The owner of a diner in Portland, Maine, does not appear to be terribly concerned about the social media backlash resulting from her admitted hollering at a crying child and then later dubbing that youngster a “beast” and “monster” on Facebook.

A diner customer recently posted on the restaurant’s Facebook page that the owner is a “lunatic” who is “not suitable to run a business” after she screamed at her 2-year-old daughter.

In response, the owner unleashed her own version of events, saying the parents had ordered the small child a plate of three full-size pancakes, and while waiting for the order the kid became “cranky.”

After what she claims was 40 minutes of the little girl crying in the diner, the owner says she began dropping obvious hints for the family to leave, even bringing over to-go boxes for the pancakes that were never eaten.

According to the owner, she told them “either all of you need to go or just her,” referring to the child, or “beast,” as she writes in the Facebook post.

Even that didn’t spur the family to leave, says the owner. Instead, the child — who had apparently gone quiet after being told to leave — started crying again and continued to do so for another ten minutes, claims the owner.

The owner admits yelling at the family “THAT NEEDS TO STOP!”

“Why is it OK for that kid to disrupt the experience for 75 people when mommy or daddy could have taken it outside,” she writes.

As you can guess, the Internet did not respond to this news with a calm and reasonable debate. Instead, folks seem divided into two camps — those carrying pitchforks and calling for the owner to apologize, and those holding the owner up as a champion willing to say the things we wish we could.

So far, the owner is remaining unapologetic.

“Life’s full of choices and you’ve got to live with all of them,” she tells WCSH. “I chose to yell at a kid, it made her shut-up, which made me happy, it made my staff happy, it made the 75 other people dining here happy, and they left, they may never come back, other people may not come in. Their loss really.”

When asked if she felt sorry about her actions she replied, “Sorry isn’t the right word. I might have used poor judgement. I wouldn’t say I was sorry, because it stopped. When things stop, it’s usually a good thing.”

The mom who posted the complaint is defending her parenting skills to WCSH.

“I turned to my daughter and I was like ‘Listen, this is how I’m raising you not to be as an adult. Like, you will never be like this when you get older,'” she says. “I felt helpless as a mom that, you know, I couldn’t do anything to help her, because I can’t explain why there’s crazy people in this world that behave like that.”

[via Eater]

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.