A Mom Is Horrified That A Family Came To A Hotel Breakfast Buffet In Their Pajamas & Asks If She's Being Unreasonable
Unsanitary and disrespectful, or just... normal?
Everyone lives their lives a little differently, but there are times when those differences tip over into concerning behavior. The world is full of strangeness and oddities and surprises, and sometimes those surprises come to us at hotel breakfast buffets.
One mom shared her 'horrifying' experience attending a hotel breakfast buffet with a family in their pajamas.
On the website Mumsnet — a site designed for parents to connect with and learn from other parents — one user submitted her concern to the sub-forum “Am I Being Unreasonable”. This forum is a space for parents to vent and get feedback and support from other parents, similar to Reddit's “AITA” forum.
In her post, she wrote: “Last night stayed overnight in a City Centre hotel and a family all came down to breakfast wearing their pajamas, looking like they had all jumped out of bed.”
She shared that the incident had occurred at 9 AM, so there was still time left to shower and get dressed before breakfast finished, and couldn’t see a reason for the family to behave like this. “Am I being unreasonable?” she asked the net.
Her post quickly gained traction, receiving a few hundred comments that mostly agreed with her discomfort, blaming individualism and sloppiness for the family’s actions.
“I think if someone did that they had not [learned] proper manners.” One user replied. “It's not, in my opinion, acceptable unless you are under 3.”
Another argued that it was so inappropriate that the hotel staff should have intervened, saying: “I have never seen that and I would definitely assume the staff would send them back to put clothes on. I’m guessing it’s the same type of people who do school drop-offs and supermarket shopping in pajamas who would do it, and they generally don’t react well to criticism.”
One user argued that behaviors such as this were the result of extreme individualism, or giving ‘no thought to anyone else but yourself’. “It shows a complete lack of respect [for] other people… And it does impact everyone. What you do what you wear how you behave in public affects everyone,” the user wrote.
They also shared a personal story of a fancy dining event gone wrong when a revealingly-dressed woman chose to sit beside their table, making the dinner party uncomfortable.
They claimed, "No, it doesn’t hurt anyone but the world is no better off for people just "doing their thing."'
Most of the comments held these firm opinions against the pajamas, and any comments arguing on the opposite side were few, and far between, and typically shut down by other users.
The argument brings up an interesting topic of social norms and how we present ourselves, but the side seen in the comments is largely biased towards one answer, without concern for the other side of the story.
Perhaps wearing unwashed pajamas to a hotel buffet is informal, and less than pristine, but is it really so against hotel rules that guests would ask they be kicked out and forced to change? I find that hard to believe.
At the end of the day, the family’s personal situation is entirely unknown to all of the strangers judging them. Maybe they are just unclean people who don’t care whose morning they are ruining, sure, or, maybe, their luggage was lost during the flight, and they haven’t had the chance to buy new clothes.
Maybe the family was dealing with a sudden death, or an equally traumatic situation, and simply couldn’t muster the energy to change before picking up food. Maybe it was a family treat to the kids to let them have a “pajama day” on a weekend as a reward for good grades in school.
It’s totally normal to be uncomfortable with how other people present themselves, that happens no matter how open-minded we might be.
However, the comments’ hurry to wield anger against this unknown family and wish legal action upon them is just as much an example of disregarding others’ feelings as the choice of dress.
One comment makes the core of this issue abundantly clear by writing: “They are scummy chavs. I hate to think what they’ve done in the room if they have such little disregard for social norms and other people.”
There it is, plain and simple. A belief that lower-income, lower-class people are inherently dirty, and a choice as small as wearing pajamas makes it morally okay to treat them as such.
The earlier argument that these people “generally don’t react well to criticism” is also rooted in a classist belief that lower-class people are more likely to be needlessly aggressive.
Nobody likes being told what to do by strangers, and if, in fact, the pajama-wearer does have some upsetting life event going on that has caused them to dress down in public, a stranger getting in their face about it won’t make them want to appease them right then and there.
We cannot control what others do in public, but sometimes, oddities are not harmful, and we can live with our own discomfort.
Hawthorn Martin is a news and entertainment writer living in Texas. They focus on social justice, pop culture, and human interest stories.