Now that the good weather’s finally arrived, I’m finding it increasingly hard to tell the difference between pubs and playgrounds – both are overrun with armies of marauding children.

But while it would be culturally (and legally) unacceptable for me, a 31-year-old man, and my friends, to sit and drink a few beers on a park bench as three-year-olds weave in between the swings, slides and seesaws, for some reason it’s become totally normal to let children take over our pubs.

For me, nothing quite tastes like home than a pint of tepid British beer, supped beside the frenzied hum of a fruit machine, while the tangy scent of Scampi Fries and urinal bricks lingers in the air.

Granted, not everyone’s cup of tea, and an unashamed caricature of a dying breed of watering hole, but nonetheless an unequivocally British and distinctly grown-up environment that always used to feel refreshingly rough around the edges.

Not anymore. Beware of the cluster bombs of crayons, blaring iPads and the prowling packs of two-foot PAW Patrol wannabes. Pubs aren’t for childless adults anymore are they? We’ve been squeezed out. They’re simply safe zones for toddlers to tear between tables while their millennial parents neck as many drinks as physically possible, before In the Night Garden starts at 18.20.

Speaking as a non-parent I know that this viewpoint will cause some readers’ blood to boil, and my intention is not to simply take a controversial stance on something in order to fill airtime, Katie Hopkinsesque.

I’m playing the role of Devil’s advocate because I’ve grown increasingly interested by how our pubs are transforming into something totally new, for better or worse.

Moreover, I think that many childless patrons are being significantly short changed by some parents who appear to display a total lack of respect for everyone else. How many Peppa Pig YouTube videos do you have to be subjected to before you just say enough is enough and head off home?

Recent research from the Campaign for Real Ale continues to paint an increasingly depressing picture for our pubs, and 18 now call final orders, for the very last time, every single week.

This endangered cultural institution is suffering at the hands of healthier lifestyles, tightened purse strings and rising duties on alcohol. But has anyone considered that it could also be down to millennial parents and their unruly offspring alienating many other pub-goers?

Last year I watched a furious couple leave a high-end foodie pub in North Oxfordshire after just their starters; such was their disdain for the racket they were being subjected to by an adjacent table-load of tots.

Don’t think I hate children – I have two nieces and three nephews, and most of my 30-something friends have their own, too. That’s not what this is about. The point is that there must be a tipping-point at which the product the consumer is paying for changes so considerably that it’s no longer what they once thought it was.

Say, for example, you take out a membership at a gym that’s clean, peaceful and not too busy, but after several weeks, months or years you wander into that very same gym to find it filthy and oversubscribed.

Surely the commodity that you bought into at the start has changed irrefutably? It’s no longer the gym you wanted to join. If we breach a critical mass of rampaging children then our public houses will become little more than crèches serving alcohol. You’d seldom see children in pubs overseas, so why do we tolerate it in Britain?

I know full well that I’m sounding like a cantankerous NIMPG (Not In My Pub Garden) and I’m almost certainly going to get it in the neck, both off and online for taking a shot at a subject that appears to be taboo – but some of my childless friends and I are left wondering if it’s worth going to the pub at all these days.

It’s not like it’s cheap. You’d be hard-pressed to find two beers for less than a tenner south of Birmingham these days.

It comes as no surprise that we’re seeing a spike in adult-only hotels all over the world and I can only predict (and hope) that some pubs will follow suit. I fully get that struggling landlords need to chase the most lucrative markets, but be careful what you wish for – some of us may be put off for life (or until we have children of our own, at least).

Now, spleen finally vented, I’m off for another pint and a bowl of peanuts. Or maybe a Fruit Shoot and packet of Monster Munch.