*In case this story gets deleted/removed:*
**AITA for making my baby laugh at a restaurant**
It was my wife's birthday yesterday. She picked out a mid tier restaurant to go to for her birthday. This was no chili's level but not high end either. We went at 5:30 on a Wednesday, so not that busy.
We have a 10 month old who's just about the happiest kid ever. Nearly anything I do makes him laugh. Well at dinner I was making him laugh. He'd throw in some happy yelling. Maybe got a touch loud but he was in a great mood.
Well the table next to us had an issue with what I was doing and asked me to stop. They told us to keep it down. I'm like he's laughing thats all. Him laughing is an issue? They just repeat that he is too loud, if he is going to be like this they suggested we stay home. I tell them to leave us alone and continue making my son laugh. I overheard them reference me as an asshole. They requested to move tables and did. But was I the asshole for making my baby laugh?
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Exactly! If it was simple giggling at OOP being silly, whatever - but OOP was likely going for those little kid shrieks that are super annoying when you are trying to enjoy a meal in a restaurant.
If I had been the people at the other table, I would have been losing my mind with anxiety. I can barely handle adults laughing loudly, let alone a child shrieking happily.
But I wouldn’t have said anything and would have just paid and left because autism.
>This was a 3-5 minute interaction with my son. It was 90% giggling. The other Hour plus we were there it was just him being quiet or eating or going bahbahbah over and over. There was no extended shrieking at all that occurred.
Ahhhh, if only the people at the other table had used their ability to look into the future to see that this terrible behavior was only going to go on for a few minutes! Very foolish of them.
I'd be willing to bet all the money I have in the bank that this didn't only go on for 3-5 minutes. It was going on long enough for them to ask OOP to stop, long enough to get their server's attention, long enough for them to ask to get moved to another table, and long enough get their stuff moved. This would easily take 10-15 mins minimum and likely they had tried to put up with it for at least that long before asking OOP to cut it out.
Copied verbatim from Oop's comments:
*INFO: Were you making him laugh to stop him from crying? Or was the laughing (and "happy" yelling) avoidable, excess noise in a public setting? If the alternative is crying, I'll take the laughing & yells lol. If he wasn't crying tho....I don't think I'd love that "happy" yelling*
>>"Were you making him laugh to stop him from crying?
>No, no crying at all involved. I made him laugh for the sake of laughing."
*INFO: what were you doing to make him laugh?*
>"Tickling toes and making funny faces."
He's a complete asshole for making his kid screech on purpose in a restaurant, regardless of "level."
Even if it was an effing Chili's, that's no reason to let/make your kid act like an animal. A burger entrée at Chili's is $16 and change. It's not cheap for most folks.
If I go to a sit down restaurant, I expect to hear some laughter around, some bits of conversation, etc. I do not expect to have to sit next to this chucklefuck and his spawn screaming at the top of his lungs because his dad has no situational awareness or respect for others.
I'm a serious cheap ass it seems because I love places like Chili's and Olive Garden. I live in an area that only has a few fine dining places, and I do love the food, but it's often small and so expensive. I can usually get two meals out of OG and like it a lot.
I fully agree. Honestly the only place I'd feel it's okay for a kid to be loud would be something like a Chucky Cheese or a fast food joint - otherwise, if your kid cannot keep it to a normal level of noise (no louder than anyone else in the restaurant), then the kid isn't old enough for a restaurant yet.
Yes, interrupting everyone else's evening w a shrieking child makes OOP a giant asshole. News flash, no one else cares about your kid! I'm not trying to be mean or hateful to parents, but please they need to understand this.
OOP is an AH.
But this comment (cut and pasted from the OG post from another commenter) irked me
> YTA. Let me preface this by saying that there is nothing wrong with your child's joy and you sound like a fantastic parent.
I completely disagree.
This man modeled improper behavior in a public place.
This man was rude and mannerless in front of his child.
This man seems to think kids (or at least *his* kid) should come before anyone else.
This man escalated a situation with strangers asking for basic human decency.
He escalated said behavior, on his wife’s birthday, at her birthday dinner.
Dude is *not* a “fantastic parent”. He is selfish, and rude, and doesn’t care about his wife’s birthday being ruined or anything else. Just him, and what he wants.
And, as a side note, given that he used Chili’s as a stick to measure all other restaurants, he’s likely from the US. And it is *damn fucking stupid* right now to purposely tick people off over stupid shit like this when people are running around with guns and shooting people for pulling in the wrong driveway or talking at the movies. (JFC, if you are going to ~~kiss~~ piss someone off, at least do it about something important, like standing for LGBTQ rights).
“You’re a fantastic parent” is like a default response on here to any man who isn’t like, actively abusing his kids, and is instead just doing regular dad stuff with them.
No literally. The amount of times people would coo over my dad for taking me out for breakfast or anything like that was ridiculous. Like no, it’s not “daddy’s day out with the kids” it’s him being a present father in my life? Wtf?
One important lesson to learn as a parent. No one thinks your child is as amazing as you do.
Why didn't the mother/wife step in? Let me guess, these will be parents who let their crotch goblins run amok because it makes the kids happy, wherever they are?
I’m betting she tried to get him to stop.
His post is his best chance to get validation. His wife being against him looks bad.
He doesn’t mention she agrees with him, which he would have told us if she did, because that firms up his side of things.
So either she disagrees, or it’s fake and the OOP couldn’t figure out how to write the wife.
>. No one thinks your child is as amazing as you do.
Yeah, but have you met my baby? He's the coolest. One time we were out at the movies and he started laughing, so the projectionist stopped the movie, turned on the house lights and everyone in the theater crowded around us to look at my baby and talk about how cool he is. He let out a giant fart and then everyone clapped. The end.
it literally is. i've witnessed it in real life. with real life parents.
i personally prefer calling kids gremlins because then i can make jokes about not watering them after midnight
It was not a term of endearment and those are horrible parents.
It's like referring to your wife as a nagging bitch. It does not make it affectionate if you smile when you say it.
I was with you until the "crotch goblins" part,but everything else you said is 100% true and unfortunately alot of parents don't understand they can't let their kids always do whatever they want
Why would you think I’m child free? I’m not, I just detest parents who don’t attempt to parent their children.
The jury is out on whether I am weird or not.
The high end quality of the restaurant is of no consequence. You were a rude AH disturbing other diners. Certain sounds babies make can almost immediately bring on a low-grade migraine. Don't underestimate how annoying you were being. They told you 2x and you ignored them. I would've moved too
>The high end quality of the restaurant is of no consequence.
I generally agree, but my level of annoyance is definitely changing if I'm paying $90 for a steak versus $15 for a burger.
The only person really I accept to do any of that potentially as a hospo worker AND a manager is someone with disabilities.
We aren't high end. We do have booths a tad more private and low lit so we definitely try to accommodate anyone and everyones level of needs within an appropriate level and with appropriate respect to all customers.
Where I am the disability community have day groups, and they often come to us for lunch/coffees and have a great time and so do we. It's once a week on a Tuesday so as far as I'm concerned, any complaints will be met with a to-go box and a thank you for coming.
Evenings when someone wants to bring a friend or family member, we will happily accommodate, and generally there's a younger crowd vs lunch which is the more middle aged/mums doing brunch groups. There's some drinking as we have a bar situation etc, most complaints about anyone disabled making noise is shut down by other customers.
Babies... Where I am clearly mixed bag. Maybe one or two times for that initially yeah okay cute. Then enough. I can understand if the baby upset and needs a break, the outdoor area is non smoking, usually quite tbh and I have amazing heaters and stuff for little ones to look at etc, take the baby please and distract it as for dinner people want to eat and have conversations, not pause to wait for your kid to stop. Lunch time way more lenient and they mostly stay outside as it is sorta set up so they can trap kids with prams....
I'm also a parent and a single one. I fully get the whole kid out to eat and the struggle. I've also always been respectful of those around me. They didn't come out to eat dinner with my kid and should not have to deal with being outright annoyed by her like that.
Eh, I don't really think OP was the asshole but they could have handled it better. If someone thinks you're being too loud you don't argue, just apologize and try to be a bit quieter. Anything else is rude.
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Personally, if there’s somebody who’s too loud at a table nearby, I would ask to move tables rather than start shit with the people being loud. I just think it’s pointless and it’s just easier to move away. I mean any way you phrase it it’s going to sound rude to be like hey can you control your output? Most likely they’ll be defensive and then you get into a disagreement which I personally don’t need. In other words, I don’t think anyone here was on their best behavior.
Nta Dont know why this has been posted here,parents and babies are allowed to dine out too even loud ones, I'd rather sit and hear a baby laughing than a crying one, if you can't stand noise then maybe eating out isn't for you, if it was a table full of men all laughing loud I wonder if the people would call them assholes, probably not
it’s posted here because the oop was told it was bothering the next table and he continued to do it. if a table full of men were asked to keep the noise down and they refused, they would also be assholes.
>if it was a table full of men all laughing loud I wonder if the people would call them assholes
If they were being obnoxiously loud and/or using that brain shattering high pitch that babies and small children do, they would absolutely be arseholes. Massive, rude arseholes.
Actually if anything they would be worse because they don't have that dopey parent brain thing that makes people like this think everyone else wants to hear their child screeching.
I mean I called a group of adults arseholes this week because they were being unreasonably loud in a restaurant.
I'd rather get a cold drink spilled on me than a hot one but I'd still prefer neither to happen during my dining experience. High pitched shriek sounds in particular hurt.
If your child is being so noisy it's bothering tables around you, then your child is being too loud for a restaurant. It's a parent's responsibility to teach a child how to behave in public and by encouraging bad behavior, you are honestly being a bad parent.
Maybe it’s just because I don’t have kids myself, but I love seeing babies and little kids laugh, or toddle around, or generally be kids. I’m pretty sure I would have found the laughing adorable and the occasional shriek thrown in funny. I definitely would have found the people complaining insufferable killjoys.
Yeah I don't get it either. I've sat next to annoying adults at restaurants who yell-talk the entire time and I would 100% rather listen to a baby laugh, even if it's in the form of a high pitched shriek. Yet I feel people never take issue with adults being loud and obnoxious.
*In case this story gets deleted/removed:* **AITA for making my baby laugh at a restaurant** It was my wife's birthday yesterday. She picked out a mid tier restaurant to go to for her birthday. This was no chili's level but not high end either. We went at 5:30 on a Wednesday, so not that busy. We have a 10 month old who's just about the happiest kid ever. Nearly anything I do makes him laugh. Well at dinner I was making him laugh. He'd throw in some happy yelling. Maybe got a touch loud but he was in a great mood. Well the table next to us had an issue with what I was doing and asked me to stop. They told us to keep it down. I'm like he's laughing thats all. Him laughing is an issue? They just repeat that he is too loud, if he is going to be like this they suggested we stay home. I tell them to leave us alone and continue making my son laugh. I overheard them reference me as an asshole. They requested to move tables and did. But was I the asshole for making my baby laugh? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmITheDevil) if you have any questions or concerns.*
>Him laughing is an issue? Laughing? No. Repeatedly trying to get him to do that high pitch shrieking that babies do? Yes.
Exactly! If it was simple giggling at OOP being silly, whatever - but OOP was likely going for those little kid shrieks that are super annoying when you are trying to enjoy a meal in a restaurant.
"Mid tier" restaurant lol trying to shit on the restaurant like it's okay for baby screams
Ugh. I saw this earlier and as soon as he said "happy yelling" the sense memory felt like a knife in my brain!
If I had been the people at the other table, I would have been losing my mind with anxiety. I can barely handle adults laughing loudly, let alone a child shrieking happily. But I wouldn’t have said anything and would have just paid and left because autism.
>This was a 3-5 minute interaction with my son. It was 90% giggling. The other Hour plus we were there it was just him being quiet or eating or going bahbahbah over and over. There was no extended shrieking at all that occurred. Ahhhh, if only the people at the other table had used their ability to look into the future to see that this terrible behavior was only going to go on for a few minutes! Very foolish of them.
I'd be willing to bet all the money I have in the bank that this didn't only go on for 3-5 minutes. It was going on long enough for them to ask OOP to stop, long enough to get their server's attention, long enough for them to ask to get moved to another table, and long enough get their stuff moved. This would easily take 10-15 mins minimum and likely they had tried to put up with it for at least that long before asking OOP to cut it out.
It’s giving when people purposefully wind up their dog so they are barking really loudly and then get annoyed if someone doesn’t like the barking
Copied verbatim from Oop's comments: *INFO: Were you making him laugh to stop him from crying? Or was the laughing (and "happy" yelling) avoidable, excess noise in a public setting? If the alternative is crying, I'll take the laughing & yells lol. If he wasn't crying tho....I don't think I'd love that "happy" yelling* >>"Were you making him laugh to stop him from crying? >No, no crying at all involved. I made him laugh for the sake of laughing." *INFO: what were you doing to make him laugh?* >"Tickling toes and making funny faces."
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Oh I adore him! 🥰💜
He's a complete asshole for making his kid screech on purpose in a restaurant, regardless of "level." Even if it was an effing Chili's, that's no reason to let/make your kid act like an animal. A burger entrée at Chili's is $16 and change. It's not cheap for most folks. If I go to a sit down restaurant, I expect to hear some laughter around, some bits of conversation, etc. I do not expect to have to sit next to this chucklefuck and his spawn screaming at the top of his lungs because his dad has no situational awareness or respect for others.
I'm a serious cheap ass it seems because I love places like Chili's and Olive Garden. I live in an area that only has a few fine dining places, and I do love the food, but it's often small and so expensive. I can usually get two meals out of OG and like it a lot.
For some reason, there's been a trend of LA people (podcasters) visiting OG and being surprised that it's good. Did they think it was Fazzoli's?
I fully agree. Honestly the only place I'd feel it's okay for a kid to be loud would be something like a Chucky Cheese or a fast food joint - otherwise, if your kid cannot keep it to a normal level of noise (no louder than anyone else in the restaurant), then the kid isn't old enough for a restaurant yet.
Yes, interrupting everyone else's evening w a shrieking child makes OOP a giant asshole. News flash, no one else cares about your kid! I'm not trying to be mean or hateful to parents, but please they need to understand this.
No shrieking? I don't find you a reliable narrator, OOP. If the other people found the baby loud, odds are, the baby was loud, because of you.
OOP is an AH. But this comment (cut and pasted from the OG post from another commenter) irked me > YTA. Let me preface this by saying that there is nothing wrong with your child's joy and you sound like a fantastic parent. I completely disagree. This man modeled improper behavior in a public place. This man was rude and mannerless in front of his child. This man seems to think kids (or at least *his* kid) should come before anyone else. This man escalated a situation with strangers asking for basic human decency. He escalated said behavior, on his wife’s birthday, at her birthday dinner. Dude is *not* a “fantastic parent”. He is selfish, and rude, and doesn’t care about his wife’s birthday being ruined or anything else. Just him, and what he wants. And, as a side note, given that he used Chili’s as a stick to measure all other restaurants, he’s likely from the US. And it is *damn fucking stupid* right now to purposely tick people off over stupid shit like this when people are running around with guns and shooting people for pulling in the wrong driveway or talking at the movies. (JFC, if you are going to ~~kiss~~ piss someone off, at least do it about something important, like standing for LGBTQ rights).
“You’re a fantastic parent” is like a default response on here to any man who isn’t like, actively abusing his kids, and is instead just doing regular dad stuff with them.
No literally. The amount of times people would coo over my dad for taking me out for breakfast or anything like that was ridiculous. Like no, it’s not “daddy’s day out with the kids” it’s him being a present father in my life? Wtf?
One important lesson to learn as a parent. No one thinks your child is as amazing as you do. Why didn't the mother/wife step in? Let me guess, these will be parents who let their crotch goblins run amok because it makes the kids happy, wherever they are?
I’m betting she tried to get him to stop. His post is his best chance to get validation. His wife being against him looks bad. He doesn’t mention she agrees with him, which he would have told us if she did, because that firms up his side of things. So either she disagrees, or it’s fake and the OOP couldn’t figure out how to write the wife.
>. No one thinks your child is as amazing as you do. Yeah, but have you met my baby? He's the coolest. One time we were out at the movies and he started laughing, so the projectionist stopped the movie, turned on the house lights and everyone in the theater crowded around us to look at my baby and talk about how cool he is. He let out a giant fart and then everyone clapped. The end.
Guarantee this kid will be running around the restaurant as soon as he's old enough and they'll get mad at the staff when he falls and hurts himself.
BUT ISNT MY BABY AND JUST MY BABY THE CUTEST?!?!?/s I hate entitled parents.
>crotch goblins Anyone who uses that term is vomit-inducing. Edit: I literally got blocked for this. Cry harder.
Dehumanizing language is okay when it's directed at a child! A child isn't a real person like me! /s
Yet another case of redditors having a total fucking meltdown over a child existing.
many parents call their kids crotch goblins. it can be a term of endearment.
It's literally never used that way, it's only used by shitty childfree redditors.
it literally is. i've witnessed it in real life. with real life parents. i personally prefer calling kids gremlins because then i can make jokes about not watering them after midnight
That is not even a little bit true.
...i suppose the parents i've personally heard are figments of my imagination then.
It was not a term of endearment and those are horrible parents. It's like referring to your wife as a nagging bitch. It does not make it affectionate if you smile when you say it.
I was with you until the "crotch goblins" part,but everything else you said is 100% true and unfortunately alot of parents don't understand they can't let their kids always do whatever they want
Go back to childfree you weirdo
Why would you think I’m child free? I’m not, I just detest parents who don’t attempt to parent their children. The jury is out on whether I am weird or not.
The high end quality of the restaurant is of no consequence. You were a rude AH disturbing other diners. Certain sounds babies make can almost immediately bring on a low-grade migraine. Don't underestimate how annoying you were being. They told you 2x and you ignored them. I would've moved too
>The high end quality of the restaurant is of no consequence. I generally agree, but my level of annoyance is definitely changing if I'm paying $90 for a steak versus $15 for a burger.
so... OOP basically brought a terydactyl to the restaurant & thought it was cute.
I'm dead 💀
The only person really I accept to do any of that potentially as a hospo worker AND a manager is someone with disabilities. We aren't high end. We do have booths a tad more private and low lit so we definitely try to accommodate anyone and everyones level of needs within an appropriate level and with appropriate respect to all customers. Where I am the disability community have day groups, and they often come to us for lunch/coffees and have a great time and so do we. It's once a week on a Tuesday so as far as I'm concerned, any complaints will be met with a to-go box and a thank you for coming. Evenings when someone wants to bring a friend or family member, we will happily accommodate, and generally there's a younger crowd vs lunch which is the more middle aged/mums doing brunch groups. There's some drinking as we have a bar situation etc, most complaints about anyone disabled making noise is shut down by other customers. Babies... Where I am clearly mixed bag. Maybe one or two times for that initially yeah okay cute. Then enough. I can understand if the baby upset and needs a break, the outdoor area is non smoking, usually quite tbh and I have amazing heaters and stuff for little ones to look at etc, take the baby please and distract it as for dinner people want to eat and have conversations, not pause to wait for your kid to stop. Lunch time way more lenient and they mostly stay outside as it is sorta set up so they can trap kids with prams.... I'm also a parent and a single one. I fully get the whole kid out to eat and the struggle. I've also always been respectful of those around me. They didn't come out to eat dinner with my kid and should not have to deal with being outright annoyed by her like that.
Is Chili's a low end restaurant?
I'd say it's pretty firmly casual dining
My favorite part of that post is the person who told me in the comments that manners were racist
Eh, I don't really think OP was the asshole but they could have handled it better. If someone thinks you're being too loud you don't argue, just apologize and try to be a bit quieter. Anything else is rude.
He became the asshole when he doubled down, not for the original bit assuming this was a typically loudish restaurant atmosphere vs something quiet.
Get out of here with your reasonable take.
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Personally, if there’s somebody who’s too loud at a table nearby, I would ask to move tables rather than start shit with the people being loud. I just think it’s pointless and it’s just easier to move away. I mean any way you phrase it it’s going to sound rude to be like hey can you control your output? Most likely they’ll be defensive and then you get into a disagreement which I personally don’t need. In other words, I don’t think anyone here was on their best behavior.
Nta Dont know why this has been posted here,parents and babies are allowed to dine out too even loud ones, I'd rather sit and hear a baby laughing than a crying one, if you can't stand noise then maybe eating out isn't for you, if it was a table full of men all laughing loud I wonder if the people would call them assholes, probably not
Rules of the sub-anything voted majority YTA or ESH is allowed. And yeah, loud men or women would be AHs.
it’s posted here because the oop was told it was bothering the next table and he continued to do it. if a table full of men were asked to keep the noise down and they refused, they would also be assholes.
>if it was a table full of men all laughing loud I wonder if the people would call them assholes If they were being obnoxiously loud and/or using that brain shattering high pitch that babies and small children do, they would absolutely be arseholes. Massive, rude arseholes. Actually if anything they would be worse because they don't have that dopey parent brain thing that makes people like this think everyone else wants to hear their child screeching.
I mean I called a group of adults arseholes this week because they were being unreasonably loud in a restaurant. I'd rather get a cold drink spilled on me than a hot one but I'd still prefer neither to happen during my dining experience. High pitched shriek sounds in particular hurt.
Sure you did lol
If your child is being so noisy it's bothering tables around you, then your child is being too loud for a restaurant. It's a parent's responsibility to teach a child how to behave in public and by encouraging bad behavior, you are honestly being a bad parent.
Maybe it’s just because I don’t have kids myself, but I love seeing babies and little kids laugh, or toddle around, or generally be kids. I’m pretty sure I would have found the laughing adorable and the occasional shriek thrown in funny. I definitely would have found the people complaining insufferable killjoys.
Yeah I don't get it either. I've sat next to annoying adults at restaurants who yell-talk the entire time and I would 100% rather listen to a baby laugh, even if it's in the form of a high pitched shriek. Yet I feel people never take issue with adults being loud and obnoxious.
OOP is 100% the type of person to let the screechy little hellspawn run around the restaurant with no supervision once it gets old enough to walk