Does this strike you as a little bit odd?

[StargazyDrifter]

A colleague has a 2 year old. Probably while walking home from nursery today, they or the toddler mistakenly called my mobile; these things happen. While I was fumbling around trying to work out whether anyone was there on the call and who it might be, I heard the adult say to the child (referring to himself): "Oh X, don't you think daddy takes such good care of you? Isn't daddy wonderful? Come on, daddy always does things for you, isn't that right? Don't you think daddy deserves lots of cuddles?". I promptly hung up, somehow feeling a bit uneasy. Odd way to talk to a toddler?

The oddest thing is you carried on listening. You didn't "promptly" hang up if you heard all of that. It's also odd that it was the father talking like that, because you hear mothers manipulating their kids like that on a daily basis, usually while slagging off the useless dad.

Bit needy, but you don’t know the context. My kids are sometimes say they don’t like me or their dad when they don’t get their own way!

To be fair I can think of a whole variety of scenarios when this would have been fine/funny/a response to bad behaviour. As for “not manipulating children” all parents do it all the time. It’s how we mostly get children to do anything. If a parent talked to their child like this all the time then it would be odd but it’s a ten second snapshot you really can’t judge the man’s parenting on it. I really hate that I can’t use paragraphs.

Really - if you analysed random snippets of conversation with two-year olds you'd come to some pretty wild conclusions. I have always had a jokey relationship with my kids - not everyone does parenting by numbers.

The kid probably just said she doesn't like daddy. My 2 year old has said the same about both of us before now.

Maybe the daddy is having a hard time or struggling with depression

My first thought was that you were “accidentally” called and he wanted you to hear how good his parenting is. Thought you were going to say he has a crush on you so maybe this was for your benefit.

I always ask my kids who loves mummy most!

You don't know the context, the child could of been saying "I don't like daddy" or something along those lines.
The child could be in a phase of only wanting mum and making it known, dad could just be frustrated

Doesn’t sound odd at all. Sounds like the toddler just said something like Daddy, can we stop at the swings? Why not?! You don’t like me, you never go to the park with meeeeee.

Virtually all kids say they hate their parents at some time. Best not to respond this in a needy manner. Kids don't mean it.

That parental tip aside, it’s common enough to hear that it wouldn’t raise an eyebrow with me.