Restaurant Owner Yells at a Customer's Crying Two-Year-Old, Sparks Debate

Photo Source: Paul Hocksenar/Flickr

Do you take your toddlers out for lunch? It may be some time before Tara Carson convinces her two-year-old Keira to eat out again, after the child was yelled at by a diner owner.

Darla Neugebauer, co-owner of Marcy’s Diner, was that diner owner. She wrote about the incident on the Marcy’s Diner Facebook page.

According to the post by Neugebauer, the toddler was already wailing for 40 minutes when she decided to pack the family’s food into takeout bags instead. She then says to the family, “either all of you need to go or just her” as she points to the toddler.

She goes back to the kitchen but the crying continues again. After 10 minutes of crying, she loses it. She “snarled at top volume” at the child, while pointing a finger at her, yelling “That needs to stop!”

And it worked, the toddler stops crying.

“I’ll never forget the look of fear on my baby’s face,” Carson wrote in on The Washington Post explaining her side of the story. She also said that the pancakes the family ordered took 40 minutes to arrive, which caused her daughter’s fussiness in the first place.

She writes, “…it’s never okay to yell at a baby, especially if you own a restaurant. You should care about providing good service to their patrons. Neugebauer could have come over politely and told us our baby was disruptive. She should not have thrown things or yelled or cursed.”

As expected, the Marcy’s Diner Facebook page has been getting a lot of attention lately. Some agree with Neugebaur’s actions and are calling out Carson for being an irresponsible parent. Others are saying that Neugebaur had no right to yell at someone else’s kid.

As for Neugebaur, “As far as I am concerned. ..Won & done! [sic]”, she wrote in a follow-up Facebook post.

If you’re planning on eating out with the little one anytime soon, remember this advice given by Lillian L. Juadiong, Ph.D., associate professor of Family Life and Child Development in U.P. Diliman’s College of Home Economics:  “Talk to the child beforehand and set rules.”

If your child still goes full-on tantrum in the restaurant, maybe it’s better to walk out of there for a while and get some air before the owner decides to yell at your kid.


Sources:
July 22, 2015. "I’m the mom whose encounter with an angry Maine diner owner went viral. Here’s what happened." washingtonpost.com
July 21, 2015. "A kid cries in a restaurant. The owner yells at her. Now what?". washingtonpost.com
July 20, 2015. "Restaurant Owner Calls Toddler a 'Monster' and Internet Moms Unleash Wrath". eater.com