This is very strange

If I was in a fancy restaurant and a child started screaming and throwing things and running around, I would complain, and I would be very angry with the caregiver for allowing the child to become a part of my experience, requiring me to pay attention to it. One cannot simply ignore very loud noises.

If I were in a fancy restaurant with extremely loud adults acting rambunctiously, I would certainly complain, and I would certainly hope that if they didn’t knock it off, they be kicked out.

Why are you acting like there’s something wrong with expecting a certain type of behavior in certain public spaces? That’s absurd. If children were given the “right” to go wherever they wanted and act in any manner they felt appropriate — which would often be light years different from most adults view of appropriate, because small children don’t yet have to ability to reason, which is the backbone of a civilized society– then it would cause many adults to feel that they were not allowed in public places.

I’m sorry, I find this idea ridiculous. Of course there isn’t a reason why a child acting in the same manner as adults in a restaurant that is not explicitly “family-oriented” is fine. But I’ll be damned if I’m supposed to be totally fine and just suck it up when someone’s kid is shrieking and wailing uncontrollably.

Also, to make this comment even longer: I was at a coffee shop one Sunday night, blogging. My boyfriend was with my doing homework, and the place was filled with other 20- and 30-somethings by themselves or in pairs, doing other work. It was very, very quiet in there. Then, the infant behind me started crying. The crying got louder and louder. It went far beyond the point of “now this is starting to affect other people in this public space,” and she just sat there, occasionally saying “shhhh” to the infant.

Every single person in that room — there were plenty of them– was perfectly respectful at first. When it had become abundantly clear that the woman was more interested in hanging out at the coffee shop and finishing her crossword puzzle than respecting 20 other people’s right to sit in the quiet atmosphere, where they went because it was quiet, and they needed quiet spaces to work in, EVERYONE LEFT. It was the most ridiculous and rude action I’ve ever seen a parent do. There was no reason for her to remain in the coffee shop with her now SCREAMING baby for that long. After a couple of minutes, when it is clear that not only is your baby’s behavior infringing on the reasonable right of the others to not be harassed in public, but it will likely not stop, you need to take your child elsewhere.

It seems that you are saying that in that situation, everyone in that coffee shop shouldn’t have been upset, and should have respected the screaming infant’s right to be there.

FYI, no one even said anything to the mother. They just left in droves, which was a clear message in and of itself.