I was in a café this week. There is nothing unusual about this. Like most writers, I spend 90% of my working life in cafés, using the Wi-Fi and heating, getting away from the lure of my fridge, and trying to make one cappuccino last for hours.
On this occasion, a group of mothers came in with their children. There were six of them, and they ranged in age from about two to four. Excitable, energetic, loud. Just as toddlers are.
While the mums sat and had a coffee and a chat – as all exhausted mums and dads are very entitled to do, and I have done many times – their excitable, energetic, loud children decided to engage in a little spot of toddler parkour, using the coffee tables, sofas and chair as objects from which to leap, bounce and hurl themselves across the room. Nothing was said, the chat merely continued.
Bored of destroying the furniture, the toddlers then turned their cake-sticky hands to a little home decorating, using milk instead of paint, and chocolate cake as wall art. Occasional mumbles of ‘darling, don’t do that’ were heard. But nothing was actually done. The chat continued.
It was around this time that a vigorous competition to see who could scream the loudest was started. I think the kid with the wet rice cake pasted all over his face won, by some margin, 400 decibels of margin, to be precise.
When the time finally came for them all to leave, far from clearing up any of the sugary, milky bomb-site they had created, they left the whole lot for the staff to clear up, pausing only to tell the manger that the coffee table was dangerous to small children, as it had sharp corners and they could hurt themselves on it.
It took all my strength not to exclaim, ‘What, while leaping off it?!’
Learning the basics
Now, I’ve had three children, and I know how hard it is to keep children quiet and happy in cafés. And everyone expects – or should expect – toddlers to make some noise, and some mess, and not want to sit still as church mice for an hour. If they did, I’d probably be worried about them!
I’ve dealt with crying babies and petulant toddlers, bored preschoolers and rowdy teenagers in public spaces, it’s all part of normal family life. But there is a basic level of politeness and way of behaving in public that every parent can adhere to – not only for all the other customers present, but for the children themselves.
How we deal with their behaviour, what we let them do, and the way we ourselves behave, teaches them life-long lessons in how they should behave.
The bottom line is that children don’t really want to be in cafés. They want to be outside running about in mud, throwing sand at each other or playing hide and seek. To them, the inside of a café is a perfect adventure playground to have fun in. Of course it is! So if we’re going to bring them into that space, we need to think of things for them to do… which doesn’t ruin either the place itself, or other people’s enjoyment of it.
The inside of my handbag used to look like a children’s toy shop when my kids were young. Pens, paper, crayons, books, small toys to play with – anything to keep them quietly happy and occupied. And when the moment came when it was very obvious they’d had enough, because one of them was lying on the floor trying to build a house out of the plastic cups and straws, we would all tidy up together, and leave.
Simple as that. A lesson in how to behave properly. And it all starts at home; simple things like saying please and thank you – I am regularly stunned by how many children don’t say this! As well as setting and clearing the table, not talking when someone else is, making their own bed every morning, and so on.
These basics, learned from a young age, give children a solid foundation of how to look after themselves and behave well around others, which will stay with them for life. If we can instill these in our children, leading by example, it can help them throughout life, both personally and professionally.
Please carry on bringing your toddlers to cafés. It’s a lovely thing. But maybe try to stop them pasting cake mix all over the walls, and turning the sofas into an assault course. That would be much appreciated.