Diner Owner in Hot Water for Yelling at Toddler
Was a restaurant owner within her rights in shouting at a child crying in her diner? (Photo: News Center WCSH)
A diner owner in Portland, Maine, served up more than one couple expected when she yelled at their child for crying on Saturday — and sparked a heated exchange on Facebook that went viral.
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By Darla Neugebauer’s own admission, she grew frustrated with Tara and John Carson’s toddler daughter when the child began crying inside her restaurant, Marcy’s Diner, on Saturday morning.
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According to Neugebauer, the Carsons didn’t feed their daughter the pancakes that they’d ordered for her, and the girl wailed for nearly an hour. The diner owner tells KSDK that she snapped after the couple, visiting from New York, didn’t respond to Neugebauer’s request that they leave or take the child outside. “I slammed my hands on the counter, and I said, ‘This needs to stop!’ meaning her screaming,” Neugebauer tells the local news outlet. “And I pointed at her. And she looked at me and she stopped. And her parents said, ‘Are you screaming at a child?!’ Yes I am. And she shut up.”
Photo: News Center WCSH
Following the incident, Tara Carson vented on Marcy’s Diner’s Facebook page that it was “the worst experience” and called Neugebauer “deranged.”
Not one to take a jab without responding, Neugebauer promptly fired back on the page, which is liked by 10,000 people. “After your 4th attempt to shut her up I asked you to pack up either your rotten child or take the so important pancakes to go,” she writes. “But NNNNOOOOOOO you just sit there & let your f—- [sic] screaming kid go! & piss off my staff & my patrons!…I have a business to run & yes I am f—ing [sic] crazy & you are lucky I didn’t get really f—ing [sic] nuts because being physical is not something I cower from…”
When KSDK reached out to Neugebauer and asked if she regretted the fiery exchange that’s been drawing both outrage and support online, she stood her ground. “I might have used poor judgment, but I wouldn’t say that I’m sorry, because it stopped,” she told the reporter referring to the child’s tantrum. “When things stop, it’s usually a good thing.“
The Carsons (Photo: News Center WCSH)
Tara Carson, however, insists that Neugebauer was out of line. “My daughter was crying; it was nothing out of the norm,” she told KSDK. “[Neugebauer was] screaming in her face, ‘Shut the hell up!’ I was in pure shock because I’ve never seen behavior like this before.”
Yet response to the local story on Facebook remains mixed. Neugebauer supporters gripe that kids often get away with inappropriate behavior at restaurants. “Good for her!” writes one commenter on KSDK’s post. “I get so embarrassed if my kid acts up at a restaurant. No one is saying people with kids should not go out to eat once in awhile. But for crying out loud, be respectful of all the other people spending money and treating themselves.” Yet others back Carson, including this respondent: “If she doesn’t want screaming kids in her restaurant then she needs to close up shop and open a bar.”
Etiquette consultant Rachel Isgar, however, tells Yahoo Parenting that both parties committed pretty blatant faux pas. “It’s hard to imagine that somebody would scream at another person’s child, and as a parent I wouldn’t ever want to see that, but parents have to do something to help their child in a situation like this so his or her upset isn’t continuing,” says the owner of Please Pass the Manners. “You never want to let anything get to this level.”
Isgar says that etiquette mandates that the Carsons should have taken their daughter outside once she started to cause a ruckus and that Neugebauer should never have yelled. “This sounds like it was a no-win situation,” she says, noting that each side seemed far too “rigid” to come to a peaceful agreement. “Since it escalated this high, everybody just has to move on at this point and learn from the mistake.”
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