What if you are not a Performance Parent but you have "THAT" kid?!

[PyongyangKipperbang]

On the back of the PP thread.
I have never been a PP but there was one time that I was probably thought of as one and I die at the memory.

I will preface this by saying that DD2 is/was officially gifted, she is an adult now and storming her way through her chosen career, she is just....yah know, clever! Very proud of her obviously but when she was a young child especially, she could be excrutiating to be the parent of! She is (Borg name) Three of Six, and she is the only one to do this to me!

We had been to France on holiday, nothing flash (saved for two years for a Keycamp job) but we all loved it. We arrived back at midnight and I took her and DD1 with me to Tesco next morning as we had bog all in. Both wanted to wear their Disney dresses (yes we did DLP but Parc Asterix was waaaaay better) and I had done all the driving in one day back from Paris, frankly I was too fucked to care. So me, Cinderella (10) and Snow White (5) are going around Tesco and Snow White decides she is only going to talk in French so it feels like we are still on holiday. Cute but frankly annoying, not least because she just seemd to pick up french easier than you or I can work out our new mobile phone. I played along as I speak French but really couldnt be arsed so tried to distract as you do "Who can find the baked beans first" and all that, DD1 played along as she was eye rolling too.

Then I think "Aha!!!!.....DD2, look some Pain au Chocolate like we had on holiday, shall we get some? You can get them and put them in the bag"

She said, top of her voice "OH NO MUMMY!!!!! THEY WONT BE ANYTHING LIKE THE ONES WE HAD IN PARIS!!!".

The ones we had in Paris were nice yes, but they were still from a fucking supermarket! And I only bought them because I got lost in the massive place and gave up as we were tight on parking!

Little arsehole got me side eye the whole fucking walk of shame to the checkout.

DD2 is now in her 20's and I have never thought that there is a decent way to not look like a dick parent in this scenario, apart from giving her a flick a thwart the earhole (Copyright Terry Pratchett) and tell her to stop being a twat!

Is there and I missed it?!

Should add that I adored her then and do now before anyone says I dont, and that this story is part of the family archive of "oh do you remember when" most of which relate to me!

My DS used to love watching the Moomins in Swedish and in one of the Sami languages, though he didn't pick anything up (he did pick up some German from a German singing car toy though).

He did, however, at his 6 year check up with the school nurse, claim to speak and read Russian. He does not.

Note to people in replies - mumsnet is a parenting forum where people write about their kids/having kids/wanting to have kids. It's the whole point. There's nothing batshit about the op's post. If you didn't find it funny, move on.

In a very warm swimming pool a few years ago my then 6 year old said excruciatingly loudly "ooh, it's like being in the Indian Ocean!" - I really wanted to tell all the side-eyeing parents nearby that he'd never been in the Indian Ocean...

Can you actually string a sentence together without an F that or ahole the other?

Can you string a sentence together that doesn't drip with supercilious judgment?

Remember years ago when people used to come on here and titter about how oh so middle class they were because their kid liked hummus?

Yeah, reminds me of that.

Reminds me of the 'Overheard in Waitrose' Facebook page.

'Sebastian! Put the falafel down! You chose olives with manchego for your treat this week!'

That was a very long-winded (not so) stealth brag.

I think the reason people are eye-rolling is not because of the story itself which is fairly ordinary but the OPs desperate to be hilarious and cool writing style. I hope to god it isn’t a tester for a book.

Now THAT'S funny

It is 😂

I hope not too as the grammar and spelling would need a massive edit!

I can’t believe the French language aspect though, the lady claims she speaks French, so either she never thought to pass this on to her children, or did but yet surprised her child could recite a few words?

On reflection, I think I am being overly critical though, seems like the OP thinks that having children in Tesco in Disney outfits (quite usual), and a child saying a pastry wouldn’t be the same as on holiday (probably not as common?) would mean she thought people she regularly shopped with thought she had obnoxious children when it wasn’t the case. This would explain the initial narrative of her child being clever as a big thing as it may not be common amongst her cohorts?

Threads like this (or rather the responses...) are why I often start typing a post then just delete it, there's no point, as the wilful misconstruers will have their way, no matter what you write.

Yawn. What is your ultimate goal people? If folk don't post random memories, funny things, cringey things and questions, there will be no forum at all. Maybe you'd be better off on instagram just liking or not liking peoples pictures?

If I saw a child say that, I wouldn't think anything of it!

Think you're overthinking this. It was 15 years ok, time to move on 😊

@MaloneMeadow , @Gowlett is referring to the fact that 'performative parenting' on Mumsnet seems to be as simple as actually talking to your kid/narrating stuff in public. Surely that's normal and you talk to your kids differently to an adult. For instance to teach them stuff and in a more animated voice/louder so they will actually bloody listen!

As an aside, it feels like the misery guts posters from the Waitrose food magazine are back in force!

Or should that be en force 😉

Kids say all sorts of shit. Mine certainly did. In a women’s communal changing room at a swimming pool my ds aged under 10 announced loudly that the lady next to him had ‘ big plops’ indeed she did. I don’t.

Coincidentally about 20 years later he is a polyglot and fluent in Japanese, Finnish and Russian so maybe has an inate interest in languages

What is it with all those tiresome stealth bragging threads?!

This one and the grammar school brother Mercedes one.

No one gives a shit if your dd is, ya know, clever 🙄

Sounds like he does, some people are just really good at languages. But fluent in Finnish is difficult (unless its his native language, like for my children) so that takes more than an interest, takes real dedication. Russian and Japanese also very difficult.

1.Performance parenting threads always go the same way on here. And I’ve been looking at this site for years.

It’s declared after a couple of pages that’s there’s simply no such thing as Performance parenting

I mean as if any adult in the land would act like The world is their stage and play up to an audience, how preposterous!

2.Nearly all the RL examples on here are nothing to do with making a performance of parenting.
They’re all just situations where a parent is (pretending) they’re dying of shame because their child has revealed in public how frightfully middle class they are.

That middle class child sounding a bit precocious thing has comedy potential if you like that sort of humour I guess.

I get it Op.

I once had DD (then aged 6) say very loudly at the fresh fish counter in Tesco ‘oh Mummy not the fresh Sea Bass again, I find it increasingly dull’.

I was dumbstruck, she even managed to say in it a posh voice, it was like she had turned in to another child! We’ve never had Sea Bass (she must have read the little sign on the tray of fish).

I wasn’t even buying Sea Bass, I was getting 100 grams of cooked prawns for a prawn cocktail!!

I could see people looking.

Right?! Jeeeze!

Maybe they're hangry and need a croissant?

Would you?