Chris Maclean: Family misfortunes

I've been amused by the unholy row in Staffordshire this week when the vicar ordered a child to be removed from a church wedding. Whatever the substance of the story, and there appears more to it than it first seems, it raises an issue I have long been concerned about ~ the rights and responsibilities of parents.

Things have moved from the Victorian idea that 'children should be seen and not heard'. There has been a gradual shift in the attitudes towards children in the past 20 years ~ perhaps most visible in pubs where, with the introduction of food into the offerings, it is inevitable that families will choose to visit pubs. With families automatically come children.

Some pubs have embraced children with open arms (not literally and certainly not without CRB checks) by providing child-friendly areas, investing heavily in childrens' play equipment, putting up child menus and ensuring the environment is totally child friendly. These pubs I applaud (and avoid). Other pubs are less suited to it.

It is ironic that, having argued passionately for months that pubs need to ensure they vary their offerings and provide their own distinctive identities. I'm coming to the opinion that they need to divide themselves into pubs that accept children and pubs that don't.

It is small wonder that parents are unable to distinguish child-friendly pubs from others. Very rarely nowadays do parents ask "is it OK if I bring my son/daughter in?" If they are welcome in the Happy Eater surely they must be welcome in the Kings Arms? How can a parent tell? Increasingly it seems it is becoming their right to take their children where they wish. Anyone who opposes such a view has to be a complete monster ~ like the Child Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Oppose children? You might as well hug a paedophile.

Let me make an observation. Nature has ensured that the cry of a baby is a sound that no mortal can ignore. It is as painful as running fingernails down a blackboard. It is meant to be that way. The baby is demanding attention. That is how it works. It is in its Nature. Two minutes of the sound of a crying baby and my wife is sweating, shaking and starting to produce milk. My first instinct is to laugh but then I swiftly move elsewhere.

Lunchtime today we visited a nearby pub for lunch. In the bar was a crying child. Luckily there were seats outside and I had a pleasant, if a little windy, lunch. Had we not had the option of outside we would have sought an alternative venue. The prospect of having a child crying throughout my meal was unacceptable.

Does that make me a grumpy old git? I don't know. It isn't the child's fault. Parents somehow believe their little darling cannot be causing disruption for anyone else and therefore it must be miserable old people who like complaining.

I am disillusioned by parents who sit drinking while their children run amok. When they are given a pound coin to go and play on the bar billard table unsupervised. When parents see the pub visit as a chance to unwind but, importantly, to ignore the children for 10 minutes while they do so.

These are the parents who give me the problems. No, of course little Jonny won't run around or sit at the bar. Three minutes later you look over and see little Jonny crawling behind the pub door. Putting crisps into the fruit machine. Spilling drinks. Making noise. Making mess.

If parents genuinely supervised their children and took the full responsibility the world, and particularly the pub world, would be a lot better place.

But until they do I think me and the Staffordshire vicar have a lot in common.