What is going on with parenting these days?

[whocaresaboutbeingpopular]

Ok, so as my name change suggests I am aware this won’t be popular. My children are almost adults, youngest is 17 this year.

me and OH are away this weekend, we went to a place that to be fair we were aware would be full of kids; but we didn’t think that would matter as we don’t dislike having children around, however, since when did it become a thing to….

put your kids in front of a screen when they are having a meal? Not to mention having full volume of Peppa Fucking Pig?

let your kids shriek at high pitch continuously?

let your 18 month old walk themselves down the stairs despite a massive queue of people behind t? Ffs pick them up!

yes, no doubt I sound a right miserable bastard, but come on - is this how people are raising their kids these day? Bring on the entitled generation.

The toddler thing was selfish. They should not have held the queue up.

I think some people in general can be inconsiderate. Like the parents of the toddler. Like adults who bray loudly in restaurants. Like parents who let their kids watch TV at top volume on wards.

If you want to let your kid be on a screen in a restaurant, I don’t care as long as it’s silent. We didn’t have screens when my kids were young but if other parents use them, who cares.

I think we can all reflect and do better. My kids were very well behaved. Partly due to us being strict and knowing that others didn’t want to be bothered by our kids. And partly due to their placid natures. But I think we were too strict really as by the end of primary school we saw they were starting to be a bit anxious and risk-averse. I realise I had to lay off and give them more freedom.

None of us is perfect and it’s good to adjust what we do as parents in response to our kids and also society. I daresay most of us do.

I have a 7 year old and a 1 year old. The 1 year old doesn't have any screen time and the 7 year old has very little (a movie/Switch Game time/couple of TV episodes on a weekend). The 7 year old loves reading and if a meal out will involve lots of waiting with no kids her age to talk to she might take a book. The 1 year old will colour, spot things out the window or play with the menus while we wait. We choose times and restaurants to that make eating out with a toddler go as smoothly as possible.

Screaming means they get told to stop then if it continues removed so it doesn't bother others.

1 year old practises stairs at home or where it doesn't delay others.

Other people's parenting drives us mad too.

@LemonSwan I would have absolutely no issue with you giving your baby food to explore and try while enjoying your own meal. I'm not the poster who said all 2 year olds should be banned except for soft play.

In fact I'd probably be the first to smile and cluck over your squishy gorgeous 10 month old. They're so cute at that age.

I personally don't care how parents bring up their kids. I don't have to agree to their method. What does get to me is what appears a common attitude that the expectation is for me to tolerate very annoying kids rather than them educating their children to take I to consideration others around them

Exactly this. People can do what they like as long as it doesn't affect me. So that means using headphones if you want to watch something or play music.

Telling your kids to sit or stand still rather than running around getting in everyone's way; and holding onto them on busy roads and paths so that other people can get round you without being tripped up. Kids have no spatial awareness (or so it seems) so you need to do the awareness bit for them until they do.

I was being sarcastic

I saw a baby in a pushchair around town yesterday, he had a phone attached to the pushchair bar and was watching cartoons. Saddest thing ever.

@TheObstinateHeadstrongGirl

But equally OP you don’t know anything about these parents you’re judging either.

Ah, but as far as I can recall I didn’t call them dicks, say their children thought they were dicks or ponder whether they were peri-menopausal to name a couple of personal insults towards me on here. I came onto an anonymous parenting forum to discuss whether this is the norm now.

Is it so sad @Frenchcroissant?

my kid has watched tv from the pushchair when unsettled or under the weather and they lead a pretty charmed life all things considered!

They've had a stay at home parent with them their whole life and are lucky enough to have received a lot more one-to-one attention than most kids of that age. They get taken to two playgroups and two classes per week. They get books upon books upon books read to them every night. They get talked to and sung to all day long. And one of their parents studied child language acquisition at university and geeks out on all manner of toddler related development books for fun.

You might have walked past me that day and I think my child is spoilt with adult attention. If anything, they're not great at playing independently because they get an inordinate amount of one-to-one time. It might look as though that kid were being neglected but you just can't tell anything from walking past someone in the street.

let your 18 month old walk themselves down the stairs despite a massive queue of people behind t? Ffs pick them up!

Don't forget looking around at all the people you're inconveniencing, expecting them to make admiring comments about little Bonnington's prowess. Next year, Everest.

I'm sorry but there's no need to watch a mobile whilst in a pushchair, and that's my opinion. Maybe I'm just old, but for me it just looked wrong.

Yy to the lack of headphones - how can anyone in their right mind think that the whole restaurant wants fo hear their kids bloody crap on their iPad??? 🤬

Turn it down or put some fucking headphones on 🙄.

Yes it's sad. If your child or you can't handle a trip out in the pushchair without a screen perhaps you should stop singing and constantly chatting to them. It seems to be detrimental to their ability to relax and have some mind space!

I think you sound fabulous in some ways but using it as an excuse for people who shove screens at their children is just ridiculous to read.

A phone in a pushchair? What on earth is wrong with a small child looking at the world (the real life world) around them when out and about?

@whocaresaboutbeingpopular Parents are just terrified of their children being bored for a second. God forbid they might have to develop some mental resources of their own.

“A child can be confident and talkative in every other area of their life and still have tablets. But in MNLand everything is black and white, and if you have a tablet you are a Lazy Parent and your child will be a bag of nerves aged 30 🤣🤣 it’s illogical to the point of I’m embarrassed at the lack of intelligence on this thread.”

I agree with this Theobstinateheadstronggirl

You put it better than I could.

personally, I find adults taking and making phone calls in public places far more annoying. As I said in a pp, I can choose to go places where there is unlikely to be lots of kids. I can shop when parents and kids are still home getting organised for the day , or are already at work and in school. But adults (and teens ) talking on their phones can annoy me in public places. I really don’t want to hear their conversations - especially in lifts, waiting rooms & cafes. We can’t blame the parents of the adults not teaching them properly, because there weren’t many (any) mobile phones around when they were young enough to have parents tell them no. I do know that some parents will be working on their phone and trying to shop at the same time so I do try to remember that.

As to the parent who said their kids behave themselves ‘or else,’ - what is the ‘or else’ exactly?

I think a tablet (with headphones!!) at dinner is fine, it's a bit unfair to expect kids not to be bored and more importantly not disturb others wanting to enjoy their meals. In the pram though, sorry that it crazy! They should be looking and enjoying their surroundings surely, or is this in a situation like waiting in a doctors waiting room for hours or something.

I agree, but most adults can figure that out for themselves.

@MrsMikeDrop I appreciate that letting my child have a phone to watch tv in the pushchair is crap parenting. But it's a snapshot of my crap parenting rather than representative of all my parenting! We live in a boooring surburb and my kid does the same school pick up walk 4 times every day past identical houses so every now and again I chuck them a phone to watch stupid dancing cabbages.

I wouldn't let my kids watch screens at the dinner table but that's largely because they're greedy types and I wouldn't need to! It's personal.

I was a stay at home mum for 3 years with my eldest and I'm trying so hard to do the same with my little but it's relentless! Sure, I love it - but it's relentless! I'm no earth mother and I miss my technical, geeky job where I can use my brain every day and get peace! I use cheats now and again to get a break because I'm fried.

I think the people who get slammed for poor parenting choices (lollipops, screens in pushchair) are often stay at home parents who are trying to get a break. In my area, they're much more likely to be younger mums in their 20s too.

The judgey ones who limit screentime to a strict 30 mins every day (like my next door neighbours!) also use nursery every day between 9-5 so they can't appreciate the relentlessness of it all. I have to bite my tongue when they throw judgement my way. I genuinely think they're great parents setting an excellent role model to their kids of working parents - and their kids are clearly thriving in nursery and doing just as well as my kids - but they just don't understand my world right now and how full on it can be. The pressure of being around tiny people is immense and enough to drive a person wild on certain days and resort to crappy parenting choices. And I only have two!

Yep, YANBU. The screen time thing drives me mad too and I have a 4yo. We do not allow screen time at restaurants, on buses/planes etc - with headphones or without - and never have. We do bring books, colouring, puzzles and chat about those and about what we can see around us. Some parents seemingly don’t even want to try.

The ipad thing is a no no..well parents can do what they like bit not on loud...adults or kids...no tech should be heard by others!

Totally agree with you! We have friends who bring their son to restaurants when we meet up with them and he has the damn iPad playing so loud we can’t even hold a conversation and the parents do nothing! Spoilt, entitled and no discipline! Needless to say we have stopped inviting them!
I would much rather see a child with a colouring book than a screen!

I agree with you OP.

Screen time isn’t necessary IMO but for the love of god WEAR HEADPHONES.

Kids screaming/crying in restaurants? Take them outside until they chill out. If they aren’t capable of behaving in a restaurant, don’t take them to one.

Kids kicking the back of my seat on the plane (I have to fly a lot). Why not tell your kid to keep their feet to themselves?

Kids in shopping malls running everywhere and launching themselves at benches making the whole thing shake. Repeatedly. And 4 kids sitting down on their phones taking up the whole shoe trying on bench whilst not trying on shoes. MOVE FFS.

And kids hitting each other/winding each other up and all you get from the ineffective parent is “please don’t do that” and then they continue to ignore it.

Manners, discipline, consequences, all out of the window with so many kids.

My kids are 16-19 so I’m probably the same parenting generation as you btw. And I never would have tolerated any of that crap!

I agree, pre covid I watched in horror as one absolute idiot of a mother let her newly walking little one toddle across a light controlled crossing

A busy road is NOT the place to let your (no doubt) pfb practice walking, because tiny little wobbly children being walked by their parents can not get across the road in the time allowed by the crossing.

They nearly got run over when the lights changed as they were barely half way across and people were coming from round a corner so couldn't see them until they were nearly on top of them

My heart was in my mouth as I watched it, I couldn't believe someone could be so completely oblivious to the world around them

If it didn't ruin it why mention it. Go sell misery someplace else

I felt safer them walking down at that age. They squirm and if you fall so does child. But they could have let people behind go ahead. Don't agree with screens when eating out. As for the shrieking I can't stand it. We never behaved like that.

My own kids have autism there was the odd time my daughter would would see something she was scared of and scream. Barking dogs being too close other people's Hoover's and handryers. But that was a genuine fear. They never ran around shreiking for the hell of it.