She Asked A Mother And Son To Leave A Professional Ballet Performance Because The Little Boy Wouldn’t Stop Fussing And Being Disruptive The Entire Time
A couple of weekends ago, this 17-year-old girl and her family attended The Nutcracker at McCaw Hall in Seattle.
This hall is famous and incredibly prestigious, and she and her family see a ballet performance there every year.
Before shows, the theater explains its rules to the audience, which include not using phones or recording videos.
Plus, the theater points out where their exits are if any audience members have to leave while the show is still going on.
When she and her family were seated, she was on the far-right side of the rest of her family members. Her sister was in the seat to her left, and a stranger was seated to her right.
The stranger was a woman who looked to be in her late 20s or early 30s, and she hurried in right as the lights were being dimmed before the performance started.
To the left of the woman, the rest of her family (her husband and two children) sat down as well.
The couple had a daughter who was probably around 8 years old, as well as a son who was about 3 or 4.
Luckily, the couple’s daughter was well-behaved during the show and was clearly excited. She thought it was pretty adorable that the couple’s daughter was wearing a crown on her head.
VIAR PRO studio – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual person
When the first act of the ballet began, she quickly realized that the mother had a massive purse filled with all sorts of things to keep her son occupied.
The mother grabbed some toys and coloring books out of her bag, but her son didn’t seem to want to play or color because he continued talking in a quiet voice.
Throughout the first act, the mother repeatedly tried to hush her son, but it didn’t seem to work.
While this was going on, she wasn’t bothered because she acknowledged that this is to be expected with children.
“However, towards intermission, the kid is getting restless, and he starts fussing. I wasn’t mad about it. Kids are kids. Others are giving her looks, but she’s desperately trying to distract him,” she said.
The woman’s husband was doing his best to try to get their son to calm down, too, but to no avail.
When the intermission began, the woman and her son stepped out. She hoped that this meant the boy would be quieter once the next act started.
But as intermission ended and the second act began, the mother came back to her seat, obviously a bit disruptive since she got back later than she should have, and her son was still whining, but this now at a much louder volume.
“About 20 minutes later, he starts full-on wailing, and she just keeps going, ‘Shhh, shhh,’ while holding him,” she explained.
Understandably, this started bothering her because the mother and her son were directly next to her and distracting her from the ballet.
She pointed out that in the hallway right outside the exit are some TVs that show the performance in real time. This is convenient since audience members can watch from the hall if they have to leave for a few minutes, and the only moments they wouldn’t get to see are the several seconds it takes to leave their seats and walk out the exit doors.
In her view, it would make sense for the woman to just take her son into the hallway until he’s quiet and relaxed because she could still watch the ballet on the TV.
It seemed pretty apparent that the boy wasn’t having a good time, and the whole experience was most likely too much for him.
Finally, she had enough and decided to say something.
During the show, she saw only two ushers, and when she and her family got their tickets and saw the line for food, it appeared to her that the theater was understaffed.
There wasn’t an usher nearby to step in, and she thought it would’ve caused more of a scene to stand up, walk through half a row of audience members in order to reach the aisle and find an usher.
It was also not possible for her or any of her family members to switch seats to move away from the mother and her son.
So, she leaned closer to the woman, apologized, kindly acknowledged that the woman’s son was a bit crabby, and asked her if she knew about the TVs in the hallway where she could watch the ballet.
She was as polite as possible and didn’t demand that the woman leave, but she felt like her words were more of a suggestion and a hint.
“The boy is in full meltdown now, kicking other seats and jumping up and down. She told me I wouldn’t understand because I’m a teenager, but kids are harder to take care of than a phone (like, what?). She continues to sit while trying to entertain him, but then he starts saying, ‘Potty, potty, potty,’ and she leaves,” she shared.
A few minutes later, the woman and her son returned, and the boy was quiet for the remainder of the performance.
Later, her parents told her that the boy was unruly and distracting, but they parroted the woman’s opinion about how, since she’s not an adult, she can’t tell this woman to even suggest to the woman what she should do with her child. They told her that it was wrong for her as a teenager to talk to an adult in that way.
From her perspective, it was nonsensical for a family to waste money on a ticket for a child too young to enjoy or appreciate a ballet performance.
It was clear that the couple’s daughter was thrilled and having fun, so it made sense for her to be there.
But she pointed out that the boy wasn’t at the age where he could comprehend ballet, and he didn’t have a long enough attention span to sit for over an hour and a half.
What would you have done if you were in her shoes?
You can read the original post on Reddit here.
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