to think middle class parents, when shite, are a special sort of shite?

[CrapolaDeVille]

I am middle class, I think, but find the overtly 'darling, sweetie' set of parents particularly painful. Obviously bad/good parenting isn't reserved for any group or set, but I have only noticed middle class parents do the 'push my child first, I couldn't give a crap about fairness' sort of parenting.

EG. Today my 2yr old at a picnic with pre schoolers and their younger siblings. (dc4 was celebrating last day at preschool.) I gave dc5 my phone to flick through a story so I could eat my lunch and could stop running after him. Another child, boy aged 4, called (let's say) Jim wanted the phone. I said no as my dc was looking. He could look too. He tried to snatch making my dc5 upset (in that screamy frustrated 2 yr old way) Jim's mother says "you can share Darling" as Jim is crushing my child who is half his size, she deosn't ask him to get off. Now my dc is crying, she says "share Darling, come on" (I'm not sure who she is talking to) So then awkwardly I have to say "Jim you're crushing dc5", he tries to take the phone. So I put the phone back in my bag...."I want that phone" Jim says. I say "no it's away now". Jim pushes into me and punches me full force with both fists. Mother says FUCK ALL. Not five minutes later she tells him what " a good boy" he is and "so gorgeous" she could eat him Darling sweetie. She's so proud of his behaviour at the picnic,.

EG. DC5 gets scratched on the face with a stick, by a 4 yr old looking straight at me. Mother sort of shrugs and says nothing.

DC5 later on a bit cross and kicks a nearly empty bottle over, sheer naughtiness and devilment, before I can even speak mother of stick weilding child shouts "for goodness sake DC5" then spots me and says sorry. I was so fed up by this point that I just said "to be honest I expect nothing less from X parents" and left, in the knowledge that I'll never see them again.

EG Two little girls tell DC5 to get off trampoline saying 'it's ours get off', DC5 complies. Then I give him his football.....they come over shouting at him to share, but as he's only just got it he wanted to kick it first. I just found myself supporting my son in not sharing, even though I think it's important to share, I'm really cross with myself.

This is my last child. I have spent the last ten years watching my dcs play fair, take turns and be generally kind only to see the other mc brats not only put themselves first but parents whole heartedly endorse and encourage this behaviour.

I do know lots of other nice mc parents, but this type of parent is completely reserved for the middle class slightly older mother.(AGAIN to reiterate this is not all mc parents.)

I remember on holiday once this little boy kept taking DS's action man and throwing it in the swimming pool. All she did was sit there and sigh

"Don't do that darling"

Then he would do it again!
Then she said he hasn't been well, as if that was an excuse for him not to be told not to throw them in the pool. She was fully dressed so was not going into get them back!

I can honestly say that my children are unfailingly kind and polite to other children. They are quite often totally horrible to each other though

And I can honestly say also that I put no effort into that at all. IME children are nice if you make it easy for them to be so, and give them examples to follow.

2:
"I just don't think its necessary to let them have sweets at this age. They don't miss what they've never had"

Unfortunately there is a few of those on MN

This thread isnt about children with SN.

Actually its quite nice for it not to be.

Because I am fed up people assuming that SN = poor behaviour.

It doesnt, not always.

Of course not all MC parent are rubbish at teaching their children to behave. There is a particular type of 'oh I am hopeless arnt I?' sort of parenting. Like there isnt anything to be done about xxx's behaviour.

Last week I saw a 3 year old child dictate to its mother exactly what they would be doing despite it obviously causing great inconvienience to its mother (deliberately vague just in case). It was mad. I know what she was doing - wanting to allow her child some choice, avoiding uneccessary confrontation etc but it was too much.
From what the mum was saying she had something very important to do, I know this because she was pleading with the child to be allowed to do it. The child didnt want to, they didnt do it.

How is that good for anyone?

WC parent are not paragons. Not round here they are not - but it is different.
The kids round here are more likely to be found making a nuisance of themselves fosseking around in a skip, they are more likely to be shouting their heads off at 9pm out on the green on a summer's evening etc.

But I cannot imagine any one of them kicking me because I am taking my child home. This happened to me and the mother just looked. The child was 7. She didnt want me to take DD home after a play date. SO she kicked me

I am so glad it is not just me who encounters this type of mum. When we lived in SW London I started wondering if there was actually a different language spoken in Gambados and similar establishments where "share" meant "give that to my child right now - your child can sod off and stop inconveniencing my little darling" and "don't do that, sweetie" meant "carry on exactly as you were - nothing wrong with a bit of physical violence on a child half your size as long as you are having fun".

I still seem to spend an inordinate amount of time screaming "that's not yours, DS" and "don't you dare push that child off that bike" while other parents seem bizarrely unphased when their offspring tell mine he isn't allowed on the slide, or push past him while he is waiting his turn.

Although, judging by two women who took great pleasure in tutting and head-shaking at me at an adenture park yesterday, some people think it is child cruelty to actually deny your tantrumming toddler anything his little heart desires. I was removing DS from a rabbit he had been monopolising for several minutes as another toddler was waiting - he objected. I objected harder. There was a minor wrestling match and some attempts to scratch my face before I got him out of there - and then I see the tutting and headshaking. I have never been closer to shouting "What the bloody hell do you suggest, then?"

I thought where we live is pretty dire kungfu

Is SW London worse then

Maybe it's all raising alpha spawn there whereas here it's child-centred parenting gone utterly mad.

Jenai - I haven't had a chance to get too heavily involved in the Bath parenting scene yet due to work. I only do a gym type class with DS when I get the chance. All other experiences are at attractions/parks etc. Sounds like I have fun times ahead!

But I do get the impression SW London and Bath are pretty similar in terms of the "type" of parent that inhabits them.

lequeen I was so stunned I didnt know what to do. This was one of my first experiences of this sort of parenting. It was a girl DD knew from school. I told the mum 'xxx just kicked me'. She looked at me as if I had said 'see you later'

Thing is no-one liked that child. No-one wanted her round to play. If she had a party people would make excuses not to go.

She was not a nice kid.

So WHY do parents think they are doing their kids a favour by allowing this sort of behaviour?

I want my children to be liked by others.

I think it might be easier for mc parents to get away with this. They tend to be more confident and at ease with authority.

WC parents may well be gobby and lairy but they can be terrified of involvement with professionals and ss and will do anything to avoid it.

The women round here seem like they wouldnt take any nonsense from anyone. It all front.

[sobs gratefully on LeQueen's been-there-done-it-got-the-t-shirt shoulder]

Tell me it gets better. Pleeeeease! The face goudging was a particularly low moment. Perhaps the tutting was triggered by my yell of "Are you determined to spoil your birthday? Well are you?" rather than by me shoving him kicking and screaming under my arm and marching him away from the rabbit.

I live in SW London/Surrey, and it is not like that Jenai,Kung, et all. And I bet that it is not like that anywhere. I guess I am middle class (guardian, check, hummus, check, etc, etc...) but I am spanish so I am not sure. But as I said before most people I know are just trying their best. Surely, I can't be the only one reading the thread and seeing the irony of it all. So, when other parents do it wrong in front of us, they are crappy parents. But when people in this thread have to take their children off the restaurant, or wrestle a rabbit off the hand, it is other people who are wrong if they judge because they are doing the right thing. All those parents who have perfectly behaved children because they worked at it, surely were at some point first time parents getting some things a bit wrong.
I know I get it wrong sometimes, I know that sometimes I say things that annoy other people, but when I see children misbehaving a bit (not sharing or throwing a tantrum) I just feel sorry for the parents, because I have been there myself and I know that the last thing they need is judgement.

Ah, it's not all bad. Well it wasn't back when I did the toddler thing. All very mixed.

But some of the people at the park

Er, amular, I think you are missing the point of the thread. People are talking about parents who make no attempt to intervene, not parents who are on the receiving end of tantrums which they are trying to control.

And yes, SW-London is as I described. Having lived there for quite a considerable length of time I am pretty confident of my judgement. Not every parent is like that, obviously, but there are a very large number of my-child-comes-first-and-sod-everyone-else types there. Gambados consistently contained the largest concentration of unchecked, or even encouraged, bad behaviour from small children I have ever had the misfortune to witness. When your 1 year-old is persistently flattened and pushed around by children too old for the under 2-s section whose parents opened the gate and ushered them in, you tend to start keeping a mental tally.

I'm not sure what class has got to do with this. Apart from the 'darling sweetie' stuff. But anyway.

Don;t go on jolly picnics with lots of adults and lots of kids. Never relaxing.

Amalur, I feel sorry for parents whose children are having a tantrum too, all children misbehave a bit sometimes, but I would be horrified if I saw a child kicking somebody and the parent just ignored it. How can any sensible parent ignore that kind of behaviour?

This isn't just shite parenting.

This is Marks & Spencers shite parenting.

Possibly even Harrods Food Hall shite parenting.

very very good. M&S parenting. That'll catch on.

Ah fuck it. I honestly don't think class is the main denominator of this kind of crapness. My working class as all get out extended family can be just as deluded about their children's intentions as my very mc friends.

But I've been itching to get this off my chest for ages. If you are the parent of the little ogre aged about 4 who deliberately stamped on my 1 year old's hands and then tried to push her off the climbing frame at Marble Hill Park in Twickenham then you are a cunt. Unfortunately I was unable to tell you this to your face because your loathsome child just called me a poohead when I asked him where his Mummy and Daddy were.

Oooh I feel better for that.

(I think it is Waitrose proximity not class. There's no Waitrose for miles around up here and everyone is lovely.)

Well, I'm well and truly middle class, by anyone's standards, and I wouldn't put up with it if one of my children was behaving in the way the OP described. Mind you I wouldn't put up with the parent's behaviour either and would damn well tell them to do something about their child toot sweet, or do something about it myself and embarrass the hell out of the parent.... but that's me :)

I don't think it is entirely class based - I've seen the most appallingly behaved kids of all 'classes' over my few teaching years (the casual destruction of other people's property is my biggest bugbear), and many of the best behaved children I've met are I suppose, 'middle class' and 'upper class'.

Do people tell other people's children to share? I'm not sure I'd dare. It's always my own I tell to share so far.

I dont think its a class thing though???? look you get the same complaints from the soft play crew, and the parents there are ROUGH AS SHIT. Its just crappy people and shitty kids

dont get me wrong I find the middle class parents as annoying as shit, but I dont particularly like the rough necks as soft play

i basically hate everyone

Yanbu. Some middle class parents really can be a bunch of simpering cunts. God forbid that they might have to use the 'No' word with their precocious brat. I think you should avoid the parents you mention in the example. Life is too short to waste on wankers.

I used to think that amalur - I think the people I encountered at toddler groups were doing their best - even if things weren't easy and their DC were out of control.

Then eldest started school - and it opened my eyes at bit. People at toddler groups - are the ones motivated to go out with their DCs - even if they are chatting and ignoring the DC behaviour I'd put it down to the DC age any problematic behaviour. As DD1 has grown - it has become clear that for most of the DC with these kind of parents a self correction looks less and less likely.

I actually have some friends with DC like this - I do like the DC - but find I can tolerate and excuse the behaviour less and less.

I think this is partly because I have heard many times the excuses a lot- they moaning when anyone points out any issues then forget and moan again weeks later when something similar happens. It always the teachers, the friends or something else that caused it - or their DC are being picked on.

I also find they these parents are the ones most likely to undermine my rules with the DC - or criticise when you are doing your best with a tantrum. They also want to latch on to my DCs as if good behaviour will be transmitted with out any effort on their part.

They make my efforts harder - as my DC see the bad behaviour and do not get why they can not behave like that. When the behaviour seems to have no consequences or even benefits - like schools and certificates for any spark of good behaviour - it makes me wonder why the hell I'm bothering and what I am actually teaching my DC.