to wish that the mother of this child would sit down and do something less noisy and dangerous?

[Iris65]

P is lucky enough to have a performance parent for a mother. They are currently running up and down in the cafe chasing each other, screaming and tickling when caught while she narrates everything at a shout. P also has a dairy sensitivity, gluten sensitivity, peanut allergy, and is vegan. This caused some difficulty when choosing a snack but we are all now fully informed about the hazards and the ethics of choosing a snack in a well known coffee house chain.
P is also gender neutral which we heard all about when a passing elderly women commented on 'her lovely curly hair.' The elderly woman needed a sit down and a cup of tea afterwards while being patted on the arm by sympathetic bystanders.
My heart goes out to whichever poor soul will meet P and Mummy when they go back to school. If they are not homeschooled that is and we can only hope that is the case because there is no doubt they will need one to one attention.
Purple haired parent just glared at me from under her bandana after I glanced up when exploring, running child bumped into my table. Was she 'triggered' by my patriarchal expectations of drinking my coffe undisturbed or was their yin ynaged by my negativity?

You do know what it means, don't you? Its about not colour coding them. Offering them a range of toys to play with. And choices based on their personality and interests, not on their genitals. Not praising behaviour based solely on gender stereotypes "What a pretty little girl. What a good little girl to sit so nice and quietly" "What a big, brave boy you are not to cry."

Good for you.
But if a well meaning elderly lady happened to say to my child

'What lovely hair she/he has''
Then I would have to be all types of crazy to call her out on it.

You can take some things too far.

haha! I do have a dairy intolerant kid though. Mind you I wouldn't shout it out so you could hear

But at least this happened in a friendly community where so many other cafe patrons were happy to flock to the traumatised old lady's aid, though!

I know her!! Well, I probably don't but I do know a person who's almost exactly the same and I can't fucking stand her and her precious fucking child who has no boundaries or idea how to behave in public, or private, or anywhere in between These people do exist sadly.

(No issue with food allergies/sensitivities/preferences, hair colour, gender neutrality etc btw - performance parenting tends to lead to insufferable children, that's my particular gripe with these sorts)

You do know what it means, don't you? Its about not colour coding them. Offering them a range of toys to play with. And choices based on their personality and interests, not on their genitals. Not praising behaviour based solely on gender stereotypes "What a pretty little girl. What a good little girl to sit so nice and quietly" "What a big, brave boy you are not to cry."

Now you see, I raised my DCs like that too. But I somehow managed it before the term "gender neutral" (which actually is a label in itself) was invented, so I just had two boys and one girl who chose their own clothes, toys, interests etc.

Where exactly do you feel you're going off piste with that little catalogue, DrHorrible? .

Drhorrible unless you're loudly performance parenting or being an arsehole in another way I suspect that no one is paying attention or judging you- you're just a run of the mill normal parent like the rest of us

Exactly. And same goes for your little snowflake. He is just another run of the mill kid to us.

Oh, I know the one. She was in the next bed to me when ds2 was born. Three. Whole. Fucking. Days.

Piddletown?

hmm, as funny as this is, can I please ask you all to leave the peanut allergy out of the comedy? not your fault OP, but I really worry about peanut allergy being connected to this kind of faddish diet things, because then you get the "jokes" like a PP: "just order some nuts that will get rid of them"

peanut allergy is for some kids very real and very dangerous, and should not be connected to performance parenting or fads in people's imagination, otherwise people will not take it seriously and this might just kill my child

MPS Gender dysphoria, gluten intolerance and dairy intolerance all exist too. What grinds my gears is people claiming allergies and intolerance when they simply prefer not to eat those foods or feed them to their children.
Its similar to the misunderstanding that awareness of gender stereotyping means that we should be aiming towards gender neutrality.

Of course they exist...not quite as lethal however.

Not suggesting that the child I saw/heard does not have those things, but it does seem to be part of a general pattern common to special snowflakes.

I am agreeing with you on a lot of things, but I don't think lumping allergies in as specified snowflake traits is particularly kind.

Witsender I admit I included the superficial characteristics as they are often indicators of a particular approach to childrearing and behaviour.
However, they are not what I was pointing out. Rather they added colour and life to my post. The problem exists with the behaviour, not with unnatural hair colours, bandanas, veganism or any alternative lifestyle.
The parent could easily have been wearing Boden with expensive low lites, and a 4 by 4 at the kerb.
FWIW I practice yoga, have had acupuncture, used herbal therapies, was into EBF and live in my Birkenstocks and skinny jeans. I am also intereested in Buddhism and was a Pagan when much younger. So no, I wouldn't hate you and I don't hate her either.

What Prague ? I always thought that was gender neutral

I love performance parents. They're hilarious. I've had many a coffee break livened up by their enthusiastic attempts to project their pretentiousness onto otherwise oblivious children. Usually whilst my own children sit just getting on with reading quietly or talking to one another.

I agree about the allergies, if some are of the mindset that it's 'another of these fads' it's only a short leap to 'what does it matter if I use almond flour or stir in a bit of pesto', it could have horrible consequences. I have relatives like this, and they're hard work.

Performance parents I've come across broadcast whatever they can rope in, whether it's that their child can't eat this or that, or will eat absolutely anything the parents eat. No detail is too small to share with an entire cafe, apparently!

Banned I hope against hope that PPM (Performance Parenting Mum) is on MN and reads this because when she does she is absolutely 100% going to change little Paris's name to Podgorica

DrH what a solipsistic post

Really curious about little Ps name now-can you tell us which country? I'm surprised that they didn't call her, sorry, gender neutral child, Leningrad.

This has really made me laugh! 😂 We're many of the things you've described. Difference is I know others don't give a shiny shit about it 😂

Pristina.... and it's a real one...
I wonder if it's where the child was made, and it's stamped on his BOTTOM.

Prague
Paris
Podgorica
Pristina.

My money is on Pristina.