To HATE the way my friends educate their children?

[Littlefrenchmummy]

I love reading things on mumsnet, especially this section. Today I was confronted with a situation that happens so often in my life and really gets me angry... You ladies are very honest so tell me if Im being a bitch or if you would feel the same.

Today my husband and I caught up with some old friends, like us they have a 4 year old boy. From the minute we met to when we left he trantrumed. He cried for EVERYTHING and not once was disciplined. (By that I dont mean punched in the face btw, I just mean told to behave).
He cried because he could only use his bike and not his scooter (sat on the pavement and screamed for 10 mins while we waited. Eventually parents gave in).
He cried because we crossed the road before him.
He cried because we were talking.
He cried because he couldn't get juice at the restaurant even though his parents were ordering him the juice.
He stood on tables, rode his scooter in the restaurant, shouted constantly.
He wouldn't speak to my son, only watch cartoons on his parents phone, wouldn't share the crayons to draw even though he didn't want to draw.
Kicked his brothers pram while he was sleeping. Etc etc... And all his parents were saying was "OH NO, if you do this again we are going to get cross!"

I just can't bare it. Its so horrible to sit through this, you can't have a conversation, my son isn't having fun, people at the restaurant are staring. I never want to hang out with my friends again. I love them but I hate their child, or more exactly I hate the way they educate him and turn him into complete dick head.

I have so many friends like them... so so many. Some worse, some less, but the result is the same: hanging out with them is painful. People who think you dont need to educate your children, that they have 'difficult' kid who cry a lot. They think its normal that if their child screams their name in the middle of a conversation, 10x times during 1 conversation, they should always stop and say yes darling instead of teaching them not to interrupt and wait while adults are talking.

I know some children are more difficult than others and that disorders exist. One of my son's is difficult and has a terrible character, still he doesn't behave like this. If I let him he would but I dont. I also have friends who have children with disorders, but in the cases Im talking about, its just complete lack of education.

Im loosing so many friends over this. I stop answering calls and make excuses not to hang out with them because I can't tell them how to educate their children. Who can tell a mother in the face that you dont like their child's behaviour? How awkward would that be?

We have made such a cut in our friends and now I am so picky. it sucks !
But why aren't people educating their children to behave?

Am I being unreasonable to feel this way or do other parents feel like this?

Whilst I agree with you that riding a scooter in a restaurant is totally inappropriate (so much so that I don't actually believe it happened - what restaurant would really allow that?) my ds has never thought that drawing with crayons is a 'lovely' play activity.

The list the OP has drawn up suggests a child with significant difficulties to me, not one who is ineffectually parented (although the two can of course co-exist).

OP, YANBU. The child you've described sounds appalling.

I ca't believe the rough ride the OP has got on here. Saying some parents are ineffectual and let their kids get away with murder is not being smug, or implying your own kids are perfect, or saying that children should behave like mini adults at all times. It is saying that kids sometimes act up and parents should make a decent attempt to control them and instill some manners in them. That is a sentiment I wholly agree with and I don't think it equates to child abuse!

My parents were not perfect but they left us to be kids most of them time but if we were in an adult setting (e.g at their friend's place or at a restaurant - the latter happened rarely) from a young age we knew not to interrupt their conversations or whinge at them or contradict other adults, or run round other people's houses messing them up, or throw food or whatever. Of course we weren't perfectly behaved at all times ,which is when Death Stare/Vice-Like Grip/Massive Bollicking was employed. Generally it worked, for all our other shortcomings I think my sister & brother & I are well-mannered and were from reasonably early on.

I don't see this kind of parenting nearly as often as I saw it when I was a kid - I see lots of kids - not SN kids - behaving in a way that we would never have got away with and parents being pretty ineffectual in disciplinging them and it's annoyng when you have to interact withthe feral child or theirbelegagured parent, and it can't be good for the kids either.

P.S. I'm not English and I live outside the UK so it's def more widespread!

I didn't want my kids to be scared of me either.

I grew up hating my dad because of the no respect for me shite he used to spout.

When I was little, a child even having a tantrum in public would have been seen as being crap parenting. When I was four I don't think many people actually ate out on restaurants with their young children either.

Yes, the behaviour in the OP's opening post sounds awful but it's the fact that so many of her friends are also crap parents with badly behaved children that seems a bit strange.

Well eating with our fingers won't stop Islamic terrorists, so I think I keep on going with the table manners

I think we're supposed to chalk the enigmatic elements up to the OP being French.
Oh the French: wandering around, calling children dickheads - what is that in French? - smoking, and so on.

don't take kids to restaurants end of

they want to be out and in the park eating conkers they do NOT want to be sat with some sad adults drinking wine going on about themselves, THEN expected to conform to some sort of adult led behavior

It wouldn't occur to my 5 year old to jump on the table in a restaurant or ride a scooter (partly because no scooter would be available). He's not terrified of my wrath. He just wouldn't think of it.

He might try to keep getting out of his seat. Or talk to loudly. Or various other annoying things that most of us are familiar with and would try (more or less successfully) to deal with in the restaurant. I wouldn't judge a parent dealing with stuff like that (or temper tantrums etc).

But I absolutely reserve the right to judge parents who take scooters into restaurants and then allow their children to ride them inside. i won't judge the child. But their parents need to take action.

I won't judge the parents dealing with a temper tantrum over not being allowed to ride the scooter. Only if they let it happen and don't intervene.

Is it not ok to say that some people are bad parents?
Because some people are.

OP, did you say you were French? Are you living in the UK, and are the majority of the friends you've cut off because of their parenting originally from here? I ask because I think there may be an element of cultural difference (especially if, as it seems, you have cut off quite a few friends because of this, so it's MIT just this instance).

In my experience of French children, there is a greater emphasis at a younger age on things like greetings, table manners and how to behave in public than in this country. That doesn't explain anything away, obviously, but it may be heightening your responses. (I'm not from the UK originally either, and I find, as an example, middle-class English parenting incredibly anxious and angst-ridden compared with parenting as I know it in Ireland.)

Conkers are poisonous, southeast asters.
Feeding your kids Conkers is genuinely naughty, southeast asters, and perhaps even beats letting them get away with poor table-manners.

Going to restaurants can be an enjoyable and valuable experience for children. So can 'adult led' activities.

Someone might think you are a bad parent, pipbin.

do they have to listen to you lequeen going on about yourself for ages and ages then

I feel bad for the dickhead's parents. My children can be difficult and whilst I never let anything go by without comment, it's also no fun for anyone to spend the whole day listening to me go on and on and on and on at them. Because if he's in that mood, then he's in it for the day, and sometimes i with judgey company the quiet reminders is all I muster. I don't take them to meet friends often, or together (one alone is 99% successful) because I can't be fecked with the judgement of people with easier kids who just wouldn't stand for it. Can't win, you're a harpy or you're ineffectual.

And some children might slide under the table and sit there with the hump,not that DS ever did that,oh no.

I just ignored him. Judge that.

Never a chance of that Wooooo

Can't have children.

Some people are judgemental arses though.

We need to separate that out from legitimate grievances about shockingly bad parenting. Some things are matters of individual style and choice, Scooter riding in restaurants is unequivocally not OK.

"They are social creatures in age appropriate settings.

Not in restaurants,not at 4 years old."

Well - I think it depends on the restaurant, wooooousualsuspect - when ours were little, we wouldn't have dreamt of taking them somewhere with crystal glasses, silver cutlery and heavily starched napkins, but we took them to places like Pizza Hut or the local Chinese restaurant - places that were child-friendly, and where we felt they could practice 'behaving nicely in restaurants', without it being a big issue if they didn't manage it. Now we can take them out somewhere very posh (if we can afford it) and know that they will be good company and will behave appropriately.

Surely teaching your child the appropriate social mores and behaviours is just equipping them with the tools they need to function in society.

What is wrong with good manners?