to have wanted to rip the earphones off a mothers head this morning !

[utahforever]

Now, i normally try to restrain from judging other peoples parenting ability, but.....

she had a baby in a pushchair, earphones on and a young child (3ish) meandering along with her - including crossing a main road. Poor kid was carrying/dragging some shopping with him, 'cos the back of the pushchair was full.

I felt so sorry for him The music was loud enough that other shoppers passing her noticed, and she didn't once talk or make eye contact with the little lad whilst i was watching (about 5mins).

I was walking behind them across town, not stalking

I just hope that they have more interaction at home.

I first came onto mn about a year ago and, since then, I have developed a constant fear of being judged unworthy, irresponsible and...wait for it...common .

One of the times I felt most like I would fall foul of mn rules of motherhood was when I was trying to lose some baby weight and would put DS in his buggy for his twice daily naps and power walk the buggy for an hour at a time with my ipod (both earphones)on pretty loud.

DS was about 6 months and is deaf, so it really wouldn't matter if I was talking to him or not. He usually went to sleep pretty quickly anyway.

I did get some stroppy looks, though, and I agree that we should give people the benefit of the doubt because we don't know the whole story.

my 2.5 year old bolted from me in the supermarket yesterday, i had lifted her up to stick her in the trolley and she arched her back and slipped out of my hands... and legged it !

i had to run down the aisle yelling for her to stop, whilst trying to pull my handbag out of the trolley...

i also bumped into an old lady and knocked some flowers over

all in my haste to grab my daughter back, who i fancy, would get gold in olympic sprinting!

i would have been doubly mortified to log back on to mumnset and see a thread like:

'cannot believe the negligent, bad mother i saw in town today, couldn;t keep hold of her 2 year old, anything could have happened to her, what a careless stupid woman.....'

that 3 minutes yesterday does not accurately reflect the way i parent the rest of the time

hecate - was that serious? Surely not.

If the child had of wanted to get the mothers attention whilst crossing the main road and laden down with shopping and the noise generated by the traffic, the mother may have missed parts of her kids conversation like 'mummy, I can't carry this, it's too heavy' and the delay on the said MAIN road could have cause a hold up or at worst a collision.

Lulumama - you hear the mn voice of censure in your head too then!

totally, mrsm, totally !

and that is good, becasue it has made me a lot less judgey and a lot more tolerant

Of course I'm serious Orm. We need to bring back the stocks. Pelt folks with tomatoes. This country is going to hell in a handbasket. We should bring back national service as well.

limara, if she had stopped in the middle of the road to swap the bags around then that would a have been dangerous too

there but for the grace of god, isn;t it, 5 minutes watching another mother does not give total insight into her life and her parenting skills

I've said enough, there is no point flogging a dead horse so to speak.

Lulumama, I don't think your example is the same as this and your point of a 'snapshot' in time is worthy.

This mother intentionally 'tuned out' of what was going on.

That's alright then hecate

I will freely admit to switching off my hearing-aids to get a bit of peace from the shrieks and howls emanating from my children. Is that any different to drowning the little buggers darlings out with music?

It could've been just as dangerous taking said childs bag off them and trying to steer a child and a buggy and an extra bag of shopping across a main road whilst child stropped and tantrumed ebcause he was 'such a big boy' he wanted to carry the bag home. (what would've possibly happened with my DS).

Well, sometimes people do tune out of what is going on. If i had just been subjected to 240 why questions in 45 minutes, I would tune out too - and ds1 was quite capable of keeping this up all day, all week, for about 9 months.

I answered him religiously. proper answers, silly answers, etc etc all sorts of answers.And sometimes I tuned him out, and said Hmm-hmm instead.

Colditz, I do the Hmm-hmm thing as well

Not so good when they ask you what you think at the end of the sentence/conversation.

oh i seeee
am being 'worthy'

have never been called that before

LOL Worthy Lulu

sorry limara, are you the OP too?

Lulumama, you just asked what i was thinking

i love the way that having a different opinion makes you 'worthy', that cutting someone some slack or offering a differing viewpoint is sneered at

What exactly are you worthy of Lulu? A packet of minstrels? A gold plated tea cosy? or shall we go the whole hog and get you some platinum encrusted knitting needles?

I may have to take a vote exactly how worthy you are, hope you don't mind.

for you dear

instead of worthy I meant valid.

This is DH here and cannot believe that a resposible adult let alone a mother could in anyway justify:

1. Walking infront of a 3yr old anywhere
2. Walking across a busy main road in front of a 3yr old
3. Walking whilst not looking at their child and listening to a walkman.

What happens is simple, the child gets knocked down and some poor sod gets that on his concience and possible legal action and the parent will have the gaul to blame the driver.

or

The child who is not being watched or listened to could have been taken by anyone and she would not have noticed.

If those of you out there need to switch off then do it somewhere that the child is safe.
I have just had several lines deleted but if you cant look after em dont have em!

Anyway, where is dadsnet? the best place for all those sensible conversations!!!

fair dos !

dadsnet - look in the topic list

gall