Please, please, please put away your phones...

[User63859]

Just witnessed a mother (and father) totally ignore their 18 month old (ish) child on the tube. Both of them totally engrossed in their phones. The baby was sat up in a buggy, awake (at 11pm but that's another issue) and had moments of trying to get their mother's attention. At one point the child leaned out of the buggy and buried its head in its mother's lap.

Not even a flinch from the mother. So concerned with scrolling (looking at a fashion website fwiw), she literally didn't even make eye contact.

It was heartbreaking. What are we doing to our children? Before all the late night trolls start piling in I'm not saying I'm a perfect parent, we all have our weaknesses, but witnessing this has literally made me so so sad. I think what made me even sadder is the fact the baby just seemed to accept it. They tried to get the smallest acknowledgment from their mother, failed so just sat there staring into space. Oh, and watching their mother prioritise a bit of metal over them.

Please, for the love of whatever, put away your phones. We all like a scroll and a moan on mumsnet but do it when your kids are in bed. I'm so tired of seeing all this shit parenting and worrying about what a messed up world my son is going to grow up in.

To those that are guilty of this, one day you will long for these days back again and by then it will be too late and you'll be wondering why your kids need so much therapy.

Be better, please.

No. Because I've been the mum who's had to carry a child out of a place screeching because they're not ready to leave.

Because I've seen my mum be up the entire night with my sister who had colic and needed to step outside for ten minutes while she still cried (before phones).

Because I saw my aunt deal with a ND kid having a meltdown before it was commonly known about.

Because I know that people are human and need compassion not judgement. What does judgement actually do to help anyone?

Yes, it is judgemental. All people make judgements, its partly how we keep ourselves safe, partly how we reasses and reinforce our own values and maybe even alter our behaviour if we are so inclined to better ourselves. Those who are not, make excuses and shout 'bully'.

People discussing what they deem bad parent is not bullying. Going up to someone and telling them to get the fuck off their phone and engage with their kid instead of being shit, lazy parents, would be bullying.

Creating a post to do the same is cyber bullying.

I agree with you op

You’re absolutely right - it’s getting out of control and is why so many children start school unable to speak.

A man posted on Twitter recently being sat in a restaurant a child being ignored through the whole meal by parents on phones. The child had an iPad but wanted to speak to them. At one point he said “I love you Mummy” and she didn’t look up.

I started to cry. We are dying as a civilisation and failing our children in plain sight.

Its not bullying. You dont know what bullying is.

Guess we found a phone first baby second parent.

And actually, what would the world be without judgement? Already standards in behaviour and common courtesy are slipping drastically because we have to be kind and not judge. The emphasis has shifted from not doing something shitty because society would disapprove, to not being the meany who disapproves of someone doing something shitty - so people just behave in anti social ways and don't give a fuck or take no accountability for their actions!

The reduced interaction and responses to validate and reassure are mimicking the same as depression where the emotional responses aren’t available.
when parents are habitually scrolling this will and does have a marked affect of the young child’s brain in emotional and verbal development. It will affect attachment .
they might be otherwise ok parents but there’s plenty that aren’t.

Errr do you know who the post is referring to? Because I can’t work out the identity of these people and I don’t think anyone else can so it’s not bullying.

As the mother of a teen, I think you might change your mind about the phone - being able to contact them in this day and age and vice versa is a boon - but I agree with infants and iPads. Friends of ours got their DD one when she was two. Two!! We went for lunch round theirs when she was glued to it and I had to intervene, I couldn’t help myself. I said she’s had over an hour, shall we turn it off and get her to play, do some drawing etc? But they didn’t want her to disturb us so she stayed on. I then tried to distract her but she was too plugged in, like a little robot. 😢

It's emotional neglect but I don't think the children are at 'serious risk'. There is a problem with hyperbole and lack of nuance in the devices debate.

I caught myself doing it the other day. DS was practicing for his food tech in the kitchen, while I was watching Netflix on the sofa. He asked me something, and it shook me out of a literal haze. I put my phone down and went and sat with him in the kitchen and chatted. I felt pretty shitty tbh.

Give over. Who is being bullied then? They probably don't even know this post has been created.

It's astounding that of all the issues in society, this is what you're taking umbridge with: some anonymous poster relaying a situation relating to two other anonymous people and discussing the detrimental impact of this parenting style on society as a whole.

Netflix? That’s like watching tv though. You are allowed to watch tv you know. You don’t have to be at the beck and call of your child all the time. It’s the ignoring them that’s the problem. The “literal haze” thing is a bit extreme when you’re referring to watching a tv programme. People probably said the same when television was invented.

The post about over population I used to think that and maybe it’s a good thing our numbers are reduced for environmental reasons. The decline in birth rate is already definitely happening in the UK though. Was in the paper yesterday.

Feel abit despondent sometimes what’s the point in having a a baby ignoring it for your screen then it grows up to be a screen obsessed teen itself?

My DC have phones of course but DS18 mostly listens to music and DS19 is often out with friends (uni).

You don’t see them glued to their phones but maybe that’s because I never was. Admittedly smart phones didn’t come along until they were at primary school but we’ve never had them at the table and always chat together.

Ignoring babies is awful. I’ve also seen mums pushing buggies glued to their phones. I loved talking to mine when they were little. I was told by my nanna to make the most of them so I did. She was right, I blinked and they were adults. I’m glad I didn’t miss it

Phone use/addiction is a huge social problem for all ages (I’d argue that it’s most serious for the 8-18 age groups). But I don’t think getting judgy on specific individuals/momentsis the right starting point. They were taking a very late train home after a presumably exhausting (and who knows, maybe traumatic) day.

i think you are conflating separate issues though. I don’t think the declining birth rate has to do with phones or ignoring children. Some of the most attentive parents have just one child and probably give them more attention than any kid in the past with multiple siblings would have had. People are still having kids - it’s just not the people that the Daily Mail want (ie white and middle class).

Even sadder is when the baby no longer looks for interaction. I see it so many times. Last week, young mum wheeled buggy to table in Costa and gave her toddler a ‘brick’ of juice and opened a bag of Wotsits for her. Then sat with her own drink snd her phone for half an hour or so while child ate a few Wotsits and threw the rest on the floor. At no time did either party speak to or engage with the other.

This was the same with my nephew14 when he was little. His first word was “pad”. I remember him saying it over and over until dsis got it out of her bag. He’d sit at the table in a restaurant and at home on the iPad endlessly.

He didn’t talk until he was 3! My kids were talking sentences early as I didn’t nothing but talk, sing (sing and sing) music and gym groups. They did watch TV a bit. We didn’t shut up. Still don’t 😂

Yeah I agree.
even if it’s been a hard day etc and you want a bit of doom scrolling before the fight of bedtime, you can talk to your child whilst looking at the phone or hold their hand or take it in turns to check out mentally and swap with other parent. Not perfect but sometimes u are barely surviving!

i get everyone wants a break but that situation is psychologically proven to teach your child that they don’t matter. Their ‘bids’ for attention go unnoticed/ not attended to. They can reduce the bids and it really knocks their self worth and confidence.

phones now are made to be addictive so it isn’t really your fault that you can’t put it down but as a collective we need to push back on this. They found a way to cash in on our time so keep us addicted wasting our lives and ruining our social connections, which makes us depressed and lonely.

while we are at it- if we’re out to dinner with friends can we speak to each other and not be on our phones!

You really have no idea what bullying is unless you have been bullied, trust me. People bandy bullying about as an accusation when they can’t formulate a cohesive argument. If you’d said we should be supporting parents to understand impact of using phones and ignoring their DC rather than publicly denigrating behaviour we have no context of, fair enough. But whining that it’s “bullying” is ridiculous.

I generally do agree with you.

However, I used to look at my phone and deliberately ignore my baby at that age when I'd told them it was nap time and I expected them to be trying to sleep. And they did nap in their buggy a lot. Given it was 11pm I suppose they could have been doing similar?

I was bullied badly as a teenager, but thanks for telling me what I know.

Imagine you were that parent. It's 11pm and your kid has refused to drop off. You decide you'll try and make them sleep on the train on the way home after a long day. You don't engage because then no sleep will happen.

You get home, log into Mumsnet and see a thread that is very probably about how terrible a parent you are. All the facts match where you were and what happened.

How would you feel?