I don't get why she was so mad that the parents ordered pancakes, though... it is a diner. That is standard fare. Don't have it on the menu. In her post, she was really upset that they ordered pancakes which I thought was strange. Next up, ice cream shop owner rants about people ordering malteds?

That's some really crappy journalism. If you go read the original posts that the article is about, the story appears to be:

- Parents ordered food, including three pancakes for the child.

- They were still waiting for their food after 40 minutes. There were no pancakes on a plate, in or out of the kid's reach.

- Their toddler was upset and crying for much of this time.

Most of the blame is on the parents, of course. You don't let your child cry and inconvenience other people for 40 minutes. You take your kid outside, or you give your kid a piece of bread to chew on, or you cancel your order and leave. Lots of solutions, none of which involve other people having to listen to your crying child.

That said, the owner definitely did herself no favors with her idiotic facebook post. Don't drive while drunk, don't post while angry.

Hmm. I think if I was the restaurant owner I'd've been tempted to set a huge, colorful, free bowl of ice cream with sprinkles, cherries and lots of sticky chocolate syrup on the table within reach of the child, and with a big bright smile, tell her she can have it if mommy says it's OK. And I'd put one adult size spoon in it. No way a 21 month old can use a spoon without making a complete mess, and no way she's not going to try to use it.

The blame absolutely is on the parents. They should have taken the kid outside.

Yes, the parents should have taken the little girl outside but I'm glad this lady posted her mean spirited rant. I wouldn't patronize that diner. 40 minutes at a diner is excessive and screaming at a child or customer is unacceptable. And then to post it on Facebook! She needs to grow up and be professional.

She could have used this as a learning opportunity. Perhaps she could develop a little snack pack with toddler friendly food and a couple of crayons and paper for less than a quarter. Happy toddler equals happy customers- it might not have taken that much.

Some people are problem solvers while others scream at babies.

Two sides to every story, and the diner owner's FB rant made her sound like a semi-literate nutcase.

40 minutes at a diner is excessive

You've never been to a Denny's, eh?

40 minutes does seem excessive, but we also don't know how busy they were. Perhaps everyone was ordering pancakes. While pancakes don't take very long, if there are 400 pancakes in the queue ahead of you, guess what? it's going to be a while.

My grandson is 21 months, and man, is it a difficult stage! He really, really wants to communicate but hasn't the vocabulary yet. So he points at what he wants, and like many almost-two's, tries really hard to do things he is absolutely not able to do. I just spent a weekend with son and family and I wanted to run away at times, and he's my (beloved) grandchild. 'No, you can't jump off the kitchen table' 'No, you can't go out on the balcony by yourself' 'No, you can't barge in when your sister is making pancakes'. It's probably 10x as upsetting to strangers. The parents of this age can be so used to it it doesn't faze them, which is probably part of the problem in this case.

We went out to eat twice while I was there and when he's hungry, he's hungry and will try to pull a hot plate towards himself, or lift a huge water glass on his own. It requires constant vigilance. Kids at that age have little patience, once you order they keep thinking about the food and get hungrier and can't wait to dig in when it finally gets to the table, sometimes with disastrous results if adults didn't step in and move plates, knives and glasses out of his reach.

Glad to say, son and DIL take turns taking him outside to run around , bring coloring books and other things, and keep him occupied between ordering and the food coming, and then get his plate set up quickly and get him started before he gets so hungry he has a meltdown. If something goes wrong and he wails, they go outside again, and don't subject other diners to it.

I think the remark about the 'oh so important pancakes' is a reference to the pancakes triggering another crying session. I'd guess they came to the table, the parents moved them away so she didn't burn herself, and she started to cry again. They want to do everything themselves, and can't.

The parents need to suck it up and do what they have to to keep the frustration level of the child to a reasonable level...set them up quickly with a plate of food, don't be hours late feeding them (this is the source of a lot of screaming in tourist-frequented areas, the kids are made to wait way too long before the parents finally stop to eat), and bring things to amuse them.

According to the owner, the diner is small. If it's brunch time, 40 minute seems like a pretty short wait, actually. If I go to a small, popular brunch venue on a Saturday, I'd expect to wait at least 40 min from ordering til my food is on the table. If the family also had to wait a long time for table, that poor kid is running on well over an hour of waiting.

My friends who have kids don't do brunch at popular places any more for this very reason. Or they go early, before the rush. This family was from out of town, so maybe they didn't know that this place would be so busy ... or their schedule was out of whack (as crella mentions) and this was the first place they passed on the roadside.

The restaurant owner seems like a nutjob (based on her rant). I don't disagree with her telling the family to leave, but she comes across as a toddler herself. At the same, parents who let their kid scream non-stop without taking the kid outside probably deserved a dramatic lesson.

Well said, crella. PARENTS should be the ones to supply the crayons, etc.

I suspect one problem is (aside from forgetting that strangers have rights too and parents' growing numb to their kid's screaming all the time) that many parents believe, for one reason or another, that if you take a baby/toddler outside every time it has a tantrum, you're "caving in" to the kid's demand for attention and making the problem worse in the future. Aside from the lack of scientific proof for that, maybe you can just ignore a tantrum at home or in a huge shopping area, but not where there's no place INDOORS for you to isolate the screaming. Take them outside and quit complaining.

In the meantime, though, Neugebauer didn't do herself any favors by using profanity online. Plenty of people are still left who don't want to do business with people who talk like that.

From Bratfree (19 posts so far):

http://www.refugees.bratfree.com/read.php?2,390135

"Another restaurant owner snaps at screeching brat (in Portland). Predictable backlash ensues"

Excerpts:

MerlynHerne: "Just checked on a Yahoo Newsfeed and as nearly as I can tell, all the posters are tearing the mom a new one, albeit nicely. I am so glad to see that people are getting tired of the breeder sense of entitlement. Seriously, what asshat sits there and lets their brat shriek and cry for 40 minutes?"

ex_lurker: "It never ceases to astonish me how many breeders really and truly believe that table manners aren't something taught in the home, but rather something their absolutely feral, unsocialized brat acquires by osmosis in restaurants from other, unrelated people. That's seriously the reason why people take screechers to 'nice' restaurants (IOW, anything a half-step up from Chuck E Cheese or McDonalds) : 'How will s/he ever learn to act in public if we don't take him/her out around other people?' The notion that maybe,just maybe , parents should try to teach kids how to behave in a civilized manner at the family dining table and leave the kid home till s/he demonstrates mastery of table manners, cutlery use, not getting up and running around like a maniac, shrieking, or eating with its mouth open...All such thoughts are utterly foreign to them."

The parents' behavior was abysmal. The diner owner's was worse.

Screaming at a child is not the way to resolve the restless, under-parented child's tantrum.

However, 40 minutes of a screaming child is enough to drive anyone insane.

==============================

The notion that maybe,just maybe , parents should try to teach kids how to behave in a civilized manner at the family dining table and leave the kid home till s/he demonstrates mastery of table manners, cutlery use, not getting up and running around like a maniac, shrieking, or eating with its mouth open...All such thoughts are utterly foreign to them." ~ Posted by: lenona at July 21, 2015 8:02 AM

As children, my siblings and I were taught table manners at home, and expected to exhibit those table manner whenever we went out. Screaming at restaurants was verboten from a very young age.

The table manners I've seen exhibited by some parents, however, should not be passed on to children.

I've watched parents grab a fork and stab it into a steak as if it were being used to kill a vampire, fork gripped tightly in the fist - all while tearing ineffectually away at it with a steak knife.

I've seen lots of parents parents holding forks with their fists, instead of cradling it like a pen.

So few people today seem to know to transfer the fork to the other hand to cut meat and transfer it back to eat the meat.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_utensil_etiquette

"So few people today seem to know to transfer the fork to the other hand to cut meat and transfer it back to eat the meat."

Some people prefer the continental method, and use the fork with the left hand.

Sounds like everyone involved here is an asshole.

Some people prefer the continental method, and use the fork with the left hand. ~ Posted by: dee nile at July 21, 2015 9:22 AM

Even practitioners of the continental method hold the fork in a light grip. Too many people these days attack the food with the fork gripped tightly in a clenched fist. Even in nicer restaurants.

Oh, yes - another exchange today at the same Bratfree thread:

Dorisan: "The principle of not putting up with breeder behavior stands; I would have told them to leave and followed up with the cops; but I don't like being around anyone who thinks that the loudest and foulest words accomplishes anything."

Peace: "If I was the owner, I'd be leery of calling the cops, because I'd be afraid that the parents would make up some horseshit story to the police, and the police would believe them. Especially since they have The Almighty Loaf with them, I wouldn't trust any cop to be impartial in this situation. I speak from experience in this. The neighbor's hellspawn set fires in my garden with dead leaves under a dead tree, and when I caught them, and called the police, they were quick to judge this as arson until they talked to the duh (that's "dad"), who convinced them that this was an accident, and that kids will be kids, especially since intentionally walking onto my property, making a huge leaf pile and setting it ablaze is such an accident."

I have 4 kids, the oldest of which is 4. My idea of a restaurant meal for them is fast food places, Chuck E. Cheese, the food court at the mall, or something to go so we can eat outside at a picnic table or something. They can decently handle these places because there is minimal waiting to order and then receive food. We have occasionally taken them to more normal restaurans such as Olive Garden and Claim Jumper (who provides a free baby plate with cheese slices and fruit to occupy them while you wait for food). This is usually at the insistence of my in-laws who literally say "well, they need to learn how to behave in adult places." They get whiny at times, usually because they are hungry and it takes so long to get food, but we actively try to calm them down and distract them with things, including videos on our iPhones, because we don't want to bother the other diners. Twice I've had to take one of the kids outside for acting up. I personally feel they are on the young side for real restaurants still so my husband and I don't take them there if it can be avoided. Our exception is a local sushi restaurant because they have three private or semi private rooms separate from the main dining area. We request one of them and that way the kids aren't disturbing anyone if they have a fit and if they just can't sit still they can wander around a little without getting into things. I have taken my 4-year-old, by himself, to a regular restaurant before. He behaved very well and actually was bothered by a screaming toddler at another table. He kept telling me "that baby's mommy is naughty for letting her cry." I guess he's learned over the years from me correcting him when he misbehaves in public. He would tell me I was mean or naughty for scolding him and I'd tell him I'd only be a naughty mommy if I let him misbehave and upset others.

I wonder what the typical commentor here considers screaming. I can think of twice I've heard/seen a kid scream, truly. Once, I assume some impairment and both times, mom/dad was right there putting on a desperate show of trying to calm the kid down lest some passing jerk find them in sufficiently humiliated. Lighten up, people. You were less behaved than you or your parents remember. You grew up or raised your kids 30 years ago when you could slap them. No, your mom did not walk out of the grocery store leaving her cart full of groceries in the isle, rendering you tantrum-free in 5 minutes, forever. Kids under 3 are subject to variable moods, regardless of parenting. It's just how the little beasts are wired. You can howl and complain and demand that parents keep them at home until they're 10 for your public preference, but, well, they're just not going to.

I wonder what the typical commentor here considers screaming.

Agree with you that sometimes people inflate "normal toddler noises, fussing and loud talking" to "screaming." I, personally, can recall just one time when a toddler in a restaurant screamed to the point I couldn't enjoy my meal. Like, red-faced, high-pitched, incessant screaming lasting more than 10 minutes straight. And, yes, I do agree people make more of a "thing" about kids being noisy in public than is warranted.

At this point, the only witnesses are the parents and the (crazy) restaurant owner. If, in fact, the kid was a marathon screamer and did actually scream at full toddler volume for 40 minutes, the parents should have taken the kid outside or, if it was raining, into the car. I don't think that's being unreasonable.

And, no, I'm not claiming my mom removed me from public once and rendered me tantrum-free forever. For both me and an my sister, it required several removals and, when we were old enough to know better, consequences for disturbing others. She knew it was important for us to learn to behave in public, but also balanced that with not disturbing other diners more than necessary.

@sofar, I like the comments better than the stories, which I assume are mostly fictional anyway. This one has all the markers of typical click trash. My husband and I are representative typical parents, and have good, well behaved kids. But I ran out of patience with unreasonable people in public pretty quick. I might have walked out of a restaurant once or twice, but really all that got me was cold dinner and a pissy kid. The whole point of that strategy as it worked for our parents was leaving them in the car and going back to your dinner. You can't do that now, you'll get arrested. So the concept of going outside is moot. They don't get un-hungry or un-hyper from exposure to the parking lot. If you can't take the public, stay home, I say.

"If you can't take the public, stay home, I say."- Allison
You're right, and someone needs to repeat that to the sneering, bitter losers at Bratfree, too.
... and yes, I've left restaurants and grocery stores and other places because my kids couldn't handle being there any more. It's just what you do. But these people who are offended that someone- some awful "breeder" who is so narcissistic that they would DARE reproduce- take their spawn out in public... well, heaven forbid. Everyone KNOWs that prior to 1985, children weren't allowed in public, ever!

...sneering, bitter losers at Bratfree....

Yeah, that site struck me as a bit pretentious. I mean "breeders?" C'mon.

"Look at us, at how sophisticated we are. Smart enough not to have children. Admire us. Worship us."

People have been having children for centuries. We were all one once, too. The folks at Bratfree act as if children are a plague inflicted upon them by careless "others."

Children are not yet in control of their emotions and don't have the vocabulary or sophistication to express themselves. A little patience is called for - as long as the parents are working on the issue.

@ahw, "sneering, bitter losers at Bratfree..." I love it!

@Conan and Allison: I KNEW I couldn't be the only one who felt that way.
Fer real, though, these people's contempt for children and parents is so intense that they had to start an online forum about it? Pathetic.

Sounds like parents of small children will avoid Marcy's Diner in the future!

That'll fix Marcy's wagon BUT GOOD!

Well, ahw, they have so much freedom and time, what better way to use it? And yeah Kevin, I'm sure Marcy's sells tons of pancake breakfasts to the sophisticated child free crowd. Her partner probably wishes she'd had her on a shorter leash.

From the article: She asked the family to leave, when they didn't...

Then you call the police and have them arrested for trespassing. Or at the very least, escorted off the property.

Well, ahw, they have so much freedom and time, what better way to use it? And yeah Kevin, I'm sure Marcy's sells tons of pancake breakfasts to the sophisticated child free crowd.

You're right! She'll be out of business in no time! Betcha she'll be sorry when all those parents with small children stop coming in!

Well, I'm planning a trip to Acadia National Park in Maine before the summer is out and, now, I think I will have to work into my plans a stop off in Portland to visit Marcy's Diner.

If nothing else, to show support for the owner that many of us do appreciate that everything isn't all about those "just pop 'em out" breeders and their ill-mannered rug rats.

Fer real, though, these people's contempt for children and parents is so intense that they had to start an online forum about it? Pathetic.

Posted by: ahw at July 21, 2015 2:10 PM
________________________________________

Not exactly.

After all, there's a lot of nasty spleen-venting in the classic 1980s book "The Portable Curmudgeon" (edited by Jon Winokur; it includes 15 interviews/profiles as well as a lot of quotations), but the point of the book is simply to be anti-sentimentalist, even if some of the members have inflated egos. So it is with Bratfree, most of the time.

As Winokur says in the introduction to TPC:

"...A curmudgeon's reputation for malevolence is undeserved. They're neither warped nor evil at heart. They don't hate mankind, just mankind's excesses. They're just as sensitive and soft-hearted as the next guy, but they hide their vulnerability beneath a crust of misanthropy. They ease the pain by turning hurt into humor. They snarl at pretense and bite at hypocrisy out of a healthy sense of outrage. They attack maudlinism because it devalues genuine sentiment.
They hurl polemical thunderbolts at middle-class values and pop culture in order to preserve their sanity. Nature, having failed to equip them
with a serviceable denial mechanism, has endowed them with astute perception and sly wit. Offense is their only defense. Their weapons are irony, satire, sarcasm, ridicule. Their targets are pretense, pomposity, conformity, incompetence. And they'll tell you that their targets are everywhere and multiplying like Smurfs..."

Also, from another childfree page:

http://asylums.insanejournal.com/childfree/424.html?mode=reply

Excerpt:

Belief: "So Childfree people don't want kids - we get that, but it's not necessary to be so 'activist' about it."

Truth: "It is, actually. We network, we share information on doctors who don't make us jump through hoops and undergo psychological testing and still stay 'sorry, won't do it', no matter what. We share information on birth control, we share frustration with others who understand and have been there - at being told we'll 'change our minds', or nagging in-laws, or getting told by a spouse after five years of marriage that they want children and that's that. We vent about not being allowed time off of work to care for infirm parents or roommates, when coworkers can frequently take off as much as they want to run their kids to soccer practice, and dump the rest of the workload on us. We vent about taxes, about lack of social services and help available for those without children, and at how baby-centric society has become - and it has. Haven't you ever personally experienced the relief and pleasure of being able to congregate and converse with people of like minds? If your whole family and most of your friends followed one political party that did not match your views, how would you feel if you met a group of people who do share your outlook on things, and you can talk to without getting yelled at or told you're crazy? It's no different here."

You're right! She'll be out of business in no time! Betcha she'll be sorry when all those parents with small children stop coming in!

Posted by: Kevin at July 21, 2015 3:06 PM
____________________________________

Not necessarily. A LOT of parents complain about bad parents, since parents pay good money to eat at places where they don't expect screaming.

I find nothing admirable about a grown woman acting mentally and emotionally as a toddler, to verbally assault a toddler. She should have addressed it to the parents, not the kid, I don't care what the kid was doing. AT that age they are not responsible for it, the parents are.

I've got 4 kids. I don't like the sound of whining/screaming/crying any more than the next person, but I would NEVER yell at a little kid.

A LOT of parents complain about bad parents, since parents pay good money to eat at places where they don't expect screaming.

Now they'll know where to go in Portland, Maine.

I wish we had a place like that in my city. Too few managers have the guts or common sense to do as Neugebauer did.

No, your mom did not walk out of the grocery store leaving her cart full of groceries in the isle, rendering you tantrum-free in 5 minutes, forever.

My mom left us in the car. For the entire grocery-getting trip.

We're not allowed to do that anymore, Pirate Jo. Also, the stores are laid out so as to make shopping with kids as difficult as possible. Once, mine grabbed a toy from a display, and 30 items went domino-ing down. I was right there holding his hand. But the stuff was stacked pyramid style on an end cap unavoidably close to the walking area at a 2-year-old's eye level. I will admit...I left that crap where it lay. If they didn't want it knocked down, they shouldn't have put it there.

My closest grocery store has a kiddy playland so you can drop them off and have them babysat while you shop. I've never used it because my kids are freaks and love grocery shopping and/or riding in carts. They only act up waiting in the checkout because they want the candy and toys that are hung there and are not happy they can't have them (I will make exceptions for books). When I was growing up I used to stay in the car to read while my mom did her shopping. That's just not socially acceptable nowadays.

Now they'll know where to go in Portland, Maine.

Posted by: Kevin at July 21, 2015 4:16 PM
________________________________

Exactly. In 2005, when Chicago's "A Taste of Heaven" owner Dan MacCauley posted a sign saying "Children of all ages have to behave and use their indoor voices when coming to A Taste of Heaven" (this was after seeing more than one adult customer look in and then immediately leave), the cafe was threatened with boycotts at first, but, according to ABC News:

"...then things began to change, when the story was picked up outside of the community and reported nationally. All of a sudden, McCauley said, the steady stream of angry phone calls turned into a tidal wave of support.

"Letters applauding the restaurant's stand against rowdy kids began to arrive from around the country, some from as far away as Singapore and the United Kingdom. McCauley even received some small checks from supporters worried he would lose business..."

(Amy mentioned the story in her book "I See Rude People." Other eateries have followed suit - and seem to be doing just as well as they did before and sometimes even better.)

BTW, regarding what Allison said about the stories at Bratfree being fictional, in her mind: Does one assume this about the stories at Not Always Right just because most customers, presumably, aren't that difficult to do pleasant business with?

@lenona, it isn't Bratfree specifically, sometimes when some item like this that isn't really what I'd call news gets "reported" like this nationwide, I feel a little manipulated. It isn't because I can't imagine people acting this way, but rather this story seems like a discussion prompt on some topic that the media likes to flog, like free-range kids or mommy wars. It may have happened or not have happened, but it's click and comment bait, and serves to divide two groups of people into opposing teams.

Tempted to go there to see if our kids can past the Marcy test!

" Everyone KNOWs that prior to 1985, children weren't allowed in public, ever!"

So. Were they told they were entitled to behave as they please, then?

Nope.

"My screaming child is just a child and that's what kids do, so deal with it!"

*Amen, ma'am, and let me add that this cloud of cigar smoke does whatever it wants. I just can't control it!*

A man can dream.

From a well known comic, circa 1996 (guess who):

"Someone--let's say me--might enjoy cigarettes, but not children. Does that make me bad? I think it just makes me different, and not all that different. Plenty of people would rather have a cigarette than a child, and it's about time we stood up and demanded no-children sections just like they have no-smoking sections in restaurants and airplanes, because a screaming baby on the Continental red-eye is as hard on everybody's heart and blood pressure as two packs of Luckys. Don't make me get the statistics, because there are none, which is ridiculous. If they study the effects of secondhand smoke, they should study the effects of secondhand screaming and bratty behavior.

"They say everybody loves kids, but that's wrong. Everybody loves their own kids. I don't like your kids any more than you like my cigarettes. In fact, your kids are the reason I smoke. A parent shares their child's joy and pain; I just get the pain. And children under two years old? They act like such...well, babies. Like screaming and crying is really a way to solve your problems. When I see how a child under two years old is behaving, I just want to say to him, 'Grow up. Just grow up.' Even churches once had crying rooms, and I think we well know that the Church loves its kids--sometimes a little too much. But it only seems fair that if I can put out my cigarette, you can tell your kid to shut up. Because if you don't tell your kid to shut up, the next time, when you're not looking, I'm gonna give him a cigarette."