This interesting US case involved a female restaurant manager who yelled at a crying baby. An opinion piece on the matter was published here. Below is a reader’s comment in response to the article. The case raised similar issues to those in NZ’s ponytail-pulling crisis.

When a customer keeps doing something objectionable, be it a prime minister touching a waitress’ ponytail or parents letting their baby cry incessantly, those working in roles directly serving customers surely can at a minimum be expected to use moderate, clear and assertive communication skills to deal with such situations.

It will seldom be necessary or useful to yell at someone’s child. Perhaps justified if the child is about to do something dangerous and a yell is the only way to distract him/her in time. Otherwise, all that’s needed are polite, clear, assertive requests of a child and/or (as in this case) the child’s parents. Even if the matter then needs to be taken further, those steps can be carried out assertively rather than aggressively. People in service industries should be expected to know and to use such basic skills. Ms Neugerbauer admitted she snapped yet expressed no remorse because she claimed it worked to shut the baby up. Well cutting the baby’s throat would also have achieved this so under Neugerbauer’s reasoning that would also be ok. Under duplicitous feminist ideology that dominates modern western countries, only a female could get away with what Neugerbauer did and her shameless defense of it. A male who did the same thing would already be facing charges of intimidating behavior and child abuse.