Performance parents

[Maryquitecontrarymary]

Am I the only one who is irritated like hell around these people?
At airport waiting to board flight. Couple infront with 2 kids who seemed to want everyone to know what fun they are and how much banter they have together as a family. "Oh look at us, look how fun we are, look how great we get on with our kids".
Try to ignore but it's impossible as they are so loud and they are constantly looking around as though to see who is watching and listening, so you have to make sure you don't look their way or make eye contact.
Oh and guess where they happen to be sitting? Yep you guessed it, right behind us. I swear the whole flight could hear them and only them. The woman had a gob like a foghorn and seemed to swing between being performance banter mum and having a go at her husband. Even ear plugs couldn't drown them out.
I'm surprised these people don't exhaust themselves with their performances

On these threads you always get highly defensive performing parents who have just twigged that, all these years, other parents haven't been looking on admiringly at their superior parenting skills.......and in fact have been looking on thinking 'Just wind your neck in you annoying twunt.'

nah you don’t

We had an Uber performance granny once. Even my at the time primary aged kids found it funny. Her poor grandchildren were cringing

I was in Costa the other day and a mum was reading a story really loudly. So annoying!

Yeah I do shuts their mouths right up

1 in 5 pre schoolers will currently have glue ear and therefore will have impaired hearing. There is a good chance they’re just talking at a level their children can hear.

https://www.ndcs.org.uk/information-and-support/childhood-deafness/causes-of-deafness/glue-ear/

Yes but are you shouting to your child with glue ear how MARVELLOUS it is that they are at PRIVATE school so they can write their CALLIGRAPHY in MANDARIN ?! This was one of performance granny’s gems!

It's half term right now where I live.

This

I know what you mean, and it can be irritating, but at the same time I honestly don’t think people do it for the benefit of the people around them to make them feel bad. I think the parent probably feels conscious of not wanting their child to kick off and have a strop about something so is desperately trying to keep them entertained. I bet we’ve all been thought of as ‘performative parenting’ at some point by somebody, but we just don’t notice it in ourselves as much as we do in others, because there is no intent in it beyond us being a parent in that moment IYSWIM.
My pet hate is parents glued to their phones whilst their child runs riot in public desperate for their parents attention. Now that’s irritating!

There is a huge difference between parenting and performance parenting though. One of my lovely friends is a performing parent who is really loud about her son and what they are doing. Think 'oh Tony look, look, there's a picture - who painted it Tony, what did you say? Van Gogh? Perfect darling - remember the exhibition we went to, the immersive one' . Now I would have said that too but not really loudly and all happy clappy like she does. And she does the look around thing.
Another friend is loud as she is deaf.
It takes all sorts OP. Just find some fun in it and laugh. Or pity her poor husband

I think it's more that people get defensive because it feels like parents can't do right for doing wrong. Ignore kids = poor parenting (or no parenting), kids acting up, annoying. Speak and engage with kids = performance parenting, too much noise, annoying.

To be fair, when talking to young kids out and about you do have to be (a little bit) louder than normal because otherwise they ignore you because there are a lot of distractions and they're not great at filtering out background noise! I am not doing it for an audience, I just want to keep them occupied on the bus. In fact I'd much prefer to have the bus to myself 😂

It's half term this week for us.

People are just different. It's not performance parenting. Not everything needs a label..

I know just what you mean OP but you’ll get people on here saying that they are just engaging with their children & isn’t it better than ignoring them. When we know there is a difference between engaging with your family normally & doing so in a performative way to cause maximum irritation
Nailed it in the first couple of posts.

Haven't got any further but I'm sure someone will be along to suggest that if people don't performatively parent at foghorn volume then the only other option available is to plug children in to devices and 'parents can't win'.

Meanwhile most parents are perfectly capable of talking to their children and engaging their children without being a nuisance to everyone in earshot.

That doesn’t sound like a huge difference. More like a microscopic/highly subjective difference.

I think people like that just don’t have a very strong sense of self, so are always looking for external validation from anyone in the vicinity. They mistake any kind of attention for approval. There was a couple like that in my NCT group, needless to say people soon tired of them. Their eldest is in the same reception class as mine now and I have been amusedly watching over the past half year as they have already alienated most other parents of the class with their attention seeking antics.

Whenever I go swimming there's a woman with her son who performance parents him. She repeats everything he says, louder, so people within earshot can be charmed/ impressed or whatever about how clever he is and what a great mum she is. We managed to also bump into them on Christmas Eve at a local house that lights up for charity. All we could hear on our way back to the car behind us was her repeating, loudly, that her child would like taramasalata and hummus with pitta for supper.

I dont go anywhere without my MP3 player. The minute anyone starts braying, in go my earphones for some musical bliss. I also use noise cancelling headphones at times.
Childrens noise has never really bothered me. It's the adults. Loudness is unappealing.

At the same time I think people who feel so deeply irritated by it are probably insecure in their own parenting, otherwise why would it bother them so much? No one is being harmed by it.
It can be very mildly irritating, but some people seem to have an irrational rage about it on here 😂

Nor even slightly insecure. Sorry

My comment wasn’t actually aimed at you, you don’t sound raging about it - but as they say, if the cap fits . . . . .

😁😁😁😁😁

Am I the only one who doesn't notice stuff like this? I don't think I've ever witnessed parents doing this.

Some people have a particular inclination to be irritated by children and their parents (mostly mothers) existing in public spaces. It reflects well on you that you don’t.