I have always loved the Pinakothek der Moderne, but today's visit turned out to be the most absurd experience of my life, especially as a mother with a one-year-old child in a stroller.

We bought tickets at the entrance and spent some time in the lobby. However, when we decided to go down to the basement to look at the design icons, a museum employee demanded we check in our diaper bag. It turned out that you can't bring food or drinks for children into the museum. Even airplanes allow baby food bottles! Fine. We checked the bag in the cloakroom and went back.

To reach the basement, we were directed to a lift hidden outside the lobby behind a heavy iron door. To get into the lift, you had to open the door with both hands, press the button, and quickly pass through the rapidly closing doors with a stroller, trying not to get caught by the closing iron door. The basement floor had the same complex procedure for getting back upstairs.

These difficulties show that the museum's management clearly does not consider the interests of visitors with children, let alone people with disabilities.

In response to my complaints, the staff said: "You should go to the Deutsches Museum with a child," "Those are the rules. File a complaint on the website," and "All mothers manage, and you should be okay." This is not okay, and it's worth speaking up and filing complaints. As long as mothers stay silent about such situations, the conditions will not improve!

And come on. Museums aren't just for older people or those without children. They should be dynamic places that encourage experimentation and action, not static spaces like cemeteries.

The last straw was an incident on the first floor. As we were exiting the elevator, a museum employee demanded that we remove a paper wrapper with pretzel leftovers from the stroller, which we had been carrying around without issue on the basement and ground floors of the museum. There was no trash can next to the elevator, so we had to go back down again.

We went back to the cloakroom, took our diaper bag, and went for a coffee to return to our zen state. Then we returned the bag to the cloakroom, threw away the wrapper, and went back up to the first floor.

Now, the employee noticed a baby water bottle I had accidentally left in the stroller during the time in the cafe. That was my mistake. Fine. I went back to the cloakroom again and returned.

But then the employee told me I needed to return to the cloakroom and remove all items from the stroller. When I asked for the employee's name, he refused to give it and hid his badge. Such rudeness is hard to find.

The museum staff outdid themselves today, and no one apologized for the inconvenience.

A museum that positions itself as a leader in the art world should be able to provide basic amenities for all its visitors, especially mothers with young children. Despite its claims of modernity, the Pinakothek der Moderne fails to accommodate the needs of families and other visitors who require more accessibility.