Jan Leeming, the 80s newsreader, has found herself unexpectedly back in the limelight without even having to do Strictly. Instead, she seems to have unwittingly starred in a non-televised episode of Supernanny, dishing out advice to parents about how to raise their children. Or how not to, to be more precise.
Last week, Leeming complained on social media that a friend’s birthday lunch at The Pig at Bridge Place, near Canterbury, was “slightly spoiled by a screaming child”. She explained: “One tot was a real menace, allowed to walk around and often screaming … parents oblivious to other clients.”
She doubled down on Times Radio on Saturday, saying too many mums and dads treat their children “like little princes and princesses: many of them are just allowed to run riot”. She added that kids should be trained like dogs, to behave when out in public. “I’m afraid that if you have children, it’s your responsibility to teach them to be socially acceptable.”
This opinion has unsurprisingly proved largely unpopular, probably not helped by the canine comparison and the image it conjures up of youngsters being tapped on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper. Leeming is right, though.
One of a parent’s main jobs is to teach their kid not to be a dick. Pull this off successfully and it ensures that when they grow up, and spend time with humans who don’t unconditionally adore them and forgive anything, as you may, they’ll make friends, be on good terms with colleagues and find a partner, if they want one. They’ll be kind and considerate, at ease with the reality that they are not the centre of the universe. In order to function in society later, children need to be told now when they’re being selfish, annoying or acting inappropriately for the setting.
Of course for some neurodivergent children it’s impossible to sit quietly in a restaurant, so obviously this doesn’t apply to them.
This isn’t “being seen and not heard” – you’re not making unfair demands, merely asking that they behave the same way as everybody else on the train, or in the cinema, or at the shop. When they’re in a restaurant, screaming is off the table. Remain seated. If they can’t manage that, we’re outta there. Now more than ever, going out to eat is a treat, not a basic human right. There are some specifically family friendly restaurants, full of kids, which happily tolerate carnage and chaos, and everybody who goes there knows the deal. But if it’s an adult establishment, children who can’t play by the rules – and let’s face it, few toddlers can – should steer clear, for the good of all involved.
What most people seem to lose sight of is that when a kid is causing a scene in a public place, nobody wishes they would shut up more fervently than their parents. They are fully cognisant of what their offspring doesn’t notice or care about: everyone in this room hates us. That type of insight is much easier to digest when delivered gently by somebody who loves you, which is why it’s up to mums and dads.
I am certain that all the adults we see around us listening to music out loud without headphones, not saying thank you at zebra crossings, and putting their feet on public transport seats others have to sit on were overindulged in restaurants as children. It has to stop, for the future of civilised civilisation.
I’m reminded of a social experiment detailed in the Guardian by Hannah Ewens, who decided to politely suggest using headphones to those playing content out loud whenever the opportunity presented itself. She reported that they generally responded well: “They make one of two faces: either they look as if they are rousing from a century’s slumber or appear shocked at themselves, as if they don’t know how they got to this moment.”
It turned out they weren’t actively trying to upset their fellow travellers, or being purposely thoughtless and self-centred, it just hadn’t occurred to them that they were bothering anybody. They weren’t “bad dogs”, just untrained.
Ewens described how one man had immediately blushed and said: “God, sorry. Was in my own little world there.” That’s what we need to teach our kids – it’s not your own little world, it’s yours, mine, Jan Leeming’s, and about 8 billion other people’s too. Share nicely, please.
• Polly Hudson is a freelance writer
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