The Lower Red Lion, a 17th-century pub in St Albans, Hertfordshire, is an unassuming establishment. According to its own website, it has no history of “noteworthy guests” – “the height of the yard arch would not accommodate a full coach”, it explains. In 2024, however, it gained a degree of notoriety when a new patron announced his arrival on social media. “Found my new local,” he wrote, pointing in the attached photo to the pub’s sign: “Dog friendly; child-free.” Having, perhaps unwittingly, ignited the embers of a long-running debate about the place of children in public spaces, he found himself in receipt of thousands of replies.
It’s tempting when reading such interactions to draw far-reaching conclusions. Are they symptomatic of a wider anti-natal culture? As a parent of two under-fives, I find the online conversation sometimes plays in my mind when in public spaces. Reading a picture book aloud on the bus recently prompted a passenger to make for the upper deck. Not a Meg and Mog fan, perhaps.
Content from our partners
