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

Kaye1

My local has it's own room with changing facilties, basin and a soft chair for feeding. I have found this very useful and it is a very spacious room so you can take buggy, other kids in etc. However, it is a new store, so I guess they have the space.

Pollycat

Doc_N wrote: »

There were plenty of seats - she had a seat, but was simply asked to leave and feed her baby elsewhere.

In that case, the complaint being discussed on Facebook here is different.

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

Unless M&S mean by 'no available seating' a chair in an area away from the public caf!.

Does this mean that M&S usually have 'available seating' that they deem appropriate for breast-feeding Mums but they were all already taken by lots of Mums giving Junior his dinner?

I couldn't (and wouldn't) have sat and allowed this to happen without challenging the M&S employee who told this Mum to move.

Doc_N

Pollycat wrote: »

In that case, the complaint being discussed on Facebook here is different.



Unless M&S mean by 'no available seating' a chair in an area away from the public caf!.

Does this mean that M&S usually have 'available seating' that they deem appropriate for breast-feeding Mums but they were all already taken by lots of Mums giving Junior his dinner?

I couldn't (and wouldn't) have sat and allowed this to happen without challenging the M&S employee who told this Mum to move.

I think you're right. This must be (yet) another case - I see there's a comment:

"as there was no available seating to offer in either cafes at the time"

The store in which the incident I'm reporting took place has just the one cafe.

Azari

Doc_N wrote: »

I'm sorry you feel that a 'gratuitous' comparison with Waitrose in some strange way results in lost credibility, though I can't quite see the connection between the two. If you take a quick look at the business results being achieved by M&S, and compare them with those being achieved by John Lewis you might get a sense of where I'm coming from. I use both retailers, as does my wife. The John Lewis ethos is incredibly customer-centric, and they bend over backwards to provide excellent customer service. That's why I can't imagine it happening in a Waitrose caf!. M&S used to have that same ethos, but I'm afraid that the need to cut costs has driven it out.

The reason that the comment reduces your credibility is that it makes it appear that you are already prejudiced against M&S and are taking the opportunity to take a dig at them.

I also find it odd that you report this and then, lo and behold a very similar incident appears elsewhere on the web but when M&S explain the situation there, you say that your incident is a completely different one.

We are supposed to believe that M&S are habitually flouting equality legislation in a very public and easily verifiable way and no one is doing anything about it.

Indeed, apart from posting here it seems that neither you nor your wife are sufficiently concerned to take any action.

Further, you will not post the location of the incident (if you have and I missed it, I apologise in advance). Of course, if you did it would be very easy for anyone here to alert the store in question that they are the subject of a thread here. Which might be interesting.

You may choose to doubt my credibility for reasons of your own.

I just find the whole thing a bit odd.

1) A company is apparently flouting equality legislation (for no obvious benefit to themselves) and no one is reporting it. Mothers tend to be very militant when it comes to their children's rights and if they are repeatedly acting in this way to one woman then you can bet she's not alone.

2) There are two separate incidents at two separate location within a day or so (which would make it seem that it is company policy), which would imply that this is happening to literally hundreds of mothers a week across the country and yet nothing is appearing in the press.

3) The location in question isn't specified, meaning that it is impossible for anyone to verify the story or make a report.


Of course, you may be 100% above board in which case I apologise for doubting you, but you must see that there are several elements to this story that do not, prima facie, add up.

pinkshoes

Kaye1 wrote: »

My local has it's own room with changing facilties, basin and a soft chair for feeding. I have found this very useful and it is a very spacious room so you can take buggy, other kids in etc. However, it is a new store, so I guess they have the space.

They seem to be incorporating these feeding rooms into some of the older stores too.

rach_k

Azari wrote: »

I just find the whole thing a bit odd.

1) A company is apparently flouting equality legislation (for no obvious benefit to themselves) and no one is reporting it. Mothers tend to be very militant when it comes to their children's rights and if they are repeatedly acting in this way to one woman then you can bet she's not alone.

2) There are two separate incidents at two separate location within a day or so (which would make it seem that it is company policy), which would imply that this is happening to literally hundreds of mothers a week across the country and yet nothing is appearing in the press.

I find your refusal to accept the that the two situations could happen at around the same time a bit odd. I'm not sure what the OP would gain by making something like this up. It seems quite clear to me that they were separate incidents. Your inability to accept that M&S could possibly have two members of staff who haven't understood the law is, quite frankly, ridiculous. There are examples every day of mothers being asked to leave or receiving abuse because they are breastfeeding. Why would M&S be any different to any other place, unless they have special scanners that weed out the numpties at interview?

I think you will find that most breastfeeding mothers would be mortified to be asked to leave because they were breastfeeding and most would just go to avoid causing a scene. Lots of women don't realise they can't be discriminated because of it and even when women do know they're often just too embarrassed or shocked to say anything. Even people who are very confident in theory might find themselves shocked into silence. Others might just want to run away and cry!

Doc_N

Azari wrote: »

Of course, you may be 100% above board in which case I apologise for doubting you, but you must see that there are several elements to this story that do not, prima facie, add up.

I must leave you to your doubts, and others to form their own judgments.

I can assure you that every word I have posted accurately reflects what my wife was told by the mother as she sat there feeding her baby in the toilets. The mother could have been making it up, as could my wife, but somehow I doubt it.

I know nothing about what appeared on Facebook. I didn't post it, I rarely use Facebook, and I have no idea whether it relates to the same incident or another. I suspect the latter, though, because there's a reference to more than one cafe, and there is only the one in the M&S I'm referring to.

I agree with you that it's impossible to believe that M&S has a corporate policy which, if applied, would contravene the law. Where, perhaps, we disagree, however, is on the number of times this is happening and the extent and effectiveness of the corporate resolve to put an end to it.

marliepanda

People who are unhappy with how they have been treated, for example, not been accommodated to their liking do have a tendency to embellish and exaggerate what has actually happened.

Not saying this is what has happened here, but during my (thankfully over) time in retail I've been on the receiving end of many such embellished complaints.

couponqueen123

Kaye1 wrote: »

My local has it's own room with changing facilties, basin and a soft chair for feeding. I have found this very useful and it is a very spacious room so you can take buggy, other kids in etc. However, it is a new store, so I guess they have the space.

wait till that store is not new and the nice baby room stinks of dirty nappys and isnt as nice as sitting in a cafe thats got clean air in it to breath

my local m&s baby toilets are shocking the bins always full oh and the lock was broken last time i went

i can not belive people get offended by breastfeeding ? what do they find a fending ? iv never seen a womans breast when she feeding

mumps

Doc_N wrote: »

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.

I am 60 something, breastfed my four children and did in restaurants, beaches, sitting in the car and sometimes in private but never because I thought it was something that needed to happen in private.

I think 60 something people might just be a bit more broadminded than you seem to think. Personally I find it surprising that the young women I know seem so uncomfortable about feeding in public but maybe it is because of incidents like this one. I never had a complaint when I was feeding.