We have all been there. You are trying to enjoy a nice dinner with friends, maybe a glass of wine or two, and suddenly the ambiance is shattered by the high-pitched shriek of a child who should probably be in bed. It is a universal annoyance. We all secretly judge the parents who are sipping their margaritas while their offspring treats the dining room like a parkour course. However, there is a massive difference between rolling your eyes at your server and going full-blown villain on a kindergartner. One man on Reddit recently decided to cross that line, and the internet is looking at him like he is the one who needs a high chair.
The OP (Original Poster) admits right off the bat that he is not a “kid person.” He tolerates his nieces and nephews because he has to, but generally, he wants children to exist in a separate dimension from him. That is a fair stance. Not everyone has to love kids. But when you exist in public spaces, you run the risk of encountering the little humans. The OP was out with friends when a family with a five-year-old boy was seated next to them.
Instead of ignoring the kid, the OP started stewing immediately. He describes being “dismayed” just by their arrival. Predictably, the five-year-old started acting like a five-year-old. He was noisy, and the parents were seemingly checking out of their parental duties. As the evening went on, the OP’s anger meter started climbing. The kid eventually escalated from making noise to running around the table, which is admittedly dangerous and annoying for everyone and the waitstaff.
Here is where things go from “understandable frustration” to “unhinged behavior.” The OP decided to head to the restroom. As he was walking past the family’s table, the kid—who was running around—wasn’t watching where he was going and bumped into the OP’s leg. It wasn’t a tackle. It wasn’t a bite. It was a bump. Most thirty-two-year-old men would just keep walking or maybe mutter a “watch out, kid.”
Not this guy. He snapped. In the middle of a crowded restaurant, he shouted at a five-year-old boy, “Get away from me, you stupid idiot!” Let’s just pause on the insult choice here. “Stupid idiot”? It sounds like something a bully says on the playground before pushing someone into the mulch. It is essentially an adult man throwing a verbal tantrum because a child had a physical one.
Naturally, the child started crying because a strange, large man just screamed at him. The parents, who definitely should have been watching their kid better, immediately jumped to their child’s defense. They started yelling at the OP for calling their son an idiot. The OP yelled back, arguing that they should control their kid because someone could have gotten hurt. While he has a point about safety, he completely lost the moral high ground the second he verbally abused a toddler.
The scene caused such a spectacle that the entire restaurant was staring. The manager eventually had to come over and threaten to kick everyone out, which effectively ruined the night. The OP’s friends, who witnessed the whole thing, told him later that he was an a**hole for going off like that. They were probably embarrassed to be seen with a grown man who fights with children.
The OP thinks he might be in the right because the parents were negligent. And yes, parents who let their kids run wild in restaurants are the worst. They create hazards for servers carrying hot food and ruin the experience for other diners. But you cannot fight bad behavior with worse behavior. Screaming “stupid idiot” at a child doesn’t teach the parents a lesson; it just makes you look like a volatile person with zero impulse control.
So is the OP the ahole? Yes. He is a massive one. Being annoyed is valid. Making a child cry because you have the emotional maturity of a teaspoon is not. If you can’t handle a child bumping into your leg without verbally assaulting them, maybe you are the one who isn’t ready for grown-up restaurants yet.
What would you do if a kid ran into you at a restaurant? Would you have ignored it, or would you have caused a scene like this guy? Let us know in the comments if you think the OP needs to learn some manners!
Wow you are over the top intolerant of kids so going forward do the world a favour and avoid children at all costs . Don’t go out for dinner until after 9 o’clock when for sure there’ll be no children and do what you’re doing. Keep your interaction with the beautiful little humans to a bare minimum. They don’t deserve your bullshit.
YTAH yup I think you were a little over the top. Kids don’t know boundaries and don’t know at that age how to use inside voices, you are the grown up. You should know how to control your anger, and most of all you should know appropriate language to use. Calling a child an idiot because he doesn’t know is ignorant on your part. Aren’t you supposed to be the mature one?