Posted on 11/10/2005 5:42:34 AM PST by ellery
CHICAGO, Nov. 8 - Bridget Dehl shushed her 21-month-old son, Gavin, then clapped a hand over his mouth to squelch his tiny screams amid the Sunday brunch bustle. When Gavin kept yelping "yeah, yeah, yeah," Ms. Dehl whisked him from his highchair and out the door.
Right past the sign warning the cafe's customers that "children of all ages have to behave and use their indoor voices when coming to A Taste of Heaven," and right into a nasty spat roiling the stroller set in Chicago's changing Andersonville neighborhood.
The owner of A Taste of Heaven, Dan McCauley, said he posted the sign - at child level, with playful handprints - in the hope of quieting his tin-ceilinged cafe, where toddlers have been known to sprawl between tables and hurl themselves at display cases for sport.
But many neighborhood mothers took umbrage at the implied criticism of how they handle their children. Soon, whispers of a boycott passed among the playgroups in this North Side neighborhood, once an outpost of avant-garde artists and hip gay couples but now a hot real estate market for young professional families shunning the suburbs.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
"But many neighborhood mothers took umbrage at the implied criticism of how they handle their children"
They should. Frankly, many parents do not "handle" their children in public, which is the problem in the first place.
How utterly awful that parents should have to teach their children that there's a time and a place for boisterousness!
The owner and the mother are on Fox and Friends right now.
Invasion of the Soccer Moms
I'm a sanctimonious grandma but when my 5 year old grandaugher gets loud or rambunctious in public, I hold her and talk quietly to her... if that doesn't work I tell her we'll go outside and we'll do a "holding time out." That almost always works and then we discuss whether she is hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. HALT
Not home, so I can't watch....
Manners have disappeared in this society. Self-centeredness rules the day.
LOL ... Interesting business philosophy. Either this guy has never heard of "The customer is always right" or he's trying to be the Soup Nazi of coffee.
NO LATTE FOR YOU!
He should post a sign that says anyone who has a child they describe to people as precocious, please leave immediately. Precocious is fancy talk for an ill mannered, loud, spoiled brat to me. This business owner has the right to run his business anyway he likes. Good for him.
Bad writing, IMO.
I suspect that he decided to get out of the day care business.
"I love people who don't have children who tell you how to parent," said Alison Miller, 35, a psychologist, corporate coach and mother of two. "I'd love for him to be responsible for three children for the next year and see if he can control the volume of their voices every minute of the day."
Umm, nobody's suggesting that the volume be controlled every minute of the day. The few minutes (or longer) when he or she is in an adult establishment, however, is not too much to ask. And if that can't be done....? Well, maybe you shouldn't be frequenting these places.
Yes, you have a right to relax, but not when it tramples the rights of others - who cannot relax in the presence of your screaming child.
Why do these parents always assume it's only childless people who are annoyed by their children? I would think that parents of well behaved children would be especially intolerant of the brats, since they work hard at teaching their children to behave in public.
My mother was a firm believer in pinching.:)
What a bunch of b*tches the "mothers" in this article sound like. Control your kids or keep them home, and stay home yourself.
And yes, I have a kid, and she was pretty boisterous herself. So, guess what, we didn't eat in restaurants until she was old enough to behave.
I hate my generation, the generation that decided to stay 16 forever. Such a waste.
We find it difficult to enjoy evenings out thanks to brats like these--and the parents who encourage them to BE brats. Nothing spoils a good dinner like a child who shrieks in your ear--for the entire meal.
I love kids, but the decible levels give me headaches, and I really hate it when they do things like pour salad dressing down my back or walk up to my chair and start kicking it.
I hate it even more when the parents of these brats just smile as if to say, isn't he (or she) cute?
No, they're not, not when they behave like that.
Sign in coffee shop: "Unattended children will be given an espresso and a free puppy."
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