Banning loud children from restaurants, airplanes

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So this thread has gone from unruly children being banned from a restaurant, to mothers should never breastfeed in public? Because it's supposedly disgusting?! What I find disgusting is being subjected to adults who can't keep their mouth shut when they're eating, which happens constantly. What I also find disgusting is being subjected to prejudice for doing something completely natural, like breastfeeding my child.

You can't simply bring bottles for babies to drink to restaurants.. what if they won't heat them up for you? Some places over here have a sign at the door/counter saying they don't heat bottles or baby food. Breastmilk is naturally warm, you know, as it comes from your body. Plus, not all babies tolerate bottles when they're breastfed. Teats are not nipples, and they flow a lot quicker than nipples, so the baby usually can't cope with the amount of milk thrust upon him/her.

Children ostracised from public view and socialisation turn into adults. If you don't take them out and teach them manners in public, they wont know what's rude and what's not when they're out on their own. And believe me, there has been many a time where I've wanted to deck an adult in a restaurant or any kind of public place, a lot more so than children.

When my baby's born I will be taking him out, as procreating is not a life-sentence or a reason to be put under house arrest. I will be breastfeeding, as that's perfectly natural and legal to do (what's quite shoddy is the fact that my government has had to make it a law to stop discrimination). And if someone dares come up to me and tells me to shut my damn kid up, I will be contacting management of the venue I'm in.

And as for the profanity in this thread, wow, I think if someone were to use that kind of language in a place I'm eating, I would complain. A child crying is nothing compared to an offensive adult. I don't regularly come on here anymore, but I remember a time where people were reprimanded for using excessive profanity in their posts. Using offensive language does NOT make your point more valid, and in fact usually causes the opposite effect.

Incidentally, breastfeeding is very effective way of making a baby "STFU."

Ohh if I could "like" a post, it would be this one!!

*LadyMacbeth likes this

I disagree with the ideas of GoonSquad,

I have seen women breast feeding, while I do not think it is right, normal or healthy for me to stare at a woman using her breasts to feed her child. If I happen to see a women breast feeding, then I am not offended, if I was offended it would be my problem.

I hold the view that it is impossible for me to hold a view that a breastfeeding woman is doing anything wrong (even if she does it in the street, train, cafe etc etc). To suggest that a baby feeding on the breast in public is wrong is just as invalid as saying that it is wrong for a man to sit in the park and eat his fish and chips.

Now who's trolling?

The point is, what you and I find okay, others may well find offensive. And just because breast feeding is natural does not mean it must also be an acceptable public activity.

Urinating is natural, but it is not generally considered acceptable to do in the middle of a restaurant.

This whole thread is really about the importance of common courtesy.

Courtesy is born of good theory of mind and well developed empathy. I realize that those aren't strong suits for a lot of aspies, but it's something WE ALL NEED TO WORK ON--they're the traits that separate human beings from human animals and very important for letting large groups of people live together in relative harmony.

Here the authorities have spent millions and years persuading mothers that "breast is best" and that bottle-feeding is tantamount to giving kids cold poison. Only for these mothers to then be told that it is DIRTY AND THEY SHOULD HIDE IT like the filthy beasts they are. It should not BE considered an offensive activity, and it is wrong to make out that it is. As has been said, its tantamount to complaining that people are EATING in the RESTAURANT!! ! OMG NO! Filthy beasts.

Yes, people should be courteous and considerate, but it is a two way street, and this thread has been filled with people being downright rude and insulting to people with children and the children themselves, lumping them all together into one huge rude gestalt, which they are not. Many of us as parents do our level best to raise our children to be polite and well-mannered. WE understand that there is a difference between a misbehaving child unregulated by parents, and a child in pain or distress, or hungry or simply happy. Maybe some people should show a little more consideration before they start bitching and moaning that they can't eat their peas in quiet.

Maybe you all should read http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/s ... ode=404342

The essay by Kevin McCarron can be summed up with the words

"Etiquette is prescribed, learned, sometimes ruthlessly deployed; good manners are flexible, sensitive and always designed to affirm the dignity and worth of the other person" (His words quoted from his essay)

In addition to GoonSquad's list, add farting, burping, scratching yourself (especially some places), picking your nose, adjusting your panties if they "crawl" (even just from outside your trousers) and probably lots of other stuff that didn't come to mind just now.

Yes.


a) Yeah, it's hapened since the end of time, but in civilised society it's not common to do it in public. People have been born naked too, since dawn of time, and they still dress up in civilised society befiore going out. the rest of us have no need to see their body parts! b) BS; the baby can be bottlefed when they're in public. c) So? That's absolutely no reason to do it in public. Maybe people should have sex in public as well, since most people never seem to tire of it. d) TMI

Which is what I tried to do, even if I didn't react quick enough.
And if they insist on doing it in public, they sure can't complain about people gawking.
If you don't like it, look away? Well, how about if you don't want attention, don't do it?

One doesn't have to go back longer than the grandparent generation before kids were taught to behave and did so in the company of adults. Which is all you can really control. I have no doubt that they could be every bit as bratty as modern kids can be when they were out of adult supervision, but at least they understood that they wouldn't get away with misbehaviour in front of adults.
If you think kids today have the same discipline as they had back then, then you're ignorant. It has become a big problem in schools here the last 30-40 decades. Kids who don't keep quiet in class, or run around, disturbing the class abd interrupts the teaching. My elementary school class is a good example of that. When this is a problem even with 11-12 year-olds, there is something profoundly wrong with their upbringing. For that very reason I applied to catholic school when I was transferring to junior high, because St Sunniva had a rep of having disciplined pupils and quiet classes.

With the prices they keep on restaurants one certainly deserves to eat peas in quiet.

If those things were on a par with feeding a baby, as you stated, you wouldn't consider my statement trolling because you wouldn't have an issue with them happening in you living room, in the same way as you don't have an issue with your sister breastfeeding in you living room. The point of that post being, they clearly aren't on a par.

As I said previously, babies can't just switch like that. They have preferences, as do we, and if they're used to feeding on natural milk, from a natural orifice, they will more than likely not take a bottle without constant coaxing. And therefore, a breastfed baby will be causing noise beyond human tolerance, and we're back to square one. Would you rather a screaming baby than a baby on the breast which is usually covered from view by their head?

And if your argument to that is "well mothers should teach babies to drink from a bottle as well as a breast if they want to go out in public", you're treading on very shaky ground. No way am I going to placate a few people who might have a problem with my baby being fed from my anatomy by buying a steriliser, a bottle, and formula. Oh yeah, and forcing my baby to drink from a rubber teat!

It IS accepted in civilised society, and it always will be. Just as there always will be people against it.

Oh yes, the golden age when children were "taught to behave"..

http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/769

Really well-mannered.

http://www.faqs.org/childhood/Wh-Z-and- ... Gangs.html

So well behaved.

I could go on proving that children have always been ill-behaved but google is right there. So now that old bit of bollocks is out of the way, lets get on to the fact that the disposal of bodily waste bears no relation to feeding a baby. The fact that people actually think that they are comparable says a great deal about modern society and it is not favourable.

Quite frankly I hadn't read your post when I posted my last one so I wasnt aware of those aspects. I guess things aren't as black and white as I thought. I wasn't aware of the no heat posters, or that babies can react to the bottles or get too much.
Thank you for explaining that in a decent way and without sarcasm.

Give me some credit; I certainly understand that you can't teach a baby to do that.

Sorry, think I'm getting dragged into the unreasonable argumentative bunch on this thread! I'm sure someone will say that at some point; just pre-empting it!

Macbeth are you going to let your kid be loud and obnoxious and just let your baby cry and not do a thing about it because you wouldn't want to leave your food? Are you going to take it to the cinema and let it cry in the auditorium without taking him or her out to the lobby because you won't want to miss the part of the movie?

What happens when a mother can't breast feed and her baby refuses to drink from a bottle? Now what?

I agree with the banning of crying/screaming/unruly children from restaurants. If I go somewhere to eat or have a coffee I have a right to do that in peace. And if my child were disturbing the other people in the cafe/restaurant, I would leave to respect the other people's right to eat in peace.
To stay in a restaurant when your child is noisy is RUDE and inconsiderate. Even I know that.
And what are people thinking taking young children to a movie theatre are these people brainless? (unless it's a special youngsters session, where screaming children are okay. They have those in the mornings here.)
I always took my son home if we were out in public and he started screaming. And he was a screamer, a lot of the time.

Breastfeeding in public is fine by me. I did it. It's not like we flop our breasts out for everyone to see. And it's not a sexual thing. That is where I think people get offended, because they confuse the breast as being a sexual thing instead of a nourishing thing for the baby, which is what the breast functionality is.
And my baby would not drink from a bottle, so it was not a matter of choice for me to put my breast milk into a bottle. And why the hell should I?