Mom Confronts Restaurant Patron Who Moved Tables To Get Away From Her Noisy Kids
Her kids have a right to be kids. Strangers also have the right to not want to listen to it.
Sylvie Bouchard | Shutterstock While at a restaurant with her young daughter, a mom noticed a fellow patron who was seated nearby get up and move to a table further away from them. Unable to just let it go, she marched up to the unsuspecting patron and demanded to know if he had moved seats because of her child.
After he answered honestly, the mom urged other people to avoid family-friendly restaurants if they don’t like kids. However, most people think that she’s the one who crossed a line.
A mom confronted a restaurant patron who moved tables to get away from her noisy child.
Katherine "Kitty" Walls shared her story in response to a fellow mom who called out a restaurant patron who she claimed moved tables due to her children’s noise levels. “I've never had somebody be annoyed or give me an attitude over my kids until today,” she said in a TikTok video.
Walls said she decided to take her kids to Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch, and they were seated near a man reading a book. Since her 17-month-old daughter, Remy, is just learning how to use her voice, Walls said that she tends to get loud. However, she added that the rest of the restaurant was loud since there was a game on, and patrons were cheering and booing.
“So we're sitting here eating. I'm not even really paying attention to this guy in front of us, and all of a sudden, he stands up, and he lets out, like, a nasty little sigh,” Walls said. “He starts grabbing all of his things and moving them to the table in front of him.” She automatically assumed that the man must have moved due to the noise her daughter was making.
Rather than go on with her meal, the mom decided to confront the man.
“So I said, ‘Oh, I'm sorry, were my kids disrupting your peace?’ And he looked at me, and he said, ‘Yeah.’”
She did not exactly appreciate the man’s honesty. “You are in a family restaurant where they are playing TV that are all playing the game at full volume. This is not a quiet place. If you want a quiet place, go to the library,” Walls indignantly stated.
She noted that the restaurant was packed, and no one else seemed bothered by her noisy toddler. When a waiter approached the man and asked if everything was okay and why he had moved tables, he replied that he had moved since Kitty’s daughter was “screaming in his ear.”
MIA Studio | Shutterstock
Walls denied this claim. “Screaming in your ear when you were sitting six feet away is crazy. If anything, she was screaming in my ear,” she said. But maybe the bigger issue has nothing to do with the loudness of her kids or the exaggeration of the annoyed patron. The real issue is that Walls felt the need to approach the man in the first place when he simply moved without issue.
The mom went on to say that she tries to be “socially aware” of her kids in public and does her best to ensure that they are on their best behavior.
Most viewers believed that the mom was in the wrong for confronting the man and that he was well within his rights to move tables.
“Don't ask questions you don't want the answer to. Also, not everyone wants to sit near a squawking crotch goblin,” one TikTok user commented.
“Kid noise hits totally different from other noise,” another user wrote, noting that some people may be able to drown out the sounds of people chattering at a restaurant but not screeching kids.
Ultimately, one user pointed out the underlying truth in all of it. The issue was never about the child being loud or the man moving. The issue was the mom's decision to confront him. "At BWW I don't expect quiet but I'd also never call it a family restaurant because I associate it with loud young men who are drunk and yelling at sports. But you went over and asked him. Why?"
High-conflict people tend to struggle with problem-solving.
Most people in Walls' situation would likely find the man's behavior annoying but simply ignore it and move on. He wasn't a friend or relation, and his moving did not directly impact Walls or her family. So, what compelled her to confront him?
According to licensed social worker Bill Eddy, "High-conflict people (HCPs) have a pattern of high-conflict behavior that increases conflict rather than reducing or resolving it." Eddy explained, "The issue that seems in conflict at the time is not what is increasing the conflict. The 'issue' is the high-conflict personality and how the person approaches problem-solving."
Basically, when emotions run high, HCPs tend to react instead of thinking things through first. Their immediate inclination runs toward blaming others. Everything feels like a personal attack, even when it's just a person moving their seat because they don't want to hear a stranger's loud kid.
Megan Quinn is a staff writer with a bachelor's degree in English and a minor in Creative Writing. She covers news and lifestyle topics that focus on justice in the workplace, personal relationships, parenting debates, and the human experience.