SO and I stopped for lunch at a local fast food Thai place the other day. As I was eating my Green Curry Tofu, I look up to see SO gazing over my shoulder with a horrified look on his face. I turn around to see a woman changing her infant’s diapers on one of the tables in the eating area of the restaurant.
SO says to me “Tell me if I’m being insensitive, but shouldn’t she take the baby to the restroom, or to her car, or basically anyplace but on a table where people eat to change it?”
My reaction was yes, she should. 90% of the public bathrooms I frequent have changing tables. Most of those that don’t have a counter large enough to do such things. Regardless, it seems to me that changing a baby on a public restaurant’s table is completely inappropriate. Who knows what lurks in a baby’s diapers? Granted, she put down a blanket to change it on, but as soon as she was done, she picked up said blanket, turned it over, and folded it stinky-baby-side-down on the table.
We spent the rest of our lunch trying to decide what to do if someone sat at that table to eat their lunch. Luckily, the issue didn’t come up.
I would say that the woman’s actions were inappropriate. I would have changed the baby on a seat or the floor (yes, it’s a little more difficult, but it can be done. I have, many times) if the baby could not be taken to the bathroom.
To come to her defense, however, there may have been reasons she could not take the child to the bathroom. Did she have other children with her? It can be difficult to take three kids to the bathroom to change an infant (and you certainly can’t leave the other children alone!). There may have been other reasons as well. However, I wouldn’t have done it on the table.
Couldn’t agree more. I’d be disgusted as well. What the hell was she thinking?!
As a father of two small kids, the youngest still in diapers, I’d have to say that the woman you saw was completely out of line. Neither my wife nor I would consider even for one brief moment that a restaurant table was an appropriate place to change a baby’s diaper. This woman clearly had very little consideration for her fellow diners.
I would not blame anyone for calling the restaurant manager’s attention to this so that he might suggest to the woman a more appropriate place to change her child. She may never return to that restaurant but there is a good chance she would think twice about doing the same thing at some other restaurant.
I’m not sure I’ve seen changing stations in 90% of bathrooms. I am a bit wary of using them, anyway, since I don’t know how often they are cleaned. But, jeez, not on the table. My solution has been to buy some of those plastic backed incontinence pads for beds. They fold up small and you can throw them away if they get dirty. But, please, go out to the car or something.
It really is hard to find a place sometimes, though. I recently went to a wedding reception at a nice hotel and had to change the baby on the floor of the handicapped stall. There wasn’t even a counter in the restroom.
Y’all are right - tables are for eating, not diaper-changing. But, if she had cleaned it with a baby wipe or something, I would have given her a little credit.
I don’t have much to add except that and a bit of self-promotion - check out my diaper-changing rant in the pit.
I’m sorry, but I don’t think that there is any excuse for her actions. One could say “what if” all day long, but no matter what you come up with as her “excuse”, at the very LEAST, she could have cleaned the table when she was done. I mean… if she really had to use the table (lava on the floor, ebola on the adjacent seats, and she was chained to her own chair after going mute and losing all other ability to communicate with others), she should have cleaned the dat’gum table. Stupid beee-otch. Let’s go find her… anyone up for a blanket party?
Some people have the mindset that their children’s needs, no matter what, are far more important than anyone or anything else, and therefore feel they don’t need to use common courtesy for anyone else’s benefit.
I’m talking about people who let their kids run wild in restaurants, bring small babies to theaters, change their kids anywhere and leave the trash wherever they want.
I hate it when some mom tells her toddler to stop climbing on something he shouldn’t be climbing on, he ignores her, so she just rolls her eyes, like, kids will be kids, whatever!
Yuck! When my twins were babies there were a host of inconveniences that I had to contend with. But, really. Yuck! Come on, just because you have an infant, this does not mean that common curtesy goes out the window.
At least she (I’m assuming) disposed of the diaper.
I am amazed by how many people seem to feel that responsibility for the diaper ends once it is off the baby. I’ve seen so many used, folded-up, pampers left in parking lots, under trees in the park, etc.
At least you fellow diner didn’t leave it on the tray to be bussed by some fast food Thai employee.
You have just inspired me to always lay down paper napkins whenever I go out to eat.
I mean, come on, I have a baby, too. I do the “sniff test” before we ever even get out of the car and if action is required, I do it in the privacy of my own backseat. Cleanliness aside, you don’t know what kind of pedophiliac loonies might be hanging around the local burger joint, just hoping for a glimpse of unclothed small child.
I can’t believe how many people are making excuses for this inexcusable deed. So what if there’s no other place to do it? So what? I don’t care!!! it’s not my baby, take it out to the parking lot or take it home! if the restroom is not working does that mean I can pee in the salad bar? Gimmeabreak!!
I would have taken it up with the manager as soon as I saw what she was starting to do. I think a mere statement of the obvious should be enough to kick the manager into action – “You know, sir or ma’am, the very sight of someone changing a baby on a table your customers eat off of might well discourage many of your customers from coming to eat here ever again.” I know it would me. Yuck.
Oh, and by the way, a baby wipe hardly sufficient to clean (ugh) fecal matter off an eating surface. I might also ask, do you think she changes that baby on the kitchen table at home?? But I think we can all assume she probably does. Ick ick ick!
As the mother of not one, but TWO little kids still in diapers, I can honestly say that this story is one of the most horrifying things I have ever heard.
Sure, maybe there wasn’t a changing table in the bathroom. So you lay a blanket on the floor. Or you take the kid to the car. All the kids, if you have to. NOT on the table in front of other diners! Yikes!
Other people do NOT want to look at my child’s naked body or poopy diaper, and I don’t want them looking, either. When I’m at home, I’ll change my kids wherever they happen to be. But if we have guests, and the kids need to be changed, it’s the bathroom or the bedroom. If I’m at someone else’s house, I will take them somewhere out of sight, preferably the bathroom. And those diapers come home, with me. I’m not throwing my child’s poopy diaper into the wastebasket of someone who has graciously invited me into their home.
