Waiter Sticks Up For Special-needs Boy By Refusing Service---Waiter defends boy with Down Syndrome, refuses to serve table: A waiter is being hailed as a hero on Facebook for refusing to serve customers who wanted to be moved to another table because they didn't like being near a special needs child. According to the waiter, the people said, “special needs kids should be kept in special places."
The waiter said he expected he might be fired, but the restaurant is sticking up for him.
According to the child's mum:
"We have been taking Milo out to restaurants since he was born. On the whole, he acts better than most typical children. He has an Ipad and can navigate through his apps and movies basically all on his own. Wednesday night we had just sat down maybe 10 minutes before the other family came in. We had not been in for a few weeks so all the waiters were coming to say hi to Milo. He was responding to them, telling them how old he is (just had a birthday) etc. We, adults, were encouraging Milo to say hi and show off some of his new vocabulary. Was he loud? Maybe a little in the moment, but honestly, the adults at our table were 3x louder than he was.
"If he had been obnoxious, which like any other 5 year old he can be, I wouldn’t have thought twice about the family asking to move. No one wants to sit next to a loud, disruptive child but it had nothing to do with him having special needs. He is just a kid and shouldn’t be discriminated against. He certainly didn’t ask to be born with Down’s syndrome."
The waiter said he expected he might be fired, but the restaurant is sticking up for him.
According to the child's mum:
"We have been taking Milo out to restaurants since he was born. On the whole, he acts better than most typical children. He has an Ipad and can navigate through his apps and movies basically all on his own. Wednesday night we had just sat down maybe 10 minutes before the other family came in. We had not been in for a few weeks so all the waiters were coming to say hi to Milo. He was responding to them, telling them how old he is (just had a birthday) etc. We, adults, were encouraging Milo to say hi and show off some of his new vocabulary. Was he loud? Maybe a little in the moment, but honestly, the adults at our table were 3x louder than he was.
"If he had been obnoxious, which like any other 5 year old he can be, I wouldn’t have thought twice about the family asking to move. No one wants to sit next to a loud, disruptive child but it had nothing to do with him having special needs. He is just a kid and shouldn’t be discriminated against. He certainly didn’t ask to be born with Down’s syndrome."
