Performance parenting rant!

[Iwantquietargh]

On the bus with 6yo child today - spent about 10 minutes explaining about being considerate to others on the bus as she was quite loud. To be fair the bus was empty up the top where we but that’s not the point.

anyway woman gets on with 2 boys between 7-9. Sat directly next to us with every other seat empty upstairs and starts being SO LOUD. changed names but all ‘Harry! Can I sit underneath you? Sit on my lap! Oh can we see this can we see that. Oh dear we forgot the library books! Are we excited for the museum?’

to add, the boys got on the bus and talked quietly between themselves. I know it’s common but my lord, SHUT UP 😂 Sorry I just needed to rant after 30 minutes of listening to that.

Sitting near someone on an empty bus is rude and bad bus etiquette.

People are just being contrary with the OP.

God 7 and 9 is a bit old to be spoken to like that isn’t it? Her parenting has obviously failed thus far if they need that much guidance and reminding 😄 ‘sit underneath you’ 🤢 <vom>

I know exactly the kind of thing you mean. The whole world has to know what they are getting up to. Very irritating.

Your user name is very appropriate in this case. No WAY does anyone avoid the front top seat if one is free because the other one is not. No one who is capable of feeling joy does anyway.

Think you need to learn to spell, because my user name is based on Edgar Allan Poe.

But your username is probably very apt.

I think many people on this thread are missing the point that it was the VOLUME that the OP was complaining of.

Nothing unusual or performative about taking your DC to museums and other interesting places and engaging them in conversation anywhere, including public transport. But there are some people who seem to hold their conversations at a volume that are just intrusive to other people.

You don't just see this in situations that can be described as parenting either. It is as though they have never realised that if they are talking to the person right next to them they don't have to address them as if they were hailing a ship in fog.

Oh come on - kids get to sit at the front of bus when the seats are empty.

It's one of the joys of life when you are a child.

Perhaps you should be aware then that the expression 'po-faced' means having a joyless and judgemental attitude. I assumed your name was a deliberate pun. I don't especially want to get into a 'I know you are you said you are not what am I' argument with a stranger in the internet about someone I've never met possibly being a bit loud on a bus but I do heartily acknowledge I'm a Mardy face!😁

Nothing unusual or performative about taking your DC to museums and other interesting places and engaging them in conversation anywhere, including public transport. But there are some people who seem to hold their conversations at a volume that are just intrusive to other people.

Yes but these threads always degenerate into people having a pop at “middle class” interests, behaviour and tastes.

If it were just about volume it would be fine but it’s not. It’s thinly veiled snark at the expense of people whose very existence is thought to be a rebuke.

I can understand how they can elicit an eye roll but objectively they aren’t doing anything more wrong than people who call their kids less middle class names but shout at them on the bus. But because someone has dared to utter the word “museum” or “library” always total open season on them and it’s pretty shit.

Is your username not a pun?!

No WAY does anyone avoid the front top seat if one is free because the other one is not. No one who is capable of feeling joy does anyway.

Exactly - there's a element of camaraderie in it, like "aren't we all lucky to have got the front seats?".

I can't imagine feeling resentful of someone else for wanting to sit at the front when there's a space for them and when we're doing the exact same thing too.

It really is.

I mean, how dare someone sit where they want on the bus....

I get it OP. It’s not the content, it’s the volume. I can almost picture the other parent looking out of the corner of their eye to see if anyone else notices what a great parent they are. It’s completely normal to take to your children, it’s not normal to yell at 100 decibels in the hope every other adult around is impressed you have taken DC to a museum.

I saw the worst case of this in Boots a few years ago. The mother was ‘engaging’ so incredibly loudly whilst looking around to see if people noticed that I genuinely thought she may have had mental health issues.

But it is NOT the volume to her. She literally said that the mother talking to her children was unnecessary. Not that her VOLUME was unnecessary, but that what she was SAYING was unnecessary. That she should have left the boys to talk to each other.