A woman has slammed parents who take their children to restaurants on Valentine’s Day and revealed her dinner date was “ruined” by screaming babies.
The anonymous woman, who is in her mid-twenties, took to Reddit to complain about “badly behaved children” ruining her romantic evening.
She explained that her and her boyfriend’s night of love was interrupted by children screaming, jumping and running around the restaurant.
In it Free child subreddit, ranted about distracting children before stating that restaurants shouldn’t allow children and adding that parents should hire a babysitter instead of taking them with them on date nights.
A woman slammed parents who take their children to restaurants on Valentine’s Day and revealed that her dinner date was “ruined” by the babies’ screams (file image)
She explained: “I went to dinner with my boyfriend tonight at a better restaurant. It’s one step above the average chain, one step below fine dining.
“We arrived and there was a child about five or six years old at the table to our right, then three people with a baby came in shortly after us and they were a couple of tables to our left.”
Then, she said the boy started causing chaos and their romantic night came to a quick halt.
He added: ‘The girl was constantly making noise, running and jumping near our table. There was about four feet between our tables, I should have stopped him from doing this anyway, but he had no reason to be so close to us, then at one point he shook his hair, almost touching me and my cutlery.
“The mother must have seen my facial expression, as she would occasionally half-apologise and temporarily take her son to her.”
The diner noted that he imagined that the mother expected to find her son “endearing” due to his young age.
However, she felt tormented by the loud noises coming from the boy.
“The baby screamed horribly every few minutes and no one at their table seemed to do anything to attend to their child for about half an hour, even though they received dirty looks from several nearby tables,” he added.
The anonymous woman, who is in her mid-twenties, took to Reddit to complain about the “bad mannered children” who ruined her romantic evening.
Finally, the woman said that parents should not take their children to nice restaurants and should hire babysitters or stay home instead of “ruining” other people’s evenings.
‘Why would you go to a nice restaurant for Valentine’s Day with a misbehaving child?’ she said.
‘If you can afford to eat there, you can afford a babysitter. If you can’t find a babysitter in time, stay home.
‘Going out to eat was a rare pleasure for me as a child and I would have been taken out as soon as I became an inconvenience to the people around me, and would not have been taken out again for a long time after that.
“I’m sure my parents also enjoyed time to themselves when their kids had a babysitter.”
People online flooded the comments section and echoed his thoughts by calling parents who took their children to restaurants “selfish.”
One person said: “Almost the same thing happened to me last Valentine’s Day, but baby shark music was also playing without headphones.”
“I’m crossing my fingers that it doesn’t happen again this year when we go out.”
Another user added: ‘It’s pure selfishness. They don’t care about the experiences of other diners.
People across the web flooded the comments section and echoed his thoughts by calling parents who took their children to restaurants “selfish.”
‘They are trying to prove to themselves that their relationship is not suffering and that they can still go out and have fun even though they are parents.
‘They’re not boring, ordinary parents, they’re great parents… or so they want to believe. They don’t care if their child is bored or miserable, they just want to brag (lie) to their mom friends about how well behaved and calm little Lake Lee is.’
‘That’s why we don’t go out on Valentine’s Day anymore. We usually leave the next day and have the place to ourselves. “It’s annoying that parents have to ruin (any) restaurant experience,” someone else wrote.
One user added: “I know they thought people would think their son was cute and dumb.” They can’t imagine that no one wants to hear their child scream and run. Yes, children are allowed to exist in the world.
“But we don’t have to take them to fancier restaurants, especially on a day when people want quiet and privacy.”
Someone else chimed in: ‘I feel very disappointed and anxious if I go out to eat (which is rare for many reasons, one of the main ones being cash flow) and then a child (or children) sit next to me and there is a lot noise. or worse yet: squeaks.
“It makes everything horrible, just horrible. Sometimes children behave well, but all too often they do not and parents are completely unconcerned and indifferent.’
The Reddit user’s call for restaurants to be child-free comes just a year after Nettie’s, a New Jersey restaurant, sparked furious debate when it banned children under 10 from dining.
The Reddit user’s call for restaurants to be child-free comes just a year after a New Jersey restaurant sparked a furious debate when it banned children under 10 from dining there.
Nettie’s Italian restaurant, located in Tinton Falls, New Jersey, caused a stir on social media after making the announcement.
In a Facebook post, a staff member said the ban would begin on March 8, claiming their decision was due to rowdy children causing safety issues during peak meal times.
Despite growing calls for stricter rules against children, the restaurant’s announcement came under fierce criticism from many parents, sparking heated discussion over the controversial policy.
However, Nettie’s paid no attention to the backlash and still refuses to allow children under 10 to dine there.