“The cafe is not your child’s playground” – this is the tweet from Clementine Ford that caught our attention earlier this month. Mine particularly since I am acutely sensitive to children’s screaming in public places (actually at home as well) . But also because I have a noise-maker myself. I like to call him Ethan, because he’s my son and that’s his name.
And then there was this response to Clementine’s tweet from Samantha Maiden who wrote “can you cut out and keep for when you have kids? Will make you laugh. Can’t really pick and choose when toddler loses it.”
Before I had Ethan I used to look at kids “behaving badly” in public with abject horror, and when I say behaving badly I mean making a noise. I didn’t get it. When I saw them crying in public I felt sad for them and wondered why their parents weren’t comforting them. When
I saw them being loud and rambunctious I felt sorry for myself that I had to listen to the noise.
Now I’m not saying that I am perfect, far from it, and I don’t mean to imply that I know more than any other person who doesn’t have a child but I am saying that the way I look at these things has changed. I now understand where it’s coming from and I often feel deep empathy with the mother .
I know that it’s bloody hard to have kids that aren’t robots. Some times they act, well they act like kids and this means they cry, they shout, they laugh very loudly and they often react to the world with great (loud) wonder. They also talk. A lot – well at least Ethan does.
Does this mean that he should stay at home all the time?
Of course I am going to try my best to teach him right from wrong, and instill in him manners that dictate there are certain times when he should be seen rather than heard. I’ve used the words “inside voice” and “this is not the playground” more times than I’d care to admit but sometimes, just because this is the world he’s growing up in and he has a right to be part of it, I allow him to be himself. Even in public.
Seems though that there are a couple of places I wont be taking him to. Like this one. where you have to pay the equivalent of corkage for your kids. The Huffington Post reports:
When 34-year-old mother Natasha Young got her check at Cosmo Restaurant in South London’s Croydon, she noticed an extra £3 (around $5) on the bill. She asked about it, and was informed the fee was for bringing her 6-week-old son along, the London Evening Standard reported.
Ana Sheridan, 28, also got charged when she brought her 6-month-old daughter to Cosmo’s. Her baby, Sheridan says, wasn’t even taking up room in a highchair; she was sitting on her parents’ laps and being breastfed.
The subsequent uproar and media attention prompted a formal apology from Cosmo Restaurants (Croydon is only one of their 12 locations), which can be found on their website.
Then there’s this from the US, where one restaurant has banned children altogether. From MSNBC in the US:
Beginning Saturday, children 6 and under are no longer welcome at the restaurant in Monroeville, Pa., just outside of Pittsburgh. [McDains] They’ve just become too much of a bother for the other customers.
“Parents have gradually diminished their cooperation,” he said, adding that the new policy is strictly in response to customer complaints.
What do you think? Should restaurants be able to charge parents to take their kids to restaurants? Should they be able to ban children altogether?
Top Comments
We don't have kids ourselves, but we have a big extended family and we all go out often with all the kids in tow. It's fun, it's noisy and we choose fun noisy places to go to, usually with a kids menu, high chairs and room for the prams. Kids are happy, we love it!
But sometimes we just want a night out on our own. We don't often go to 'nice' restaurants as just us two and when we do go, it's for a special occasion or a rare romantic dinner out. We choose venues that suit these occasions eg great food, quiet ambience etc, or as I like to call them "grown up places". No tv's on the walls, obnoxious drunks, hen's parties, bucks nights or excited teenagers high on alchopops. And we are willing to pay good money for all of the above. So why should we have all of that ruined by a bored, tired child at the next table who clearly doesn't want to be there? Why would you even take children there when they clearly don't cater for them?
Parents need to remember that other patrons think they have the right to have a quiet romantic dinner with their partner as much as they think their energetic toddler has the right to bang the cutlery on the table.
As a mum of a 9 1/2 month old girl, I say noooo!
However, I once went to Daniel in NYC (one of the best) and a couple next to us had brought their screaming kid. To dinner.
The restaurant staff handled it beautifully - the couple were asked if they wanted to move into the kitchen to eat, at the Chef's Table. The parents must have been morons because, after having made the decision not to hire a babysitter while they went for their $200 per head meal, the husband then says he wants to inspect the proposed kitchen table to see if it's good enough.
Geeze, I wish they'd offered us that table, as we were right next to this couple and we would have run into that kitchen so fast the hotplates would have gone out.