Silence in the waiting room

[Meatandseventeenveg]

Was at the doctor's with my 2 year old this afternoon. We were playing in the children's corner of the room, nothing noisy but just a chat about the pictures of the animals in the room, and DD was also making the animal sounds.

Another person in waiting room told DD to be quiet as there are sick people there (at this point it was just us three in the waiting room). I'm afraid I snapped back that my daughter is sick as well, and turned away.

My daughter, the angel, understood the woman and proceeded to talk in a whisper until the woman left.

So WIBU to think that toddlers are allowed to talk in the doctor's waiting room?

@ldfdyjxzyjkv

I know you find it hard to grasp but yes *@trappedbylife* I would consider that inappropriate - and I am well brought up, well educated, successful and have DC who know how to behave (I say this only because of the slurs that have been levelled against those who you and other PP disagree with - suggesting there is something wrong with those who don’t agree with you). Why does everything else trump manners these days? I also wonder how some people were brought up.

Honestly - if you consider a conversation like that "inappropriate" then I am genuinely flabbergasted.

@ldfdyjxzyjkv

It has got nothing to do with whether a waiting room is a library or not a library, soft play or not soft play, it is just a basic social principle that you don’t impose yourself and your offspring on other people who don’t care how wonderful and spirited your child is.

Allowing your child to interact with you in public is not them "imposing on" others, ffs!? What an utterly bizarre outlook.

@ldfdyjxzyjkv

I know you find it hard to grasp but yes *@trappedbylife* I would consider that inappropriate - and I am well brought up, well educated, successful and have DC who know how to behave (I say this only because of the slurs that have been levelled against those who you and other PP disagree with - suggesting there is something wrong with those who don’t agree with you). Why does everything else trump manners these days? I also wonder how some people were brought up.

Why do you think this is an issue of 'manners'?

So well educated but can't grasp the fact that the waiting room is not a designated quiet area

A child talking to their parents in public is poor manners??

2 is a baby.
She was lucky your poorly girl wasn't screaming the walls down. But I will give her the benefit of the doubt and believe that she had sensory issues (rather than she was an intolerant arse ).
Hope your DD is feeling better.

OP is imposing by sitting with her young child in the children's corner, participating in an activity for which that area has been specifically designed…?

Honestly I have no idea how somebody who thinks like this manages to get through a normal day's interaction with other people.

@trappedbylife

A child talking to their parents in public is poor manners??

No, of course it isn’t.

Honestly if you don’t have a grasp on the concept of manners (ie it is not about rules it is norms of behaviour) I can’t help you. Do people not even understand the concept of manners anyone? We are more screwed than I thought.

@trappedbylife

A child talking to their parents in public is poor manners??

More extreme nonsense.

@ldfdyjxzyjkv

Honestly if you don’t have a grasp on the concept of manners (ie it is not about rules it is norms of behaviour) I can’t help you. Do people not even understand the concept of manners anyone? We are more screwed than I thought.

We understand manners perfectly. The scenario we speak about isn't bad manners though.

Well lbh none of us has any idea what OP and her DD did or didn’t do and none of us can assess whether the woman was unreasonable. Everyone is just positing extreme scenarios in both directions. My simple point is that when other bystanders and in a room with parents and young children through no choice of their own they would expect some effort to be made to limit the noise their child makes. That’s all.

Why is talking in a waiting room bad manners though?!

I posted upthread about a horrible experience I had in a hospital where the gynae oncology department and the maternity department shared a waiting room - in that situation I think the parents should’ve been particularly mindful about noise, whereas in reality it was like a zoo. That was really disrespectful and very ill-mannered.

But talking in a waiting room? Talking?!?! It’s not the theatre. I’m baffled.

@ldfdyjxzyjkv

Well lbh none of us has any idea what OP and her DD did or didn’t do and none of us can assess whether the woman was unreasonable. Everyone is just positing extreme scenarios in both directions. My simple point is that when other bystanders and in a room with parents and young children through no choice of their own they would expect some effort to be made to limit the noise their child makes. That’s all.

You are being extreme. The majority can understand an exchange between a parent and child is not bad manners but mere normality; even in a waiting room/

@WheelieBinPrincess

Were you doing loud parenting about animals and their noises though?

If so it would be very irritating to listen to when sick and trapped in a waiting room.

Indeed

I love to hear small children talking,, they don't know what the etiquette is supposed to be in a GP's waiting room.. I certainly wouldn't be bunging a gadget in front of them, as too much of that goes on.

@OnlyFoolsnMothers

The person is a moron- ignore - even if your child was screaming, they are 2, how much can you do

Or maybe just very fucking stressed because they’re ill? Doesn’t make them a moron, as you so delightfully put it

Also “ My daughter, the angel” 🙄

Ds cannot cope with being around young children particularly when he is feeling unwell but we understand that we have to solve that problem by waiting somewhere else. It is possible that this women had the same difficulty but either way OP you were doing nothing wrong.

I am well brought up, well educated, successful

I am honestly dying that someone has posted this. Who does that?! 😆😆😆😆

I would have thought that animal noises and book reading with a 2 year old IS limiting their noise. You know, stops them from getting bored and yelling or from crying as they are scared.

I am well brought up, well educated, successful

I missed that Did someone really say that?!!

@SirChenjins

Yes!!!!!!!! End of last page I believe. Still chuckling about it. Apparently it was as a response to slurs made about her (hypocritical coming from
Someone who made a derogatory comment about my parenting)

"I am well brought up, well educated, successful"

But don't know much about typical child development.

I’ve just seen it

I would, as a result of comments of that nature about themselves , safely file that person under ‘ignore’.

I've been on a few threads lately about relatives whose children are grown not fully remembering what it's like to have a toddler or preschooler, I think there's some of that going on on this thread. It's like all the childrearing years get lumped together, which just results in unrealistic expectations for the little ones.

And in fairness, when you don't have young children you're not used to the noise they can create - I remember leaving BIL's house shell shocked when he had three and we had none.

So perhaps some not quite remembering or understanding just how disruptive a two year old can be (despite the best efforts of their parents, who funnily enough don't enjoy the screaming or tantrums either), and what a good job OP was doing to keep things on an even keel.

She’s two. Yanbu.