Diner owner yells at 2 y.o. for excessive crying

This was all over talk radio on Tuesday...people were going out of their minds (on both sides of the issue).

http://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/wireSto ... g-32571233

The owner of a Maine diner says she's not sorry for yelling at a 2-year-old child for crying in her restaurant because it got the girl to be quiet.

Darla Neugebauer, owner of Marcy's Diner in Portland, is defending her actions after a backlash on social media among people who say they'll never eat at the restaurant again.

Neugebauer wrote on Facebook that the girl had been crying for more than 40 minutes by the time she slammed her hands on the counter and told the girl to be quiet.

She told WCSH-TV that the parents ordered three full-sized pancakes for the child but ignored her, and she claimed they didn't feed her after the food arrived.

"Life's full of choices and you've got to live with all of them," Neugebauer said. "I chose to yell at a kid, it made her shut-up, which made me happy, it made my staff happy, it made the 75 other people dining here happy, and they left, they may never come back, other people may not come in. Their loss really."

Tara Carson, the mother of the child, wrote on Facebook that anyone with young children should understand that crying is normal after waiting such a long time for food.

"I turned to my daughter and I was like 'Listen, this is how I'm raising you not to be as an adult. Like, you will never be like this when you get older,'" Carson said. "I felt helpless as a mom that, you know, I couldn't do anything to help her, because I can't explain why there's crazy people in this world that behave like that."

Though I would never yell at a child, I can understand the frustration. In the chaos of a diner atmosphere, the constant whining, crying, screaming of an unruly child is almost too much. I always took my children out and walked around when anything like that happened. I reserve judgment on this one, having endured the same.

Quite obviously we don't know all the circumstances in this case but if the girl was truly crying and screaming for 40 minutes the majority of the blame should go on to the parents! 2-year-olds obviously have tantrums at one time or another but the parents should definitely not allow it to go on for that long a matter what the circumstances are. I don't blame the owner of the diner at all, if she hadn't done something she probably would've lost more customers than she did doing what she did.

I blame the owner. Had she calmly told (nay, demanded) the parents to calm/walk/tend the kid after, at most, 10 minutes of crying, it would not have come to this. Instead, she acted in anger, which is never a positive thing.

I will say that if the child was crying for 40 straight minutes (which I have trouble believing), I do not see the child stopping on a dime simply because a complete stranger yelled at her. Doesn't add up.

You bet some kids will carry on for 40 minutes or more at a time. Totally come down blaming the patents on this one. After a few minutes of acting out the child needs to be removed. Why would you even consider ruining everyone else's evening out? Was the child someplace on the autism spectrum? Even more reason to remove the child from a stressful situation. Nope. This was a selfish and/or lazy patent that had grown accustomed to (and tuning out) their kids temper tantrum. And yes, a child that is never confronted about their bad behavior WILL STOP when met with sternness from a stranger. They KNOW mom and dad ever do anything but they don't know if a stranger will carry through with any threats.

You bet some kids will carry on for 40 minutes or more at a time. Totally come down blaming the patents on this one. After a few minutes of acting out the child needs to be removed. Why would you even consider ruining everyone else's evening out? Was the child someplace on the autism spectrum? Even more reason to remove the child from a stressful situation. Nope. This was a selfish and/or lazy patent that had grown accustomed to (and tuning out) their kids temper tantrum. And yes, a child that is never confronted about their bad behavior WILL STOP when met with sternness from a stranger. They KNOW mom and dad ever do anything but they don't know if a stranger will carry through with any threats.

Completely agree with all of your points. Had I been the owner I would have thrown this family out the door long before 40 minutes. Of course the kid is just a kid, but the parents are clueless and selfish idiots. If the parents don't like the owner venting, than go away and don't come back. No big loss for the place.

You bet some kids will carry on for 40 minutes or more at a time. Totally come down blaming the patents on this one. After a few minutes of acting out the child needs to be removed. Why would you even consider ruining everyone else's evening out? Was the child someplace on the autism spectrum? Even more reason to remove the child from a stressful situation. Nope. This was a selfish and/or lazy patent that had grown accustomed to (and tuning out) their kids temper tantrum. And yes, a child that is never confronted about their bad behavior WILL STOP when met with sternness from a stranger. They KNOW mom and dad ever do anything but they don't know if a stranger will carry through with any threats.

If it gets to this point (and a two year old is tricky business,) it's the time to take the walk and coach them. If the owner of the establishment has to say something to you- it's gone too far (teaching your child table manners.)

I'll add this: if your kid cries longer than five minutes (inconsolable,) it's nap-time.

Completely agree with all of your points. Had I been the owner I would have thrown this family out the door long before 40 minutes.

Which is still why, though both parties are at fault, I put more on the owner. She should have dealt with it a long time before, both for herself (I read it that she snapped after letting the tension build for so long) and for the sake of the other patrons in the establishment. Any owner has to responsibility to deal with any "bad behavior" promptly for the sake of the other guests.

Speaking of which, I wonder how they saw the whole thing. Given how it has blown up online, I'm sure that they have weighed in.

The first time we went to Coal's we made it long enough to order a couple of cokes and begin to look at the menu. Our very young son (6 months?) wasn't having it at all. We told our server how sorry we were, but we were going to have to bail. They wouldn't even let us pay for the cokes.Kids have bad nights. We recognized it and left. Parents have to be aware. That same kid is now a 5 year old who will eat just about anything at any restaurant in town. His fave right now is the calamari and the mussels from Mussel and Burger.

OK...So...we refuse to be seated next to young children...period, no discussion. We've even gone so far on a couple of occasions as to ask to be -re- seated after having the writing appear on the wall when young children were seated next to us....Today though was a new one on us. We were enjoying a late lunch at a local sports bar and they seated a family with young children (mom and four kids, ages about 2 to maybe 12) in the booth directly behind us...It wasn't two minutes until the whining and sqealing started, followed by the two smaller ones turning around in their seats, yammering in my wife's ear and touching her hair....We got through about 5 minutes of this and then -quietly- picked up our food and drinks and moved to a table as far away as possible...So here's where it gets funny...The family was black...and when the mother saw us changing tables she tried to play the "race card" telling her kids (within intentional earshot of my wife) that "Whitey doesn't want to sit next to no black folk"... ...Actually you're wrong ma'am, "Whitey" doesn't want to sit next to your ill behaved children no matter WHAT color they are.

I have the wonderful privilege of working with other people's kids. I love the work. What I don't like are parents that shrug their parental duties of disciplining their kids, shrugging their shoulders, mouthing "what are you going to do? It's a kid." I find, at least these days, parents are more concerned about their kids loving them as mommy and daddy rather than loving their kids and accepting the fact that their kids will absolutely HATE them at times because they are told "NO". (And telling your kid "no" at times is a necessity. Face it. It's going to happen. Grow a set.) Once I get this idea over to the parents and they begin to discipline their kids, when they say "no!" when needed, things change dramatically. When I work with kids, dining out without altercations is one of the goals. Most of the kids I work with dine in nice restaurants with no problems. They keep their hands to themselves, their voices low, they use manners. We frequently get coupons for free desserts from grateful managers when we do fine out. It can be but it takes a great deal of work on the parts of the parents and child care providers. I may add a higher level of pass or fail to my kids...could we dine out with Steve P.?

Well, here's what the selfish/lazy parent had to say about it all....

https://www.washingtonpost.com/postever ... -happened/

Reading that, along with the FB post in the article that includes the owner's unhinged response, I think that my claim that the owner "snapped" may have been a bit of an understatement.

Now that we have 2 sides of the story I'm not sure we know any more than we did before. We do know however that the mother is an excellent writer and a marketing manager who obviously has a lot of good connections to get her story published! I'm sure that the truth is somewhere between the 2 stories, will actually probably never know the real story. It would be nice to hear from somebody else who was in the restaurant at the time to hear their view of what happened.

The Bitchy Waiter's take: http://thebitchywaiter.com/2015/07/the- ... agree.html

Wow. Reading their actual words, it seems that taking parenting advice from bitchy waiter or the diner owner would be about as smart as hiring Yosemite Sam as your anger management counselor.