To judge the woman on the bus

[IDoughnutKnow]

She was on the bus this afternoon with two children - aged around 3 and 6. The 6yo was jumping around, doing the whole 'look at meeee' thing, standing up, messing around. The younger child had been bribed into submission with a massive doughnut. The mother (and I know she was the mother, as the older child kept addressing her as Mum) spent the entire 30 minute journey on her phone. I could see Facebook, then Instagram, then she was just scrolling around watching videos. Every now and then she would get pissed off and tell the child to sit down and behave and stop bothering the other passengers - when it was evident to anyone with half a brain that she needed to get off her bloody phone and talk to the child.

WABU to judge her hard?

I love the fact OP you think you’re really cool and aloof for judging someone and acting so casual and nonchalant about it on the internet. 😂 Who knows what sort of person you are, although I have my suspicions.

I'd have judged him, too.

It’s not twatty at all!! Possibly ignorant, or just no interest in spelling. Not everyone has an interest in spelling correctly, I’m sure people won’t judge you!

Single mum with a toddler that was a runner, wouldnt sit still and refused to sleep (literally survived on 5 hours of sleep which meant I did too). I remember long bus rides being the only opportunity I got to check my email, communicate with family and just have a few minutes to connect with the outside world.

I could very well have been this mum and I'm sure I got plenty of dirty looks for being on my phone but I couldnt have cared less. Only time my child was self-contained in a relatively safe space and couldnt run away.

No, I merely judged. I didn't feel cool or aloof (in fact, I felt a bit upset about the 6yo and the fact that she was desperate for conversation and interaction).

@bloodywhitecat I don't think I'd have judged anyone with a young child in a doctor's surgery. They're not places where you take your children for the fun of it.

As I keep saying, I wouldn't have judged anyone at all, were it not for the fact that the 6yo was a very cheerful and lively child who was full of questions and observations, and who was clattering into people because her mother was looking at her phone instead of engaging with her.

Oh dear, I have been guilty of this! I did it today! The nursery phoned and asked me to pick my child up due to suspected illness. I rushed down and had to spend the journey home trying to sort out people to cover my meetings! I’ve also had to do this at normal pick up time as I’ve compressed my hours. Didn’t realise I was being judged so much!!

@Mosebjadi Not a hostile question, but genuinely interested: what would you have done in that situation before phones were invented?

I’m a people watcher. The best thing about the bus is thinking about the other people and what they are up to. I would have judged her a bit. I think most people would, they just like to virtue signal on here about how they are so fair minded. Judging, done privately without acting on it or saying anything isn’t hurting anyone.

Nah. Women like you only judge other women.

Lively, full of questions. No matter how sweet that is from the outside it's very hard work if you are the parent.
Constantly having to come up with answers, trying to find ways to burn off energy, the mum is entitled to a little break.
Don't know if you have kids but did you never watch a bit of TV or something rather than engaging with your child constantly.

I have children. They were all very lively and full of questions; one has Asperger's (as it was then known) and another has ADHD. So I am not unfamiliar with the challenges of children. I used to watch a video with them after lunch for half an hour. I didn't spend all my time giving them high-quality attention (they had to spend time going to Tesco with me and so on), but I absolutely wouldn't have sat on a bus reading my newspaper while one of them bounced around demanding attention and being a pest to other passengers too. I might have thought to myself "oh God, give me a break", but I wouldn't have acted on it.

Ah, it’s so nice to see women supporting and building up other women.

Really heartwarming.

Have a medal.

Wow how lovely are you, so being overweight with tattoos and piercings make you scary and shit mum lovely better call social services on me then.
You have no idea this persons day/ life at the moment maybe she needed a min a lot of schools have gone for a three week break this Easter maybe she just needed a moment. Is it the best parenting probably not but it might just get her through bed time. As you say you couldn't see what she was watching just that she was on apps how do you know she wasn't look at parenting advice on those. I personally follow a few accounts that have been invaluable to some of the behaviours/ development of my child as well as being part of groups where advise can be shared how do you know she wasn't "ignoring" her child in order to help them. You don't know but not only do you sit there judging her you also then make a whole thread of it on the internet for you and others to laugh at her and judge her more. In my opinion there's only one person here I'm judging and it isn't that mum

I promise life is a lot easier when you keep your beak out and don’t worry so much about what complete strangers get up to.

Based on the description I just don’t see this one as good mum who had a crap 30 mins that day. Not every mother is a saint - there are some really rubbish mums out there - you must realise this.

OP let’s settle it, when she yelled at the girl to settle down, was her accent RP or estuary?

I think some lower socio-economic mums are just not informed enough about screen time, child development, behaviour management, parenting in general - and frankly, many don’t care.

Is this a joke?

This thread is sickening.

I hate this place sometimes.

Wow op your updates just get worse and worse. I hope I don’t get judged for taking a quick minute to myself when out with my child. Again you have no idea what’s going on in this woman’s life but feel the need to judge her over a snapshot of her day. That’s all you got is a snapshot. It doesn’t matter what your backstory is, I feel like either way you should know better and keep your opinions to yourself instead of posting them on a public forum.

Hopefully this won’t be lifted by the papers too that will really help with your public shaming of a mum.

The bit about the accent is. Kinda.

My thoughts exactly! So much entitlement about these days.

Someone asked me whether she had tattoos or piercings and was overweight. I said that she didn't have either, but was hefty.

Accent was neither estuary nor RP!

Interesting that the voting is a slight majority for IABU, whereas the comments are about 90% that way.

Whether you judged/stereotyped or not,it's sad that the children were ignored.Appreciate pp are saying it's a 30 minute snapshot of her life but could also be an indication of their life .
but if the kids were clean well fed and healthy that's all good.

no & that isn't what I said is it