Roz very balanced post.

Just one point you mention in Europe children of all ages eat with their parents. That is very true but they stay seated and eat as family not allowed to run riot.

hey! it's great to see this thread resurrected, and great to see that the same old tosh is being spouted all over again!

Brian, those children you mention 'running riot' - where and when was that exactly? And was it a full-on petrol bomb and upturned vehicles riot, or just a lame marauding of hundreds of angry toddlers type riot?

So from time to time a kid will annoy people in a pub - get over it. If everyone who was annoying was banned from pubs, they would all be empty (apart from me, of course!).

Cheers.

One very recent example of what I find annoying: 2 children having a roller-skating race round and round my table last weekend and - after half an hour - when I asked if they could do this somewhere else (there was space away from occupied tables), the mother got aggressive. It is the parent's behaviour that I object to in this, not the kids.

I've spent time living in other countries where children accompany their parent when out late.. sometimes very late, though when I lived in Crete there were plenty of city bars where parents would not take kids. I think the reasons why children's behaviour is different and also why we react differently here/'sur le continent' is quite complicated.

Many times I have seen children run round the pub when food is being carried. Happens often at Moon and Stars in Penge.
Parents should take responsibility for little Cuthbert and Gemina. The rest of the pub are not unpaid babysitters( or should not be )