Update: a restaurant in America has banned screaming kids. Read Mummy-Tips’s blog on the subject
At AlphaMummy I once wrote a post about children in pubs and how everyone should quit screeching that kids ruin the whole “slowly getting off my face” experience. After all, there are all kinds of people who ruin the pub experience for others. For me these are: screaming girls talking about the “wild night” they had, groups of men who hog the bar so you can’t get up to the front to order, and televised sport of any kind. I’m happy to admit that to some folks these may be things that make a pub visit simply peachy. So we each gravitate toward the places that fulfill our expectations.
Now the anti-kid, anti-family vibe has seeped out of the pub and invaded the cafe.
On a neighbourhood blog in Balham, where I live, a resident complains that families have taken over our neighbourhood cafes to talk about Gina Ford and baby massage.
“…other people, apart from a very few good friends and family members, find other people’s children very irritating and don’t want to spend their down time being with or listening to the hubbub that comes with anyone under, lets say 10 years old. Yet, in Balham, that is virtually an impossibility during the day and at weekends.”
Believe me, I know how irritating it can be to be child-free and have to negotiate pushchairs, highchairs and children toddling glacially in front of you. When I lived in New York City, I avoided certain parts of the Upper West Side and Park Slope, Brooklyn, on weekends because I couldn’t stand the Maclaren gridlock. Then again, I also avoided 14th Street and Times Square on Saturdays, because that’s when those places were rammed with clueless tourists taking pictures of taxicabs.
So maybe this kind of curmudgeonly talk is just part of urban living. Someone will always be annoying us and kids, who can be messy and loud and darned inconsiderate sometimes, are among those annoying people.
John Comyn, who goes to one of my favourite local pubs The Nightingale, hates a lot of his fellow pubgoing types. He details them in a recent article in the Publican: people who complain about the price of pints, people who pay for one drink with a credit card, and – of course – parents who “slurp your Pinot Grigio, bleat about house prices and ignore the fact that you’re being willfully blind, smug, inconsiderate gits” while little Tarquin and Jemima run riot.
It’s nothing new, the enmity towards families and children. It’s understandable too. We’ve all been places where the parents sit by while their offspring wreak havoc.
But are we really misantropic as to ban children from certain cafes? The idea of calling something “child-free” sounded anti-social to me even when I was child-free. A no-kids-allowed restaurant/pub/cafe sounds like the kind of place where people sit around bitching about families. How fun!
Better to create an atmosphere that encourages the grown-up behaviour and thereby discourages little Thomas from running laps round the dining room yelling “Charge!”
There are some great cafes near my house that I would never go to with my daughter because they’re obviously set up for the young and single set – tables wedged in close together, rickety chairs, food for grown-up palates. I sought out these kind of places before I was a parent and so should people who can’t bear the sight of a baby slowly gnawing a rusk into mush.
Of course, owners and managers have a responsibility to make sure everyone behaves responsibly in their shops; that includes children. If tearaways have changed your favourite spot into a setting for Lord of the Flies, have a word with the manager and ask them to intervene. If they don’t or won’t, seek out a more mature venue for spending your hard-earned money.
But don’t sit having your coffee and sulking because the cafe is too child-centric. Stop that pouting and please just grow up.
Picture: Garden Tea Party by Peppercorn_pixie via Flickr.com
Funny, I’ve changed my tune on this recently. I used to think it was anti-family to have child-free cafes, etc. when my kids were younger (and screamed a lot.) But now that they are older and it’s (generally) other people’s kids doing the shouting, I am much less tolerant. Not to the point of thinking children that should be excluded from such places (tho why you’d want to take a child to a pub is beyond me. Sorry! I’m American!) But yes, I do think that if a child is raising a ruckus – even in a family=friendly establishment – and the parents aren’t addressing it, the parents should be advised that it isn’t a lot of fun for the other people who are paying to eat/work/chat there. But maybe as I age I’m just more and more of a Neanderthal!
Delia Lloyd
http://www.realdelia.com
I think that it is parents who are in the wrong but no one is willing to say “Control your children” as a society we are used to children running riot and I find it very annoying but people with children dont seem to hear it and cafe owners are not willing to alienate their clientele so I am stuck wih tutting loudly as in my area there is not a coffee shop or bar that I can go to that has no children in
Some cafes ARE hideous full of kids. But they tend to be the ones at weekends where working parents who don’t spend enough time with their children and can’t control them just let them run riot. Which is wrong.
I think taking children out is essential, otherwise how will they learn how to behave? They do need watching and controlling though. And of course there are places I’d avoid with a buggy.
I rarely take my two under-fives to cafes because it stresses me out and bores them to tears (literally)! However, I always try to be very tolerant of kids out in pubs, because I know all too well that tantrums and suchlike make parents far more miserable than strangers.
I agree with all of these comments here. It is a bit of the “all the bad parents are ruining it for the rest of us”. I’ve gotten to the point I’ll just get up and intervene if kids are behaving badly in a public place, along the lines of “Let’s not throw bread rolls, kids. Keep them on your plate.” I may get some leeway as an American or maybe I’m just imperivous to dirty looks.
Like ~Mama, when my daughter was young there was only one cafe I took her to. It had room for parking a buggy, an aggressively child-friendly menu and toys for kiddos. Other mums packed into the nearby Starbucks, which was more trouble than it was worth (no room for pushchairs, tiny bathroom, etc).
And Delia, I totally agree: when kids are being loud and obnoxious we aren’t tolerant of it. Maybe that’s because when my daughter was young, if she had a tantrum somewhere it meant we left right away. End of story.
I really wonder why more people don’t say something, either to the management or directly to the parents?
You go to a café to spend some relaxing time, spend your hard earned dosh… if you’re not prepared to tell people what doesn’t please you you can either lump it or go elsewhere (not always easy or possible)
When my two were small I nearly bust a gut keeping them entertained, but teaching them how to behave in different situations and places. For me that was normal and any tantrums (mine or theirs) were removed right away.
Now they are brilliant (bored teenagers) but they know how to behave and I have no worries about taking them anywhere. But then, I also don’t have trouble doing the “let’s not throw the bread-rolls” act (great one that – children like being talked to and engaged) and if that fails to address the parents directly. In a sort of “oh I remember those days, have you tried…”
Failing that it’s a word with the manager/owner and then I’m off. Having said that, I do get away with a lot of this because I’m British in Germany and the British are (astoundingly) known here for our good manners! If I’m teaching manners, most parents think of that as a kind of free expensive English Nanny! (maybe I should invoice them)
I wouldn’t object to child free cafe’s if there were some child friendly ones where I live. I would love to go out and have coffee with my friends but it is so hard with a young son who obviously wants to be entertained. If there was somewhere to go where he had something to entertain him then the people that don’t like kids in cafe’s could avoid it!
I have mixed feelings on this – here in Canada we can’t take children into pubs at any time of the day which means if we want to eat out we have to go to restaurants even if we want something more casual.
We do leave if Maisie is being a nightmare (or take turns taking her outside, for a walk, etc) but I would hate for cafes to have a “No Children” policy.
And 123 I think your tutting is a HUGE part of the passive agressiveness that makes this a problem. Either gently speak up (to the manager, the parent, the child) or leave. Tutting doesn’t help anyone. (Maybe we can ban tutters before kids?)
Do you mind if I quote a couple of your blog posts as long as I provide credit
and sources back to your blog: https://www.jenography.net/2010/10/do-we-need-child-free-cafes/.
I’ll aslo ensure to give you the proper anchortext link using your blog title: Do we need child-free cafes? | Jenography. Please let me know if this is ok with you. Many thanks