To the woman at the hospital judging me for being on my phone

[Changesorter]

I am at a hospital waiting room with my son. Ophthalmology, nothing serious he's happily playing with the toys. I'm sat on my phone. There's a woman sat round the corner saying to her friend ' I hate seeing mums ignore thier kids on phone's. I know she's talking about me because she just glared and tutted a minute ago.

What she doesn't know isthat I suffer from huge health anxiety. Simply looking at a noticeboard in a hospital is triggering

Exactly Birds

Or it might be that the mum is talking to another of her dc about some crisis that needs to be dealt with there and then. My oldest has a knack of ringing me when I am doing the school run. Actually my older dv are constantly on the phone to me. It is wrong to just assume parents are ignoring their kids - some of us have more than one to deal with at a time.

However, I hate seeing kids being ignored and shouting "Mummy! Muumuu! Dadddddy! Daaaaad!", while the parents have got their noses buried in their phones.

I do too. But - sometimes - everyone is that parent. Out of necessity. That was me on Friday. We'd been away for half term until Wednesday and we had two days out on Thursday and Friday. By Friday, I needed a) to send an email to an estate agent and b) book an Ocado delivery so we had some food for the weekend. So, yes, I was shushing the cries of "Muuummmmy" coming from the opposite seat.

(That said, I'm pretty aggressive about that sort of thing so would have said, straight back at her "I hate seeing people who are rude enough to pass comment on things about which they know nothing and are none of their business." But I am a bit stroppy like that!)

The anti phone thing drives me mad , pp you say it's rude and yes I agree for example it can be (in a GPS appt , at a checkout basically while others need to interact with you) but outside of that I consider it very rude to tell me what to do when it isn't impacting you

The op clearly stated the circumstances and the only rude one there is the woman (who I suspect you have an affinity with)

I agree not ignoringredients kids for phones but if mine are happily playing I'm usually working via my phone which allows me to spend precious time with them that I may not get otherwise

And frankly if I was on Facebook what's the bloody harm if everyone is happy safe and settled

Can't bear nosy busy body's love that op hope appt goes well

Don't buy the rose tinted glasses thing either. Of course there wasn't a golden age we did lots of kicking about without parental input. But this is different. It's a constant distraction - all the time. Different league to mum reading a novel on the bus.

But parents still ignored their kids even if it was just chatting in the town for an hour.

So the rose tinted glasses is true.

My Mum always bumped into people she knew and would speak for ages! She still does it now. Me and my sis used to have to just stand there and entertain ourselves if we interrupted we were told off.
It was often for an hour. I had a watch so we practiced how long we could hold our breath for.
Thank goodness I wasn't an only child.

People have a chip because it is phones when ignoring happens at all times.
We are all human.

Or people think it's also wrong to ignore your kid to spend an hour talking, reading the newspaper, or drawing cave paintings, but they talk about phones because we live in 2017.

Nah have to agree to disagree on that one. I think (and have observed) that theres something about screens/technology that draws you in and is addictive (see those threads about adults and teens staying up all night gaming). Just not comparable to chatting to a friend or reading a book.

I think having phones makes the ignoring children much much easier. It always happened of course it did. But now there is always a more alluring option- right in your pocket. Makes those of us that probably wouldn't have ignored so much, ignore. I see it all the time. Every day.

People often stay up all night to read books too. I find my phone easier to put down than a book.
Agree that a screen is alluring though and yes it is rude at a checkout if you are stalling others.
However I just feel people over react as its a phone.

Wow! What an asskicking!

If you're "sat on your phone" surely no-one, least of all you, can even see it Can't be good for the phone though.

Phone are a fact of life today and in many ways great. Just think we need to be alive to the risk of overuse. Not sure as a society that the social rules / self moderation has caught up with the technology. Agree commenting on strangers is wrong you don't know the background. But it's head in sand to deny there's an issue generally.

For some people yes of course like some are addicted to alcohol, food, porn etc at the detriment to orhers. It doesn't mean others cant have a healthy relationship though.

Unfair to tar everyone that uses a phone with the same brush.

It is considered normal for people to be on their phones a lot these days but I suppose people who remember a time before this will see it as odd.

You do see people on their phones whilst their children are trying to get their attention and they just ignore them.That IS sad. They tend to come up with an excuse if accused of ignoring the child.
The woman in the waiting room was rude to make those comments and obviously would not know the OP had anxiety but even so, there is no point in her making remarks like that.

It is sad to see children desperately trying to attract to the attention of a parent glued to their phone, or a parent ignoring a child who is acting up, but if a child is happily absorbed in something else I don't see a problem. How is it any different to reading a magazine or newspaper?

This in spades. Hope all is ok OP.

I was having a breast lump removed last year and was placed on the recovery ward with three other women, a nurse popped in and asked me some questions etc and then left, the other three women then started having a right moan about her and how she should be sacked because she's always on her phone, they'd seen her "play" on her oh knee during every discussion with patients.

I told them she's not playing, it's how they record patient info instead if the old clipboard and pens hung on bottom of beds.

A lot of work is done online now, all of DDs homework is submitted online and if she's in her iPad in a doctors waiting room or whatever she uses the waiting around time as time to double check her homework etc. If she was sat with textbooks and pen and paper etc she'd be praised for carrying homework about, do it on an iPad though and they are often judged.

My dad used to go and on about parents ignoring DC cos of phones etc, my Dad was very much children should be seen and not heard, I wasn't allowed crisps in his presence because the rustling packet pissed him off, he worked hard and should be able to have peace in evenings blah blah blah. To make it even more ridiculous, contact was very minimal and demanded his DC amuse themselves silently on the few days a year he actually bothered. Fucking hypocrite.

So you only use your phone as a distraction when you are in the hospital waiting room then? The rest of the time you only answer it if it rings and you are fully engaging with your son, yes?

Anxiety or not, I think this might be something where you might give your own behaviour some serious thought OP. People are naturally very defensive about comments like that woman made but in my experience and observation she makes a very valid point. I see it around me ALL THE TIME. Small children being ignored (usually strapped into a buggy with their own iPad in front of them while their mothers (and yes, it is always the mothers, the fathers are not generally there when I see them) gab and shriek away on their phones, or manage to push the buggy along while walking along, head down, their eyes fixed to their phones, totally absorbed in whatever nonsense they are reading. It makes me sad.

My DC and I used to chat all sorts of nonsense for hours on end when we were out and about, walking, shopping, waiting for the doctor, waiting for a bus, waiting for lunch to arrive in a restaurant. They all had good language skills early on with no speech delays and are all articulate and engaging young people now.

I am genuinely thankful and grateful that I didn't have a smartphone and Facebook when they were little.

They all had good language skills early on with no speech delays and are all articulate and engaging young people now.

Sounds exactly like my 12 yr old dd, she has been top set in everything all through school, from reception to now, perfect manners, perfect behaviour. Can talk politics better than dh :) I even had a letter from her head teacher at the end of primary saying what an exemplary student she has been etc etc.

If I added up her screen time over a week I'd probably be flamed but the poor kid would be fucked if she had to depend on me for educational enrichment, I'm thick as fuck I can't discuss techniques used by Picasso, I can't hold conversations with her in Spanish for her to practise. Early primary we could get away with using the library as homework only had to be handed in weekly but in secondary she can be given a project in the Monday and need it in in Wednesday, library would be no good as it's only open half days and would also need to wait for books to be ordered in, pointkess when she can get the info in seconds.

Im glad she has the net to help her get the knowledge that I can't help with tbh, being able to do it while waiting around is an added bonus.

French, the OP's child was fine though. He was playing, not crying forlornly in a corner, being ignored.

Who are all these people that even care or notice what complete strangers are doing with their children anyway

Unhappy with her own life so judging others. We all use phones ffs. Ignore. X

Where I live it costs 6GBS for an English newspaper. If I was sitting reading the paper copy of the paper it'd be fine, but reading it for free on my phone means that people think they can butt in.

I was at a west end theatre recently sitting quite high up looked down at the interval I kid you not everyone had their phone out.

At least it was during the interval. DH and I went to the theater last week, first time in ages, and people were checking their phones and texting during the performance.

Don't think YABU here OP but regarding use of phones generally, I was quite shocked a couple of years ago when I went with a friend to look round primary schools. Her son has speech and language delay due to his disability and when we mentioned this to the head teacher she said 'oh, many of the children we see starting school now have speech and language difficulties and I'm sure it's because their parents spend too much time on their phones and not enough communicating with their children.' I've heard that several times since from other teachers and hcp's. I agree with Kerala on this, phones are really addictive.

I may sometimes be spotted looking at my phone while walking around with my children. I'm usually checking the time, or train / bus times, or google maps to find the quickest route or something. Sometimes my eternally curious 6 year old asks me a question I don't know the answer to (what are pound coins made of? What's the world's biggest volcano), and insists I google it straight away because it's IMPORTANT MUMMY!!

My point is people use their phones for all kinds of things, and we can't assume the a parent who is looking at their phone while in the company of their children is doing so because they don't want to interact with them.

I also think these days there is an expectation that everyone should be instantly contactable at all times, and you can't really blame parents for that. My local leisure centre called my at 7 o'clock last Saturday evening to arrange a free session I've been offered. When I told the guy that it wasn't a good time for me to discuss it (I was on a train with my children) he sounded really surprised, as if it hadn't occurred to him that I might not be desperate to make plans right there and then.