first rows, instead of spreading out all over the room, in order to be as far away as possible from the baby, who tends to be in the back.

He also said he warned tomorrow's reader that there may be a loud baby present, and the reader responded, "Oh, I LOVE babies, I don't mind that at all!" OK, fair enough: but what about the audience members who want to hear her?

And I saw the baby's parents at an opening today and they were terribly nice. Their niceness plus the writing coordinator's apparent inability to see my side of things made me feel that perhaps I'd been too harsh. . .?

But the fact is, there are about 20 people who do agree with me, two of whom are very unhappy that their readings were ruined.

If I had to make a guess about the mother's motives. . .she strikes me as someone who is very proud & perhaps surprised to have a baby of her own (& aren't we all to some extent!) but is just a bit too in-your-face about it. There's something exhibitionisticI'm convinced of itof her making a song and dance of lifting and jiggling her baby and trapising up and down aisles loudly during a performance. She's not a bad person, but at some deep level she seems to want these events to be about her being a mother. Does this make sense? That's my take, anyway.

ExpatKat, I think she's very rude. I went to a show when dd was 12 days old and I was really worried about her making a noise and upsetting everyone. It was a kids show but still, the parents had come to see and hear their children perform and I didn't think it was fair if a baby disturbed their enjoyment so I sat near the door ready to leap out immediately if necessary. I think this woman is even ruder than if it were a children's show, given that it's poetry and the audience really do want to hear every word. I do feel for you, what a difficult position to be in but given her connections I wouldn't say anything to her either. I hope her husband is irritated by his own baby, I really do. However much one loves babies, I can't see how hearing one at an event like this can be anything other than very annoying. Is it her first? Do you think she is on a "it's not going to change my life, I can go anywhere with a baby" kind of thing? Blu, at the Piriton! I agree also that it's the venue's responsibility but it doesn't sound as if they're going to help. Could you put up an anonymous sign saying something like "children and babies are welcome but please could you leave quietly if they blah blah blah. Similarly, please turn mobile phones off" ? I mean, no-one thinks it's OK to answer a mobile or have it on during this kind of thing do they, so why she thinks a baby crying/making a noise is OK is beyond me. Good luck with this and your reading - let us know how it goes.

On Fridays at my childrens' school, there is a family assembly where the children get up to show their good work etc. (one week Juniors, the next Infants) they give out certificates, there's a star child of the week and so on. It's a whole school thing and I go every week. Unfortunately so does another mum who brings her 2 pre-schoolers. The children constantly eat sweets with crinkly wrappers, talk, bang on things etc and quite often many of us cannot hear what is going on at the front of the (small) assembly hall. This mum also sits with her couple of friends who also have at least one pre-schooler behaving in the same way. Like you when my ds was little I would sit by the door and scoop him out as soon as he murmured.

oh dear i am the dissenting voice. i think it's ok to bring babies to events and i don't think they need to be removed at the first peep or gurgle. i also think discreet distraction and comforting, e.g. walking about (quietly) is ok. i'm surprised other mothers here take a view that we almost have to apologise for having babies and that they must be tolerated or only there on suffrance and only then if they are unnaturally quiet.

obviously it would be polite and proper to remove a baby or toddler if they were extremely and persistently loud and disruptive.

Agree with BossyKate.

We used to get this at primary. The Leavers service in particular there was always a request for mums not to bring little ones. Every year I arranged for someone to look after my 3 & every year I'd get there to find others hadn't bothered & they'd spoil the service.

expatkat, that "in your face" comment really says it all. Not quite the same situation but I get a commuter bus in the mornings (8 am) which actively discourages children until after 9 am. Unfortunately although it charges full fare for children, under5s are free. There is a woman with a toddler who gets on some mornings & she does this "I've got a child- everyone look at me" thing. He has to choose where to sit while she stands in the aisle in everyone's way. This week she decided it would be nice for him to sing... (she was actually saying "how about singing such n such", it wasn't a spontaneous act by the child) I'm sorry but at 8am on the way to work having left my 4 at home I don't find someone else's childs singing at all cute! Her whole manner with him comes across as "isn't he wonderful". Yes we all think that about our own children, but there is a time and a place for it Unfortunately I couldn't think of anything to say that wasn't rude.

No, no, no bk, I don't think it's NOT OK to bring babies to events, not at all, but I do think it's a shame if it's a poetry reading or other performance and a baby makes so much noise that the performance can't be heard properly. I certainly don't think we have to apologise for having babies or that we should merely tolerate them, not at all! Not at all, really. But I do think there are appropriate times and places and a theatre/performance space is (mostly) not one of them. And I don't think we should leap out at the slightest noise but I do think a baby crying should be removed, in this instance anyway.

I don't agree on the school thing actually. If my son has a school show I have to take dd or I can't go - I don't have a day time babysitter. It's a children's show, at school, and you just have to expect a certain amount of noise from siblings in the audience, especially at a day time performance. I would take her out if she was screaming or very loud I think, though I'd try walking about and calming her first.

Tallulah- I used to have to take my 3year old on a bus twice a day until he started school in order to take him to nursery as I had to work. I had no choice as there was no where to park where I worked and no nurseries closer to home. I hated every minute of it. The morning wasnt so bad but at the end of a long day in nursery he was tired and used to whinge and cry a lot on the way home. It was hard enough coping with him and feeling so guilty for doing this to him but we had recently been homeless and I had to work to avoid going back to b& b again so had no choice.
The times we went on the bus coincided with office people going to work as I too worked in an office and so he was the only child on the bus. It was hell having to deal with all the dirty looks and comments I got from other people on the bus. I would very often go home and vry as I did not know what I could do. In the end DH would go into work late every day so that he could drop us off and my mum would finish work early and drive 45 minutes so that she could pick us up and drop us home just to avoid 20 minutes on the bus.
Please dont judge people. You dont know why shetakes her child on the bus and I'm sure a singing child is far better than a crying child. I got comments and stares whether ds was crying or not.
Sorry to have such a rant but itbrought back a lot of bad memories.

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agree on museums, galleries, shops, cafes, etc.

when i read posts like yours below, tallulah, i really feel the need for an eye-rolling exasperated emoticon.

fancy taking your toddler on the bus! the SHEER NERVE of the woman! she should be SHOT!

ffs.

Completely agree, bk. My heart bleeds for the poor woman on the bus (you too, hercules).

Tallulah - Why shouldn't the poor woman have been using the bus before 9am? You can't just assume that women with children only use a bus to go out shopping or to do something that could easily be done later in the day. When my eldest child was ill I had to get to regular hospital appointments by 9am. Other parents may need to get their children to nurseries, childminders, relatives etc.

If the bus is so crowded that there is no room to stand/sit then surely the solution is to provide extra buses - not ban parents with children? Are we going to start treating parents who use public transport as second class citizens with curfews?? That's what "Stay off the bus until after 9am" sounds like to me!

tallulah - God, really hope we live in different parts of the country because my normal day to day life would drive you spare if our paths crossed. To suggest that pre 9am buses should be child free is just ridiculous and ageist. It would be just as stupid to say that pensioners should not be encouraged to use the bus at these times as they may slow people up getting on and off the buses and possibly irritate those precious work workforce if they dare to drift off for a moment and start to snore!!
As for school events, have you thought that maybe some parents can?t leave their children with anyone else and have only two options - miss their elder children?s performances or bring the younger children with them? Perhaps they might just be sitting there feeling rather uncomfortable themselves witht he set up knowing that their youngest isn?t really wanted and yet feeling that they have no choice for the sake of the other child?
I don?t believe the world revolves around children and I do expect good behaviour and respect for others from them (well, my eldest - the youngest is only 4 months). Surely it just comes down to basic commonsense. I wouldn?t take my girls to the theatre as they would be bored and would upset others. However, I am happy to take them into libraries, art galleries and museums - in factk, i think it is important that they do. These are not exclusively adult places and those who believe it is vital to be able to look at a picture in uninterupted silence needs to have a reality check. I jsut can?t believe how intolerant other mums can be - not everyone has babysitters on tap.

sorry for typos - baby on knee.