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

😂

Mine are teens!

I hope your day goes better then the last couple of days when you have spent much of your time reminiscing about memories that have infuriated you!

By all accounts the same amount of time that you've spent on same topic, as you've made no less than 10 posts either asking when it happened or throwing insults at me

throwing insults?

heavens… sensitive soul. Where?!

I think people who have no consideration for others gets my goat. I entertain my kids at airport-holidays but I am so aware that not everyone wants to hear a loud 4 year at 6am in the morning so I’m trying to bring them up to be respectful of those around them.

People are usually happy when boarding a flight, especially with 2 young kids. We’ll be taking our kids away in a few weeks and there will definitely be excitement in the queue to the aeroplane as my 3 year old is really excited about being on a plane. Now I’ll be conscious of miserable people in the queue judging us for being too happy 🥴🤣 kidding, I couldn’t care less about what people thought of us, kids are loud and annoying and that’s just life. My husband is loud and annoying too tbh and I couldn’t care less about what people thought about that. Don’t go out in public if people annoy you so much. You will struggle to find people out there that care what you think about them.

I bet you and your family are an absolute delight to live next door to /be next door to on holiday

"kids are loud and annoying and that’s just life"
No that's kids who have been brought up to be loud and annoying with no awareness or respect for anyone around them. Generally take after the parents

Talking to your children is, quite obviously, a good thing.

Standing right in the doorway of Tesco for a full three minutes as you E-NUN-CI-ATE every word of a long explanation of daffodils to your toddler is a bit annoying.

It's a bit rich you accusing others of throwing insults at you while you're out here implying that a poster and her kids are annoying, have no respect for anyone, etc.

You still haven't said what the airport family were saying.

Ok so they shouldn't be blocking a doorway but what on earth is wrong with this?! Why shouldn't that mother explain daffodils, and flowers and colours and seasons etc.

Honestly. People need to live and let live!

I remember one dad in the school playground at drop off time (very busy), having a game of catch with his DD, so everyone had to get out of the way. What a tit.

The poster that wrote about someone reading a story to their child in Costa loudly has just made me feel quite sad as although I’m sure it’s a coincidence I did this a few days ago with ds. My ds has learning difficulties, global developmental delay and a speech disorder. I’m slightly more pronounced as that is how I have been taught to speak to him by his speech therapist to keep him engaged and to progress his speech and understanding. I looked around and could see a lady staring at me and was quite self conscious. I would love to say that’s the first time I think I’ve been judged for the way I speak to ds but I suspect it isn’t. When he was a toddler we were told to repeat every sound/word he said back at him, to use makaton and to make sure we were slightly louder and more pronounced as he had failed 8 hearing tests at that point and I remember when doing this in public I felt like a totally silly and on occasion was aware of people looking. Now all I can think is that they think I’m performance parenting and that it’s all to impress them rather than to gain my ds focas so I can progress his speech and understanding which quite frankly is much more important than impressing a total stranger I’ll never see again.

I didn't IMPLY that the poster was annoying. The poster admitted in her own words that her kid and husband are loud and annoying.

And I believe I addressed the question back on page 2 of this thread

Funny how the people here who come into contact with lots of parents and children recognise Performance Parenting as a thing!

I teach sixth form and can vouch that PPs still exist even at this stage though they are not common. I also work in an area where we are far more likely to get disengaged parents than performative ones but they 100% still exist. Open days and enrolment are the worst. Last open day I got a very loud mum and very loud daughter who barrelled into the room, clattered through the door (the wrong door, the right one was propped open), performatively panted and made a big deal about being late (they weren’t), and then barrelled off going on and on about how it’s such a maze and they’d DEFINITELY get lost, no thanks to the daughter, no mum, it’s YOU who’ll get us lost and so on. I think they thought they were Rory and Lorelai Gilmore. It was exhausting.

I also teach film and media so I get a LOT of dads (only dads) having loud conversations that I can overhear about “hey, there’s that film I made you watch with me, one of my favourites, I’ve seen it so often”, while trying to catch my eye as if I’ll give them dad points for knowing a (usually extremely well known) film. I couldn’t care less what films parents watch! Note: it’s also common for parents to pick up a DVD case and say “ooh, I like this, we should watch this” in a very normal and chatty way. That’s not PP. it’s the big display of making sure everyone else hears that’s the thing.

I bet you and your family are an absolute delight to live next door to /be next door to on holiday

"kids are loud and annoying and that’s just life"
No that's kids who have been brought up to be loud and annoying with no awareness or respect for anyone around them. Generally take after the parents

But sure, people are throwing insults at you.
^^

Funny how the people here who come into contact with lots of parents and children recognise Performance Parenting as a thing!
This!
I find it funny on any thread about performance parenting how many people insist that:

• it doesn't exist
• it's just talking to your children
• nobody ever uses a loud voice to show off to strangers
• people are imagining it
• The performance parent isn't showing off. It's just that mediocre uncultured people feel insecure and jealous of the family who take their children the opera/can afford to take their children on nice holidays/feel threatened by talented children who can have advanced conversations/ insert some other thing that us normal run of the mill parents must be full of jealousy about

Anyone who's seen performance parenting knows exactly what's being referred to and it's not talking to your children about things.

There’s also performance grandparenting which we’ve quite often seen when on the beach. It can be quite comical.

The performance granny I encountered and previously posted details of was hilarious. It was like she was from a sit com or something. We were at a worthy craft activity at an abbey - this type of place is where performance grand/parenting is most often to be found. See also the library.

My friend used to speak to her pre schoolers very loudly in French in the library. She didn’t actually speak French herself. It was pretty mortifying - she has other other good qualities to make up for the character flaw!

@TheaBrandt

My friend used to speak to her pre schoolers very loudly in French in the library. She didn’t actually speak French herself.

are you saying your friend would talk in a make up language to them?

Having the experience of several DC in both state and public schools, you ain't seen performance parenting until you've seen public school pick ups/drop offs. Jesus Christ.

There's always some tit, counting the steps her toddler is taking in French, "apologetically" very loudly announcing to anyone next by that it's essential because of their forthcoming ski trip to Les Arcs and the toddler must be able to converse with the locals.

Funnily enough only counting if there is an audience. PP is not just talking to your child.

Fucking hell what a cross post!

Is she called Pippa? The particular twatty PP we all endured at prep school was.

A man did it with his dog - was going to say performance dogging but that's probably something different. Walked past out table in a restaurant and dog lunged towards my husband who was sitting down at the table minding hjs own business. Man did an oh what is he like kind of response looing at us to collude in agreeing how adorable Fido was inference being we'd be glad to have him at out table. We all ignored him. No he is badly behaved and you are a useless owner.

On reflection performance dogging is more prevalent but probably because my child is older so we aren't in the vicinity of little ones as much.

Oh the best thing on holiday is the "surprised dads" their surprise being that they have children who are theirs and need parenting. Prevalent in posh hotels and affluent resorts where I assume the mum or a nanny does most of the heavy lifting as they are working. Love them, their absolute confusion as to how they interact with these little aliens that are somehow now their responsibility for the half hour the mum has escaped.

i was choosing a bathroom last year, woman next to me was also doing this with her family, she was complaining about something and kept looking across and trying to include me / get me to acknowledge wat she was saying. Nope , not interested.

I presume she means her friend didn't speak French fluently, so the level that most of us are at:
Excuse me, can you give me directions to the town hall?
I have 3 sisters and 1 brother.
We went on holiday, and we camped.
It is half past three.
Please may I have toasted cheese and ham sandwich (croque monsieur)?
I like to go to the discotheque.
My car is yellow.

She didn’t actually speak French herself.

would suggest she doesn’t speak french

and if she did speak basic french - then i fail to see the point unless the preschool children in question were already fluent in french.