To not care about your parenting choices

[ConsiderablyRicherThanYow]

If I'm at the play park or soft play or some other tedious time sink of boredom and you're feeling lonely I don't mind a chat. But please be aware I'm completely uninvested. I'm not judging you for letting Oscar watch TV or letting Lucy have chocolate buttons. You really don't need to justify it to me in any way whatsoever. Because I really couldn't give a monkey's, I'm probably just wishing I didn't have to be in the play park today. I'm just here to stop mine getting kidnapped tbh.

I'll be sympathetic to your problems you tell me about, I'm happy to hear your funny stories about your children, I even don't mind you telling me the long story about how you chose Dudalirabel's name. But I can't stand hearing you do mental gymnastics to justify things that don't need justifying to a complete stranger you're never going to see again.

Let them watch teletubbies for 10 hours with 10 bags of haribo and 10 happy meals for all I care. I wouldn't have even known if you hadn't started telling me. Why are you telling me? The martyring competitive guilt is like fingernails on a blackboard to me. I'm not a priest, you're not at confession.

Is there a secret handshake I can initiate to get out of these conversations? "we don't want Jasper to eat sweets but we lost the broccoli, so you know how it is..." "we don't watch TV but our books are broken and we haven't got round to mending them..." Unless you tell me you're sending your kid to the workhouse I probably don't have an opinion. Honestly.

@AnneLovesGilbert is correct. You misunderstand what is being communicated. Nearly everyone is doing their absolute best, and know it. self deprecating chit chat is just a way of alerting others to your humility.

I always cant help smirking at stories of horror discovering grandma gave the 2 year old chocolate. Meanwhile I'm openly handing mine some as a bribe for whatever she doesnt want to do/wear/eat today

Thank you and I agree conversations are so much more comfortable and natural and genuine when you’re not worrying what the other person is thinking.

Whatever; who cares, honestly?

@dressicarabbit

It's definitely not self deprecation. It's either a pleading please don't shoot judge me. Or a boastful I'm actually the best parent ever but just take my word for it because my child is currently eating junk/has hit another child/is talking a lot about TV. In both cases I hadn't even really thought to judge you until you drew my attention to it.

In the case of the former I'd like to tell parents I really am not judging you. Even if I was, remember I've known you for 15 minutes, my opinion on your parenting means nothing, I have no idea what it's like to be in your shoes and I'd be shitty to judge. If your under two hits my 5yo I don't think you're a monster, I think your child is too young to know right from wrong. An apology is nice and then relax, it's fine.

In the case of the latter, I wish I could say that's nice but I don't really care, can we talk about something else now.

For example, a dad had talked at me for ages about what toys his child isn't allowed because his child kept trying to take and play with other children's toys. I didn't think it was odd that his child wanted to play with the others toys, but now you've told me he basically has no toys at home, I feel a bit sorry for him. Still not judging, maybe it's teaching minimalism young or teaching the value of experience over materialism. Whatever, your choice. But then he went on about how he's allowed TV for some weirdly specific reason, then turned to another parent who didn't ask to explain it all again. In a tone that reassures us he is the best here and it's obviously the best parenting choice. We don't care, relax, it's the play park not human crufts.

You're putting quite a lot of effort into letting us all know you dont care. Which is weird.

You dont care. We get it.