Marks & Spencer cafe: breast-feeding mother asked to leave & feed baby in toilets:OK?

Azari

hollydays wrote: »

From facebook-after someone commented on this incident

Marks and Spencer Hi Barbara. I understand your concern and would like to assure you we'd never intentionally make our customers feel this way. This incident was a one off and the members of our team involved in this complaint believed they were doing the right thing to accommodate the customer quickly as there was no available seating to offer in either cafes at the time. Our staff are genuinely mortified that they have caused such embarrassment and upset, as mothers themselves they understand the importance and difficulties faced and are very regretful that the customer didn't feel they were sensitive enough to her needs. We also offered to send an email or letter to apologise further. Please let me know if you need any more help. Thanks, Donna.
1 · 16 hours ago

Hmmm, so it looks as if the OP wasn't strictly accurate.

The mother wasn't 'asked to leave', she was simply made aware of somewhere she could sit down to feed her baby.

Makes the staff look a lot less insensitive than the picture I suspect most people initially got of someone comfortably sitting at a table feeding their child and then being turfed out by some thoughtless idiot.

Even so, you'd have thought they could have found a spare chair from somewhere so that she could continue in more salubrious surroundings.

gunsandbanjos

Azari wrote: »

Hmmm, so it looks as if the OP wasn't strictly accurate.

The mother wasn't 'asked to leave', she was simply made aware of somewhere she could sit down to feed her baby.

Makes the staff look a lot less insensitive than the picture I suspect most people initially got of someone comfortably sitting at a table feeding their child and then being turfed out by some thoughtless idiot.

Very true, people do grab the pitchforks around this issue!

Someone mentioned organising a flash mob in protest, that drives me crazy, it's so antagonistic and unnecessary.

notanewuser

gunsandbanjos wrote: »

Very true, people do grab the pitchforks around this issue!

Someone mentioned organising a flash mob in protest, that drives me crazy, it's so antagonistic and unnecessary.

I never said anything about protesting!! It is one way of getting the message across to retailers/hospitality staff if they insist on sending feeding mothers to the toilets!! 20 or so mothers simultaneously feeding quietly sends our quite a strong message.

Doc_N

hollydays wrote: »

From facebook-after someone commented on this incident

Marks and Spencer Hi Barbara. I understand your concern and would like to assure you we'd never intentionally make our customers feel this way. This incident was a one off and the members of our team involved in this complaint believed they were doing the right thing to accommodate the customer quickly as there was no available seating to offer in either cafes at the time. Our staff are genuinely mortified that they have caused such embarrassment and upset, as mothers themselves they understand the importance and difficulties faced and are very regretful that the customer didn't feel they were sensitive enough to her needs. We also offered to send an email or letter to apologise further. Please let me know if you need any more help. Thanks, Donna.
1 · 16 hours ago

Azari wrote: »

Hmmm, so it looks as if the OP wasn't strictly accurate.

The mother wasn't 'asked to leave', she was simply made aware of somewhere she could sit down to feed her baby.

Makes the staff look a lot less insensitive than the picture I suspect most people initially got of someone comfortably sitting at a table feeding their child and then being turfed out by some thoughtless idiot.

Even so, you'd have thought they could have found a spare chair from somewhere so that she could continue in more salubrious surroundings.

I'm not at all sure this is the same incident! The mother my wife spoke to was definitely asked to leave - and it wasn't the first time it had happened to her!


Could this be yet another M&S incident? Where exactly is it on Facebook? I haven't managed to find it.

hollydays

If you cut and paste it you'll find it- posted 16 hours ago.
I do believe this is the same incident

hollydays

It's still in the google cache

hollydays

This is the quote- referring I imagine to what's been read on mse

"I have just read about a young mum being asked to leave a M&S cafe because she was breast feeding her baby and asked to go to the toilets instead.
Maybe you should retrain your staff and advise them about this small, but useful, extract from the NHS website:

"You shouldn’t ever be made to feel uncomfortable about breastfeeding in public. In fact, the Equality Act 2010 has made it illegal for anyone to ask a breastfeeding woman to leave a public place such as a cafe, shop or public transport."

Doc_N

hollydays wrote: »

This is the quote- referring I imagine to what's been read on mse

"I have just read about a young mum being asked to leave a M&S cafe because she was breast feeding her baby and asked to go to the toilets instead.
Maybe you should retrain your staff and advise them about this small, but useful, extract from the NHS website:

"You shouldn’t ever be made to feel uncomfortable about breastfeeding in public. In fact, the Equality Act 2010 has made it illegal for anyone to ask a breastfeeding woman to leave a public place such as a cafe, shop or public transport."

Thanks - that's helpful. They've deleted all that very promptly from Facebook, haven't they? Along, I see, with any other critical remarks that unhappy customers have dared to post!

Their response is particularly interesting, though:

"This incident was a one off and the members of our team involved in this complaint believed they were doing the right thing to accommodate the customer quickly as there was no available seating to offer in either cafes at the time. Our staff are genuinely mortified that they have caused such embarrassment and upset, as mothers themselves they understand the importance and difficulties faced and are very regretful that the customer didn't feel they were sensitive enough to her needs. We also offered to send an email or letter to apologise further. Please let me know if you need any more help. Thanks, Donna."

Given that I haven't named the store in question (because I wouldn't want to risk any further possible embarrassment to the young woman in question), and no complaint has apparently been made, I'm wondering how much of a 'one-off' this actually was? How many more incidents like this have there been?

In this particular case, my wife spoke to the woman and there was no doubt whatever that she was asked to leave. Once on this occasion, and once on a previous occasion. And it wasn't a full cafe, either.

This sounds to me rather more like a policy (possibly local) than a one-off. The age profile at this store is predominantly 60+ (perhaps even 70+) and I'm wondering if they're ignoring the needs of young mothers and babies to pander to the prejudices of some of their other customers.

Either way, they're clearly breaking the law and it's odd that it always seems to be M&S that features in threads like this. About time they sorted it, once and for all.

antrobus

hollydays wrote: »

..."You shouldn’t ever be made to feel uncomfortable about breastfeeding in public. In fact, the Equality Act 2010 has made it illegal for anyone to ask a breastfeeding woman to leave a public place such as a cafe, shop or public transport."

That's not strictly correct. It would be more accurate to state that the 'Equality Act 2010 has made it illegal for anyone to ask a woman to leave a public place because she is breastfeeding'.

For example, it would be perfectly legal for a cafe to ask a woman to leave the premises because she had not purchased anything at the cafe counter. The fact that she might be breastfeeding at the time she was asked to leave would be of no consequence. Or to put it another away; the Equality Act does not confer on breastfeeding women the right to plonk themselves down any old place.

The Equality Advisory Service has a good pamphlet that explains.
http://www.equalityadvisoryservice.com/ci/fattach/get/584/1354032995/redirect/1/filename/business-quickstart.pdf

hollydays

Doc_N wrote: »

Thanks - that's helpful. They've deleted all that very promptly from Facebook, haven't they? Along, I see, with any other critical remarks that unhappy customers have dared to post!

Their response is particularly interesting, though:

"This incident was a one off and the members of our team involved in this complaint believed they were doing the right thing to accommodate the customer quickly as there was no available seating to offer in either cafes at the time. Our staff are genuinely mortified that they have caused such embarrassment and upset, as mothers themselves they understand the importance and difficulties faced and are very regretful that the customer didn't feel they were sensitive enough to her needs. We also offered to send an email or letter to apologise further. Please let me know if you need any more help. Thanks, Donna."

Given that I haven't named the store in question (because I wouldn't want to risk any further possible embarrassment to the young woman in question), and no complaint has apparently been made, I'm wondering how much of a 'one-off' this actually was? How many more incidents like this have there been?

In this particular case, my wife spoke to the woman and there was no doubt whatever that she was asked to leave. Once on this occasion, and once on a previous occasion. And it wasn't a full cafe, either.

This sounds to me rather more like a policy (possibly local) than a one-off. The age profile at this store is predominantly 60+ (perhaps even 70+) and I'm wondering if they're ignoring the needs of young mothers and babies to pander to the prejudices of some of their other customers.

Either way, they're clearly breaking the law and it's odd that it always seems to be M&S that features in threads like this. About time they sorted it, once and for all.

in the response they said they'd offered to email an apology which suggests the lady made a complaint.