A frustrated mum has slammed ‘bogans’ who let their kids run wild in public spaces after children destroyed the hand-built playpen at her favourite café.
Millie, from Townsville, posted a video to TikTok slamming the parents of an unsupervised child who destroyed the playground at Sirens Bayside café, in the North Queensland city on May 31.
The mother-of-one unleashed at any adults who would let their children do such a thing in a public place and called the act ‘low class’.
‘Just quietly, if you take your kids to a café that has a playground and then you think that’s automatic permission to let your kids run feral and trash the place you should not be taking your kids to there,’ she said.
The cafe’s owner, Natalie Giofre, 36, built the playground by hand earlier this year and said that her staff were too busy on the day to notice the kids running amok outside.
Millie, a mother-of-one, slammed ‘bogan, low-class’ parents who let their kids run amok in public areas after her favourite cafe’s playground was destroyed on May 31
Sirens Bayside cafe, in Townsville, Queensland, had its playground ripped apart by one kid whose mother told the owner that it was not her job to supervise her child
Ms Giofre told Yahoo News she went outside to find that ‘the kid’s corner had been fully trashed’ that morning.
‘The door had been ripped off the cubby house, it was all jagged and nails were hanging out,’ she told the publication.
The owner added that the mother of the child who had destroyed the playground was sitting by ‘doing nothing’ during the incident.
Later on that same day Ms Giofre said she saw another child throwing rocks around and dumping them in a cubby house which prompted her to approach the mother who dismissed the behaviour.
‘[The mother] was quite adamant and just said, ‘I’m not here to have to worry about what my kids are doing … if I have to worry about my kids breaking something or making a mess, then I’m just going to take them to the park’,’ she said.
Ms Giofre addressed the incident online where Millie heard about it, prompting her to drive past the cafe and discover that the playground has been since removed.
‘The damage was that bad that they had to remove the playground, I’m hoping they repair it, and put it back,’ Millie said in her video.
‘Everyone whinges that Townsville has no nice cafes or facilities, but then when a cafe owner goes out of their way to make their space nice this is what happens.
‘Quite frankly it does not matter how expensive your activewear is, if you’re not going to parent your children then that’s just low-class bogan behaviour.’
Ms Giofre (left) who runs Sirens cafe built the play area by hand (right)
The play area has now been removed but Millie says she hoped it would return
Ms Giofre used to be a marine biologist who left that line of work to launch the cafe
Ms Giofre agreed with Millie’s assessment and told the publication that it is a parent’s responsibility to supervise their children, not the café staff.
‘We’re not running a daycare centre [and] we’re not here to make sure your kids are not trashing the yard or breaking things or misbehaving,’ Ms Giofre said.
Other people who watched Millie’s video widely sided with the cafe owner and many agreed that letting a child run loose is ‘unacceptable’.
‘Honestly the worst thing about parenting is other parents,’ one person said.
‘Agree 100 per cent, I’m in Townsville too and so many times I have seen parents just let their kids destroy property and have no remorse,’ another added.
‘Also letting kids harass staff carrying hot food! It’s not safe.’
‘Why do parents think it’s okay to not actively supervise their children in a play area – blows my mind,’ a third said.
‘My sister-in-law literally just lets her kids run around playing hide and seek in pubs,’ one woman admitted.
‘I work at a cafe with a little play area, we had a mini cafe. I bought heaps of little wooden food toys, all of them were destroyed or stolen within two weeks,’ another said.
Daily Mail Australia has contacted Ms Giofre and Sirens for comment.