How refreshing to read Brian Jeffries' letter. I can fully endorse his comments on badly behaved children and their disrespectful parents.

As a single person, I find I am penalised in almost everything I do, from booking a hotel room to paying taxes.

As a female, I am considered almost abnormal not to have a motherly instinct and to be childless. My downtrodden, financially burdened friends never stop telling me about the joys of motherhood but it is a path I have never wished to choose.

To that end, as Mr Jeffries said, I am constantly annoyed at children being "in my face" in decent restaurants and, most especially, bars.

Whatever happend to children's rooms, where I used to spend many a happy evening with a bag of crisps and a Vimto and the company of other children? If parents could control their children there wouldn't be a problem but it seems the children now rule the parents, not the other way around.

So, parents and businesses alike, please give us peace-loving singles a break. You may even find a disciplined child a rewarding experience.

-M Reynolds, Kingsway, Hove