To think there should be seperate playgroups for people like this?

[MumblingRagDoll]

I am talking about people who feel the need to SHOUT every flipping sentence when talking to their DC? I went to ours this morning and as usual there were umpteen women who couldn't speak at a normal level...

"FREDDY! WOULD YOU LIKE A BICUIT DARLING???"

"HARRY! LOOK! LOOK AT THE TRAIN!!"

"OOOOOOOHHHHH CHARLOTTE! WHAT A BEAUTIFUL ANENOME YOU'VE DRAWN!!!! THAT IS AN ANENOME! AN-EN-O-ME"

I wanted to say "NO! BODEN-CLAD WOMAN...

IT IS AN ANEMONE...AN-EM-O.NE!"

The kids are all like this and they play quietly and well...it's just these bloody loud women who swan....and stalk and dash importantly about the rooms like they own them! I want a playgroup where people talk normally!

WHY? Why do they do this??? They also look like this all the time...never budge it..."Oooh...no Chloe! Don't push Harriet! She was on the train first

Have they all had lobotomies? Do they feel NOTHING but for and hour and a half? Really?

There is a woman like this at an after school club one of mine goes to. The grub at this club is the usual fare - toast, biscuits, squash etc. But she always makes a point of ringing a large bag of carrot sticks and cherry tomatoes, arranging them in pretty patterns on a plate and then saying very loudly: 'WOULD ANYONE LIKE A YUMMY CARROT STICK? JOSHY IS GOING TO HAVE ONE AREN'T YOU JOSHY? GOOD BOY JOSHY? JOSHY LOVES VEGETABLES. DON'T YOU WANT TO BIG AND STRONG LIKE JOSHY, TOO, JAKIE?' etc etc.

It really does bring out the Mo Slater 'oh shutcha gawb you caaaah!' in me (well, internally, anyway).

And Joshy's like this at the custard creams and white toast!

This is funny!!

I can safely say I was not a braying parent. I was too busy hissing ferociously "Don't you dare do that again, Be quiet, Don't interrupt, Stand still, etc. etc...............

I have however observed a lot of this behaviour in recent years - particularly in airport departure lounges.
A particular mum (with totally silent DH) amazed us all with her loud and hectoring discipline style which involved uber control-freakery. And her lovely boy and girl were perfectly behaved

Oh I think I do this too - and I have some boden clothes -and some primark as well - what I hadn't come across until recently is parents bring their own snack to play group - the poor toddlers can't have juice and a biscuit - no a nice whole meal sandwich -

Oh crap. I was actually debadating buying a Boden rain coat on Ebay but you have made me see sense. What if it were the start of a slippery slope? DH wants us to move to an area where louder mummy shouting is more common then in current playgroup post code. (I know, cos I dabbled, it was amazingly different. Way more jeans tucked in expensive boots and grandparents, and of course loud chastising in belated and ineffectual manner.)

Debadating?? Eh
Debating.

I know someone who does that loud talking, plus, for extra wincing of people around her, never misses a chance to mention her Chinese Daughter! that we adopted from China!
She is only 6 years old, but I wonder when it will begin to bother her that her mother does this.

I used to get a little local bus where you used to see the same people regularly. It went through quite a poor area and finished up in one of the most expensive parts of south-west London so the children on the bus were always a mix of private and state school uniforms.

There was a small group of Somalian mums who had fairly recently come to the country when DS was a baby - they always used to talk to me in very basic English and signs about DS. They were very, very keen to learn good English and after a year or so they spoke pretty well. They were always playing word games with their primary age children to help their English and one of the little girls in particular had quite a surprising vocabulary for a young child speaking a second language.

I was on the bus one day and this mum and little girl were playing an alphabet game - not loudly, just at normal volume and I made some comment to the mum about how good her vocabulary was. There was a mum sitting opposite with a little boy of about the same age from one of the local private schools and the second I praised the little girl the other mum said loudly "I know, DS. Let's play your favourite word game shall we?" The boy looked at her a bit blankly. So she started saying "what word begins with A?" Boy thinks for a bit and quite reasonably says "apple". Mum said "Well we know APPLE begins with A, what else though?" Boy can't come up with anything so mum says "What about ALTERNATIVE? What does ALTERNATIVE mean?" More blank looks. "Come on, you know what ALTERNATIVE means." This went on for several stops with words like "eternity" and "fascinating", none of which the boy had any idea about. Mum got redder and redder in the face and louder and louder, and the Somalian mum and I got more and more giggly.

It was a competitive parenting fail at its best.

I think I might have been guilty of loud parenting a lot of few times in the past, don't know why I just did it without realising, then read on MN about it and ..... problem sorted....

All of these make me laugh! But I also witness regularly a sort of reversal...there's a little boy in my DDs school who is good at everything....excellent little performer, great at sports and clever too..he's SO competative and passionate....he reularly runs out of school to his very quiet Mum and screams "I came FIRST! I came FIRST and I got TEN OUT OF TEN!" and his poor Mum cannot cope with it at all....she's always blushing....he's such a high achiever that she goes the opposite way....and sometimes tries to downplay him a bit to get a balance....which I don;t think is a great idea...he's not a show off...he's just very competative.

Has anyone read 'May contain Nuts' by John O'Farrell? The mother in that is EXACTLY like these. I find reading it once a year plus regular doses of MN help to keep the brays at bay.

Ooh I didn't read the book but there was a televised version I think on ITV a year or two ago. It was quite good, had the woman who played Moaning Myrtle from Harry Potter in it IIRC?

It can be funny though

On hols in the US a mum was loudly parenting a little boy aged 5 or so - you couldn't help but look. She then said 'which priviledge do you want to lose first Forrest' (no I haven't changed his name)

We had to move away as we were laughing so much.

Became a catchphrase for the holiday.

dixie they'd get on well with my ZOOPER! Germans.

fuzz yeah, I saw the adaptation but the book is even funnier especially about the parenting. There's a scene about a kids' book club which is so funny "Yes, you had a theory about that didn't you posh kid, didn't you, what's the lion poshkid, is it JESUS, JESUS IS THE LION isn't he poshkid hmmmmmmm?'

I do this.
I talk too loudly and too much, not just at the children, at everything. Wail. I knew everyone else secretly didn't like me!

But why do you do it missorinoco? WHY??

I just have a loud voice and suspect one would describe me as excitable. I don't boast about my children's achievements, but if my son is 5 feet away and going to mug someone I tell him loudly and sharply not to. If I wait to quietly tell him no, it is too late. Also, if I go somewhere like the doctors, I read with my children or they will run amok. I don't shout, but I read aloud in the children's area, and in a small GP surgery people will hear me.

It's not a conscious choice to piss you off, it's my voice.

My siblings and I regularly used to try and hush my Mum when she started talking in what we called her "Jackanory" voice. I'm afraid we were embarrassed to have a middle class English mother while living in a Scottish new town.

Ironically, I do it myself now, I have a penchant for natural history (thanks to Mum) and point things out all the time on walks.