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.

I totally agree OP. This morning we were in a Premier Inn having breakfast and I watched a young girl (around age 7) plug her iPad into the socket in the restaurant and eat her entire meal glued to the screen in her pyjamas and dressing gown.. Her father was watching something on his phone, there was very little interaction between them. It’s very sad.

So read a book. Or just rest and don’t do anything. A phone further stimulates the brain.

Does nobody think like what the hell jobs these iPad kids are gonna do? What is their future? It is absolutely terrifying. My child won’t be having a phone until they turn 16. They are primary school age and have never been given my phone, we don’t have laptops or an iPad. It’s not a brag but it’s sensible.
i can’t believe people sit around at home on phones and iPads eating not saying a word it’s so fucked up :(

Someone will be along in a minute to point out that they might've been up all night studying the complete works of Shakespeare in 9 different languages, and their screen time was just a small break from that

My husband is terrible with this. He is on his phone constantly and often fails to acknowledge the children when they talk to him. Or me for that matter. I’ve tried telling him but the problem with addicts is they deflect the accusation.

What you didn’t see OP is that their parent had been up all night pulling people from burning buildings and then volunteering in a homeless shelter, the child is actually a child genius thanking you very much who is working at 5 levels above their age and this was just 1 minute of their day how DARE you judge them

Gosh, how old are your children? At best it’s emotional neglect and at worse the children could be at serious risk. I’m sorry he isn’t taking it seriously.

If anyone wants to reduce their phone use, I found the book "How to break up with your phone" really helpful (and funny!).

https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2024-08-16/parents-excessive-smartphone-use-could-harm-childrens-mental-health

You have no idea tha context of what you saw. That's a few mins out of someone's life. Maybe they had got stuck somewhere and ended up travelling back late with their toddler.. exhausted and scrolling thru their phones to pass the time.
People can't stare doe eyed at their kids 24hrs a day. Ridiculous.
If you actually knew these people and saw that they were constantly on their phones then this is a fair enough statement.
But basically you've just looked at a couple of strangers and judged them so much based on very little info, that you've decided to make a social media post about it!
Personally I think this kind of mum shaming is even worse than parents being on their phones.
It's toxic.

You cannot be serious 😬

It saddens me when children come out of school and the parent collecting them barely acknowledges them as they're too busy on their phone.

According to background data from the study, one recent study found that parents of infants now spend an average of more than five hours on their smartphones daily, including looking at a smartphone 27% of the time they are engaging with their baby.
Another study found 68% of parents admitting they are often distracted by their smartphones as they interact with their kids.
Research has shown that this kind of
"technoference" while parenting means less attention paid to children, less parent-child conversation and play and even a higher risk for child injuries.
During adolescence, technoference is linked to "higher levels of parent-child conflict and lower levels of parental emotional support and warmth," Madigan's team noted.

I assume from this post that you value a parent's need to scroll endlessly (for half an hour) on a fashion website more than the mental health, and future of a baby.

As a previous poster pointed out - addicts deflect.

'Mum shaming.' Do me a favour.

This kind of excessive phone use isn’t just sad, it is rewiring the brain. Both in adults and crucially in children and is already being proven to be behind the catastrophic rise in anxiety and poor mental health for Gen Z and now Gen Alpha like the child in the OP.

Great post @User63859 and I’d highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the subject.

Utter bollocks.

The OP said the baby's attempts to engage with its mum were repeatedly ignored for half an hour.

I do wish people would stop trying to make excuses for child neglect.

I don't care how exhausted they were, it's not hard to put your phone down and acknowledge your child.

I miss when the Internet was only accessible via computer in the lounge. You'd sit down, faff around, do your bits you needed to do, then switch power off until next time!!

We seriously don't need access to the Internet in our pockets. What do we even use it for in those moments like on the tube etc - looking at social media, news articles, maybe work emails. Definitely would be better done at a "designated" time .. and children would see you at a computer/laptop and see you're doing a task
Whereas they just see parents with phones attached to their hand constantly and think that's normal and how it should be.
It's even in tv shows. Elmo used to say "let's look it up on the computer" now there's just Smarty the Smartphone who shows Elmo YouTube videos (not joking btw)
It honestly depresses me
I'm going to try and be better!!

On the flip side of all this I watched a lovely young mum interacting with her toddler on the bus the other day, She wasn't 'performance parenting' but chatting with her daughter- looking out of the window, counting red cars they could see and talking about where they were going etc. Perfectly normal 20+ yrs ago but quite refreshing to see these days.

Gives me the rage. Dad pushing a pram along a beautiful country path, with his phone balanced on the handles watching something. People on phones bumping into me (I’m on crutches), children on devices in restaurants. Where will it lead?

There have always been shit parents who don’t engage with their child. It’s extremely unlikely that they will change their ways because someone makes a melodramatic social media post begging them to. The flip side is of course parents do engage and there’s a raft of threads about ‘performance parenting’ because someone asked their kid what sound a cow makes whilst sitting on a train.

There’ll also be an aspect of just about everyone’s parenting that ‘saddens’ someone else…….

Our Local Authority, Stay and Play and all Play sessions has lots of signs requesting no phones in the building so that parents interact with their children. I have seen parents leave their child unsupervised to go out and browse their phone. Just like they had to feed their addictions by going for a fag. Doom scrolling is very much an addiction.

But whatever, you should never, ever ignore your kids. I hate seeing a parent with an awake child in a pushchair and the parent has earphones in.

…. Is how the country has got in the state it’s currently in

lets judge people more
more judgement

less bullshit behaviour