About this mum in the coffee shop

[Sallygoroundthemoon]

I am currently in a coffee shop having a nice cup of tea and catching up on my emails. It is fairly buzzing with chat and so on but not the sort of place with thumping music if you see what I mean. All good and to be expected in a coffee shop. However, there is a mum the other side of the shop reading stories to her toddler at the top of her voice, complete with pauses and shouts to make the toddler jump, silly voices and so on.

Now I am all one for reading to little ones and am not adverse to silly voices but AIBU to think that a nice coffee shop is not the place to be doing this so loudly? I've now heard the same story several times and it is driving me up the wall, not to mention being on edge waiting for the dramatic shouts. It just reeks of 'look at me, I'm a parent don't you know and I don't give a shit about anyone else'.

aren't you lucky to have a mummy who loves you and cooks your meals from scratch without all those yukky chemicals? and the daughter looked thoughtful and said 'but Dad does all the cooking'

Greebols Brilliant!

I honestly feel people complaining about performance parenting are the real competitive parents and sound really, really uptight with a very narrow definition of what they see as acceptable behaviour and parenting.

ducks

To those moaning about performance parenting it's a figment of your imagination.

What a very stupid thing to say.

Can everyone subsequently posting read the OP's original post and the subsequent iterations.

1. Nothing wrong with people reading to their children anywhere.
2. Nothing wrong with being imaginative, talking in different voices, taking children to art museums etc.
3. Problems when it intrudes on other human beings eg too loud or - in the case of kids running round coffee shops/restaurants - unfair on waiting staff, restaurateur, other people trying to relax and potentially dangerous.
4. Performance parenting is a red herring. It's always gone on. Little Jack playing the piano for parents before supper (he's Grade 7 and only 11 you know!) when poor child would prefer to be in bed reading Michelle Paver. Poor Emma being boasted about because she's just won a silver cup for running and is in the junior county squad. John has been talent spotted for a well-known soccer junior team (good luck to him, then).

Perhaps it's crept out a bit from private to public but it's nothing to do with the original post which just asks
CAN PARENTS LOOK AFTER THEIR CHILDREN IN PUBLIC AND NOT PUT THEIR INTERESTS ABOVE EVERYONE ELSE'S.

And of course this applies to the rest of us - not shouting in pubs, not parking inconsiderately, not getting drunk and expecting to block A&E, not letting your dog bark all day, not playing music too loudly and too late etc etc etc.

SO WE'LL AGREE NOT TO PUT OUR INTERESTS ABOVE EVERYONE ELSE's.
We've all been guilty of offending other people and most of us have pulled back. It's called civilisation.

I suspect there are a lot of childfree-and-childhating posters on this thread.

Well I'm child free this weekend but I'll be sure to take my child hating hat off in time for when my DCs come hafk from their Dada on Tuesday.

What an odd post in response to people simply disagreeing with you.

Next you'll be saying show offs don't exist in any sphere.

*back from their Dads.

Sorry. Still can't proof read.

Must be all that white lightening I drank what with me being a child free child hater and all.

Can everyone subsequently posting read the OP's original post and the subsequent iterations.

They won't. They're too busy being offended and worrying about the big bad childfree sorts.

I'm really really not a competitive parent. My kids are 22 and at varying ends of the autistic spectrum.

My ds is at the non-verbal end of the spectrum. Dd has Aspergers.

I took dd to galleries and museums. She was hugely interested, and quite knowledgeable, about many things at a young age. I never once felt the urge to loudly engage her about these things. We would talk at a normal volume. She would have told me I was being highly embarrassing had I indulged in performance parenting.

"What a very stupid thing to say."
What a sophisticated argument .

I honestly feel people complaining about performance parenting are the real competitive parents and sound really, really uptight with a very narrow definition of what they see as acceptable behaviour and parenting.

Nope. I couldn't give a shit about competitiveness. I do give a shit when someone is being unnecessarily loud to the point of shrieking across a coffee shop though, as is the case in the OPs scenario which a lot of contributors seems to have clearly missed.

I hate PP with a passion.

We had saved up very hard for a trip to London to go on the London eye a couple of years ago. I also had to rent a wheelchair for the trip as I knew I would struggle being on my feet all day. So four train fares, four Eye tickets, wheelchair hire and food etc wasn't cheap.

We finally got on the Eye in the evening when the whole of London was lit up. I was in my wheelchair and managed to sort of squeeze into a space so that I could see out and called DD2 over (she was 9) to me. So as I moved back this Dad moved in front of me and dragged his son over (who was about 12) and proceeded to talk very fucking loudly to him - See son? That there is xxxx building, that was built in 1834, remember when we looked around there and talked about the architecture? Blah blah blah - son look bored fucking shitless.

I move across to the other side to get away from Loud Dad. DD2 comes with me. 30 seconds later my view is again obstructed by this obnoxious fucker loudly shouting at his son about buildings and how they have looked around them and when they were built and all other manner of information.

Although my DD's enjoyed it, it totally ruined my experience of the trip.. I saw fuck all, kept getting stood in front of and kept getting ear ache from shouty loud dad with his boring information. His loudness was completely unnecessary in a pod so small and with his son stood right next to him.

"I took dd to galleries and museums. She was hugely interested, and quite knowledgeable, about many things at a young age. I never once felt the urge to loudly engage her about these things. We would talk at a normal volume."

Stealth boast? performance parenting online

Salutnotme

What a ridiculous thing to say. I dont give a flying frog how educated your or anyone else's kids are. Mine were talked to read to love reading, love museums etc but I just don't feel the need to SHOUT education into them. Their brains work perfectly well just being spoken to at normal levels.

None of thier (Nor my) teachers ever needed to shout all the time I wonder how we ever learned a thing?

MyCatsAPirate some folk are shitty.

We had to endure this on a flight this week. The flight was delayed at the stand so we didn't even have the engine noise to drown it out. Three families around us showing off - 3 dad's and 1 mum. Even our own children found the loud parenting tedious. It was intolerable in such a small space. Totally selfish.

Good name OP. Love those books.

What a sophisticated argument

I'm sorry but your silly statement that performance parenting doesn't exist warrants nothing more.

I'm assuming you've encountered competitive people in your life?
Do you seriously believe that there aren't any such people who extend this aspect of their personality to they method with which they interact with their child in public?

And I don't think anyone minds anyone reading to their child or singing with them (not loudly singing but you know, joining in with words etc) or just engaging with their kids.

It's just how it's done. I was in the shop the other day, dad had a small toddler and a big toddler with him, both in the trolley. He just took out his list as I walked past and said right, which one of you can spot the carrots first? Not loudly, I only heard as I was walking past and it made me smile because that's how I used to engage my kids when they were that age. Getting them to help.

PP would have been 'right, lets see if we can spot the carrots Doris. Can you tell me what colour they are? Yes, they are ORANGE! Orange! Well done. Can you spell Orange?' in a very loud voice while glancing round for validation of his parenting prowess and looking smug.

There is a fine line between normal parenting and performance parenting. Thankfully I don't come across too much of the second variety but when I do I am normally found grimacing and muttering to DP about it and he is just baffled as he has no idea what I'm on about.

Oh ffs. Why would I be stealth boasting about what I used to do with my dd 15 years ago? We went to galleries and museums because they were free and we were skint. What is boasty about going to these places? Lots of people go to them.

You clutching at straws instead of pearls?

i just sense a lot of anger on this thread. Really weird.

Exasperation, not anger.

I have squoosh DD came first in an event in sports day a couple of years back. Mum convinced her child was 1st not 3rx and had an actual argument with the teacher over it. Me at the while thing whilst the kid pipes up"but Mum. I'm not even that bothered!".

salutnotme I practically lived in museums when DD1 was young, they were free and dry! As a single parent with limited money and free time, they were a great way to spend a sunday morning and she loved them too. She particularly liked the bees section (they had a bee colony which you could watch) and the ants section.

Awaywiththepixies you forget that not all children with autism are the same.