Please, please, please put away your phones...

Theres nothing wrong with judging or judgement and its not bullying to rightly criticise poor practice.

Ok but moving away from berating individuals you can’t deny this is a widespread societal issue? Ask any primary school about the decline in their intake year on year. That’s not all caused by busy mum having a 20 min break after being Mary poppins for 12 hours is it?

pretty sure.

Definitive then.

Why is it acceptable to judge someone as a parent because you see a 30 minute snapshot of their life? To post it online for everyone else to say how terrible a parent they were

How is that not being a judgemental bully? "I saw you spend 30 mins on your phone/with headphones in, your poor child". Did you see the other 23.5 hours of my day? Where I took my child to the swings, baked cakes together, read all her favourite stories, built castles out of blocks, made her a picnic to get her to eat, filled the bird feeders so she could count how many came into her garden, laid in her bed with her to settle her back to sleep after she woke up and couldn't find her bunny? Where's the post online about those hours of a mums day?

Could be. Or they could be shit parents. A lot of parents are terrible parents so why couldn’t these two be? We seem to automatically assume that someone is just having a bad day when we see examples of shit parenting and then we’re all sympathetic when people say they grew up with terrible parents. My guess is that they are bad parents because even if you were having a bad day surely you wouldn’t both totally blank your young child?

You can’t have an opinion without being accused of that. I guess it touches a nerve. And no-one is perfect, but ignoring DC for phones in public does look poor and people will judge.

The narrative is “Covid”. It’s not though is it it’s phones. But that’s too hard to confront.

Feel pathetically relieved there weren’t smart phones when mine were tiny. Neither had a phone or even iPad until 11 as I’m a late adopter generally.

It’s certainly not only mums who wear headphones when out with their DC, in fact more likely a male, though I certainly do see women too. There may be all kinds of reasons, but pretty sure plenty are wearing headphones for all the walk whether getting their DC to sleep or not.

I have to admit I came home from a play cafe with my toddler just this week and told my husband about a baby (the age when they just start sitting up) just staring into space in an empty soft play area, without any other babies to interact with, while his mum was scrolling on Instagram behind him. It was definitely his mum as they looked so alike. (I’m used to seeing totally inattentive childminders and nannies around here tbh, so this doesn’t surprise me…) However, I did wonder at the time if she was tired/fed up as she looked a little despondent but I still wondered why she didn’t put him in one of the areas with many babies to stimulate him if she was too exhausted to. I have a chronic non-sleeper still so I know what this feels like.

Tbh, I think it did touch a nerve with me and raised it with DH to remind ourselves to do better rather than a “Aren’t we wonderful parents” flex because, as much as I’m sure I could be accused of performance parenting in my interactions with DC a lot of the time, I am also guilty of spending time on my phone doing ‘productivity’ things like online shopping and sending emails etc rather than social stuff while on the bus and things - when she’s got her book or colouring or something. I don’t have social media beyond MN yet I still manage to spend too much time on it sometimes. I really wish modern life didn’t revolve so much around tech, as much as it has been helpful with online banking, ordering prescriptions etc.

I also once heard an older child (maybe four) pleading (literal sense of word - not just being melodramatic) with his mum saying “Get off your phone!” I was shocked to hear if from a child’s mouth tbh but again it touched a nerve with me and made me want to do better as I think it’d stay with me forever if my own DC ever felt the need to say that to me.

I have to admit I was shocked when I found out neighbours’ 3yo has their own phone for watching their shows and playing games. He is actually overly clingy with me even at barbecues and things - and he barely knows me. Has met me a handful of very spaced out times.

Judgemental bullies is what you said.

The fact you don't even remember posting that just shows how blithely that term is bandied around these days.

Oh fuck off. This is basic human interaction and society is the poorer for it being so absent. If phones didnt exist,what would people think of someone just steadfastly not responding to their child fr that length of time, just staring away from the child, ignoring the child. No touch, no eye contact, no verbal contact, nothing.

And both of them at the same time.

Dreadful. And not isolated, I see it all the time

OP you are right, not unreasonable at all

I have taken to complimenting mothers that I see interacting with their babies/toddlers when out in buggies and tell them how lovely it is to see a child being talked to and not ignored for a phone.
Don't get me started on having a buggy rammed into me because the person pushing it is looking at Facebook and not where they're going!

I completely agree with you OP but at least their 18-year old wasn’t on the phone/tablet. I see this all the time in buses/restaurants - very young children in buggies on a phone /tablet while the parent is glued to theirs.

As a three year olds she's asleep right now, which is why I'm having some time doon scrolling. No nerves touched regarding my own parenting. Just dislike judgemental bullies.

Why is anyone who says something someone else doesn't like or agree with a bully these days? It's ridiculous.

Mulling on this. Where are we heading? That humans live in a virtual world? Parents on phone toddlers given screens as soon as possible. Teens online so don’t meet and socialise in person. All the old social / cognitive skills decline. Fewer children born because people don’t meet and cba to have them as they’d rather be scrolling / gaming in the virtual world. You may scoff but it’s already happening. It’s a huge societal shift that no one’s dealing with.

Speak to a speech snd language therapist and they’ll tell you the impact this is having.

Saddest thing I ever saw was a five year old chatting to her Mum or Gran ( hard to tell which) and being replied to with real hate and contempt. The saddest part was that the little girl wasn’t even reacting to being spoken to like this. This was clearly her normal. She just kept on chatting. And kept being replied to with hate.

No. Judgemental is what I said.

Why would you engage with a child you're trying to get to sleep? If I even smiled at DD when she was fighting a nap she'd be sat up chatting to me instead of going to sleep. So yes, sometimes I'd put her in the pram, stick my headphones in (quietly) to stop myself from engaging with my too cute child because she needed the sleep and it was the way that worked for us.

You'd probably also judge if later on in the day, because she'd not slept, I was doing the food shopping we needed doing while she was screaming her head off because she'd gone over tired from no nap.

Parents can't win. Scrap that. Mums can't win. DH only ever got the "what a good dad" looks even if he was checking his phone while she was on the swing. However apparently people judged me for walking my child into her nap cos I listened to the radio for half an hour while getting her there.

Oh OK then, so everyone who disagrees with you is an unsupportive bully. Ah well.

And given that it's what, not even 7am in the UK (if that's where you are), nobody will imagine you're currently scrolling and writing on MN while ignoring your very much awake 3-year-old. Again, a nerve has been touched.

Completely agree. Went to a clinic and the walls were plastered with posters saying 'put your phones down, talk with your child' and lots of info on how vital that connection is for speech and social development, tips for ways to do it etc - still phone zombies sat ignoring their kids.

Whilst I agree (and similarly used to hate seeing parents with headphones on whilst their baby was awake when mine was little), I think you're preaching to the converted here. Those parents will make every excuse under the sun why they should just ignore their child, they simply won't get it ir care.

Agree. And take your headphones off too. Tune in to your baby.

I said that while I was trying to get my awake baby to sleep I would sometimes have headphones in while pushing the pram. She was awake, but I couldn't interact with her, because then she wouldn't go to sleep. But to those posters saying it's terrible to see parents with headphones in while pushing a pram, how do you know their very awake child isn't supposed to be asleep? That they've been awake when they should have been asleep for the last several hours? The judgement is just horrific in a place that mum's should be being supported.

As a three year olds she's asleep right now, which is why I'm having some time doon scrolling. No nerves touched regarding my own parenting. Just dislike judgemental bullies.

Hear hear. They're just as addictive.

I have seen this in the playground quite a lot. Women on their phones whilst their young toddlers are playing - not taking pictures but scrolling. Certainly also see a lot of dads behaving like this too.
It’s really sad to witness .