No more babychinos.

[Yelta]

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/leave-home-without-them-20120319-1vecx.html
Wonder who will be the first to try this in Oz, Im sure Mike Vuick is not a voice in the wilderness, well see more of it in the future.
When Im looking for a quiet brew the one thing guaranteed to make me do an about turn at the door is a cafe full of young mums and their adorable little out of control offspring. >

[iaindb]

Re: No more babychinos.

its a sad thing to have to do, but theres nothing adorable about "out of control offspring" and I take no offence if you choose to say "out of control little brats".

Not blowing my own horn, but if my kids start running rampant in any shops they know theyll be sitting in the corner with hands clasped missing out on the fun... Perhaps he should enforce a "children must stay seated at their table" policy? Unfortunately many parents often find the shops as a place to "ignore" their kids and let them do what they want... Hang on, thats not just the shops is it? Its also the car, the school, the park, and oh yes, the home...

However I would be very disappointed to find my wife couldnt enjoy a few minutes relaxing with a nice coffee after a whole day on her feet just because someone decided to ban the kids!

I can see a whole bunch of heated reponses here too

[Yelta]

Re: No more babychinos.

I can see a whole bunch of heated reponses here too

So can I perhaps a 1 to 10 child friendly rating on the door, 1 = children unwelcome at any time, 10 = your brats are welcome to do anything short of murder in this cafe. :

[claraflo]

Re: No more babychinos.

These kinds of discussions always bring to mind my trips to SE Asia. Ive never seen a child scream, cry or have a tanti in public in SE asia. Now maybe Im just unusually lucky but its absence is so noticable that I came to the conclusion it may be cultural.

On my flight back last week nearly every Aussie child on board spent a good 30 mins (all at different times) engaging in that wailing we all recognise as a kid ovecome with emotion. I find it curious that is all.

My local cafe used to adertise itself as a mum-friendly cafe. Over time the cafe started displaying signs advising parents kids were not allowed to run around in the kitchen, take toys outside the cafe, jump on and off furniture, bother other patrons..... The cafe closed down. I think the owner burnt out on stress.

[Rocky]

Re: No more babychinos.

Firstly, love your avatar Jon. I used to read MAD Magazine in the late 60s and Alfred E. was a familiar face. I have a bunch of imitation postage stamps with Alfreds happy visage on them that was enclosed in one of the issues back then.
The issue of the unruly kids must be a really difficult problem for Cafe owners where the young mum w kids is a significant proportion of the customer base. Personally I think they are in the wrong place - should be frequenting Maccas. As a customer, I wouldnt tolerate the kids and would take my business elsewhere. As a Cafe owner youd have to decide where your business was coming from and take some hard decisions. If that was the clientele I had to put up with Id close and relocate.

[patric]

Re: No more babychinos.

I would tend to agree with Rocky though at the least if the facility allowed I would try to section off my cafe with a relatively small kids/mothers area.
I know most cafes are very limited in space that they want to use for seating but Ive seen a great deal with small barely usable corners where they tuck a booth in for the "private coffee drinker." I would if it were my clientèle, sooner reserve it for a play pen or suitable seating area for the brats.
In saying that if I were to own a cafe I would also strive for it to be far more upmarket and would hate my base clientèle to be young mothers with a horde of brats in tow.

[Wilki]

Re: No more babychinos.

I am a father of a 1 year old, and I think some of you may be forgetting where you came from... We were all kids once. Becoming a parent is not an easy job, it is stressfull taking a baby to cafes and resturants and we often rush our meals/drinks when our daugther gets restless. To effectively say that we should go into hibernation from the world, or eat at McDonalds until our kids are grown up is not really fair.

[GrahamK]

Re: No more babychinos.

not really fair

Being "fair" is pretty subjective, as of course the people who went to the cafe to relax / have a chat while eating & drinking, only to be disturbed by unruly uncontrolled kids would say it was not fair on them, having paid for whatever they had, and the cafe owner might say its not fair to expect them to have to deal with the fallout and loss of customers due to the same.

Surely the fair thing to do is to:[list bull-greenball][*]Ensure your child acts in accordance to the ambiance of the cafe[*]Frequent cafes that cater for the way you wish to allow your child to behave[/list]
At risk of stating the obvious, its not the kids that are at fault surely, but the expectations of the parents on how their kids should be able to disturb the rest of the paying cliental.

Having once owned a (tiny) cafe (15 years ago) I was reasonably lucky that I only had a few babychino clients, and they managed their kids appropriately, and visited at appropriate times, and were also prepared to pay for the drinks. Times were tough enough then, (the recession we had to have), and I had no need to ban anyone. I presume from the fact this is an issue brought up quite often, its a lot more disruptive these days. In those days "smoking" was a similar issue, being a non-smoker I would have loved to have been able to ban smoking, but could not afford to stop the "smoke break & coffee" clients from local businesses. Some people preferred not to visit if smokers were present. Having non-smoking laws would make it much easier now days no doubt. And Im not advocating no-kids laws, just to be clear, we are becoming enough of a nanny state/country. 

GrahamK

[Yelta]

Re: No more babychinos.

At risk of stating the obvious, its not the kids that are at fault surely, but the expectations of the parents on how their kids should be able to disturb the rest of the paying cliental.

The problem is that its more often than not the parents of these so called unruly kids that are at fault, little or no discipline imposed, not recognising the fact (or even worse not caring) that your darlings are annoying others and believing its ok for your kids to play in and around the feet of other customers, Ive even had the little monsters offer me scraps of uneaten food, to the delight of the proud parents (look how well bought up our kid is, he/she loves to share, well Ive got news for em, they need to learn how control their offspring, of course it wont happen. :

[dabbler]

Re: No more babychinos.

Quick bio....
One kid, well behaved, almost weaned off mochas but still baulks at espresso.
Many nieces and nephews, some angels, some devils. All normal.

Ive been in different cafes at various times at the same time as a post test cricket match did you see that second catch fan meetup, a prefishing/camping trip before we hit the road meeting, a pre girls night out are we all here now gathering, a post girls night out last coffee, a post boys night out who made it home breakfast, a before you moved away meeting of long lost friends, a what do we do today planning meeting of international tourists, a wekly meeting of real estate agents and a get together of mums with bubsntoddlers and many groups I cant recall right now.

Guess which bunch where the most annoying? At the time I thought they were ALL noisy and annoying and guess what - only one lot ordered babychinos. But they were all paying customers.

Mums with bubsntoddlers - they dont come just for the babycino, they come for the ice coffee, milkshakes, fanta, cookies, cupcakes and anything else served in small kid sized portions. The same things my octagenarian Mum orders when I take her to a cafe.

[Wilki]

Re: No more babychinos.

The funny thing is I used to be just like you lot before I was a parent.

[saoye]

Re: No more babychinos.

The funny thing is I used to be just like you lot before I was a parent.

So true Wiki. :

Once upon a time you could discipline your child with a smack on the bottom without being hauled to the police station for abuse.
Now we have to reason with a 2 year old with logic and pleading, should they start to cry and throw a tantrum the only way to calm them down especially in public is with bribery and that just starts a chain reaction. Childs thought process is, if in public throw a tantrum and I get what I want!
Not easy to control kids nowadays. I have a 3 year old that fortunately is at her best behaviour when we are out, but she does have her days, after all she is 3 and smarter than a lot of adults I know. She also prefers a hot chocolate to a babychino. I wish she did like babychino on occassions when I textured too much milk

I used to think the same in cafes, in parks, in aeroplanes etc where there are rowdy or crying kids "why cant the parents do something". Now I tend to be a little more patient.
Definitely it starts at home. Having the discipline NOT to reward bad behaviour even if it means the child will cry for the next 10 minutes in public. Does that help the rest of us who wish for a quiet cuppa? Not really but it will mean at a later stage you will have better behaved children. Banning children from cafes...may as well ban children until they are in control of their own emotions.

[Yelta]

Re: No more babychinos.

Firstly, love your avatar Jon. I used to read MAD Magazine in the late 60s and Alfred E. was a familiar face. I have a bunch of imitation postage stamps with Alfreds happy visage on them that was enclosed in one of the issues back then.

Thanks Rocky, they were the days eh? Imagine if you gave kids a copy of Mad to peruse now they would wonder what you were on about, simpler times werent they?
I recall the postage stamp issues, ancient history. :

[Barry O'Speedwagon]

Re: No more babychinos.

Did Christos Tsiolkas start this thread?

FWIW, I guess the annoyance factor is very much a function of the size and layout of the premises. As long as the kids are not smashing me in the knee cap (or biting my kneecap as one little bugger thought was a an appropriate hello) Im pretty cool with it. Idiots talking loudly into mobile phones tick me off more (but thats just me). Businesses make a decision as to the importance of their revenue streams, and bear the consequences of those decisions.

[lupus]

Re: No more babychinos.

As a parent of two kids aged 4.5 and 1.5, unfortunately I woud be affected by any changes in cafe attitudes to children.

First up, I have to agree with saoye. It is not easy bringing up kids now a days. With the general perception that a tap on the bottom being considered child abuse, one is reduced to negotiating with children. That is difficult at the best of times when the minors have yet to learn acceptable behaviour or societal expectations, and a basically programmed to learn by experience and pushing the envelope .

However, part of that learning is also to be exposed to different experiences and learning from those experiences. And yes, that also means taking them out to cafes. If the kids are not exposed to going out, that is just delaying the learning until later.

The basic problem is not the kids, but the parents reaction to the behaviour. If your child has a tantrum or disturbs other patrons, it is not cute or precocious. Do not reward tantrums with bribery.

We go out often. Usually once per week as a family, often for breakfast on Sundays (the joys of kids that wake up at the crack of dawn). My kids are not always angels, but I make it a point that when their behaviour becomes unruly, I ensure there is time out, where they vent away from the cafe patrons before we return. Yes, it disrupts our breakfast and usually means one parent is somewhere outside, while the other is left alone inside, but that is the price ad responsibility of being a parent and still being able to maintain a degree of a social life.

But what makes it easier is the attitude of the cafe. While none of the establishments we have visited have been anti children, some have been better than others at dealing with the kids. And surprisingly, it is not the so called child friendly cafes that have been good with the kids. One of the cafes we frequent is not what one would immediately think of as child friendly, but the staff have always been great with te kids, often just asking the time to acknowledge them and ave a quick chat. Ths is often enough to make the kids buck up and ake the special effort to be on their best behaviour. While it does not always work, we often have more success there ran other places.

While the kds are the symptoms, the problem more often lies with the parents. What do yo do? Stopseving the adults?



And as saoye said, most parents resort to bribery to pacify the misbehaving child, thereby reinforcing that behavior pattern.