AITA: Nappy Changed On My Cafe Chairs!

Etiquette can be a tricky topic to traverse as a parent.

At what point does the needs of your baby overrule manners, and or good hygiene practices? Most reasonable folk will turn the other cheek if a parent and child are perhaps pushing their boundaries on this front, but there comes a point where people perhaps can't be blamed for putting a stop to an ongoing situation if it is truly outrageous!

One cafe worker took to the Reddit AITA (Am I The Asshole) board to ask, is he wrong for stopping a mother from changing her baby's dirty nappy on a chair at his place of work? Read on for more...

"Background Info:

So the building where the cafe that I work at is located in, was built in the 1750’s and is therefore a listed building. Because if that, we cannot knock down walls so we are tight on space.

A consequence of that is that we only have enough space for one women’s toilet and one men’s toilet. No baby changing facilities in either. There is, however, a public toilet block no more than 50m away from our premises. It has multiple baby changing facilities, in both the female and male toilet blocks.

The Story:

So a family come into the cafe, they sit down, eat and drink, and then one of her babies must’ve pooped it’s nappy because she came and asked me wether we had any changing facilities. I apologised and informed her that we didn’t, but I pointed out the public toilets and said that they were free and had everything she would need.

She said it was okay, and proceeded to change the child right on the chair in front of me. I told her that we cannot allow that as it’s disturbing the other customers and that it really isn’t sanitary, especially as we have fresh pastries and cakes in display.

She went ballistic saying that it’s the law that we need to let her change her child wherever she wants if we are unwilling to provide her with suitable changing facilities. I said that she’s more than willing to phone the police, but we cannot let her change her child like this. I again pointed out the public toilets and said that she needed to leave and change her child there. Her whole family got up, left and looked at me like I was a sexist bigot.

So… AITA?"

Read the full post here on Reddit.

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What was the general consensus?

Thousands of Reddit readers determined that the poster is NTA (Not The Asshole), voicing their disdain that a poopy nappy could be changed in a public space where food is being served, in full view of strangers. Many comments did concede that sometimes, needs really must, but in these situations it's not hard to shield a baby from view, and to move away from where people are eating! However, the consensus was that the mother was actually very lazy, given the fact that there are baby changing facilities opposite. The top rated comment was;

"NTA

Sorry lady, but that’s gross… it’s like the equivalent of wiping your own ass in the middle of the restaurant.

I know that it’s hard as a parent sometimes when buildings and places don’t have convenient areas to tend to your child, but you pointed out to her the facility she could have easily used."

Our verdict...

We can totally sympathise when it comes to babies and their inconvenient poop timing! Most of us will be caught short by this at some point. However, with there being changing facilities so close by, and with the cafe being an environment where people are eating, we are most definitely on the side of the poster. If there was no other option, as many of us have personally done, changing baby on our lap in the toilets is the best option surely - not easy, not fun, but no one should be exposing their baby's private parts in a public place. No one with common sense, anyway...

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