Wishy washy parents

[Jen198]

Maybe it's an age thing... I'm an "older" mum.. Mid 40s with a 6 year old DS.
Few things I've witnessed and heard recently (both amongst parents of DS friends and at a local park) have me despairing!

1. Whilst in local park enjoying a picnic yesterday, a random child ran over to us and tried to grab a sandwich out of my son's hand.. Child looked about 4 or 5... No parent/guardian in sight. It's not the snatching of food that bothered me, it was how the child appeared totally alone and unsupervised. We could have been anybody!
2. Same trip to park, saw another child stand perilously close to the water (boating lake). Parent was on nearby bench, head down and totally absorbed in their phone.
3. Young child my 6 DS is friendly with at school... The mum lets him cross a busy main road totally alone and unsupervised to "go to the shop for her"... She has hands full with baby twins at home.
4. Kids from DS's class regularly come over to ours to play, some of the parents don't know they're here (I always ask do your parents know where you are? Just in case of emergency).
5. Was on a local bus recently, a toddler in a pushchair was desperately trying to get attention of both parents... Both were totally unresponsive to her, they were both glued to their phones and didn't look up. Despite the poor little girl pulling at their sleeves and calling mummy...daddy.. Found it so sad.

Am I being totally old fashioned and out of touch with the times to find these kind of things really alarming and worrying?

Times are different than before cell phones/streaming/internet.
It is (I think) impossible to do anything else than give your own children sensible values. I have given up on worrying about other people's parenting (or lack of)

I think we cosset kids far too much now and most of what you wrote was perfectly normal 30+ years ago.

The phone thing is awful though so YANBU there

YABU for not contacting social services about 1. and 3.

YABU for effectively kidnapping children in 4.

A mixture. Ignoring children to be on your phone is terrible. Letting your 6-year-old cross the road is potentially a good first step to independence if there’s a crossing and you’ve observed them enough to know they’re capable of it. You can’t always be sure whether a parent is watching or not - they might be hiding, to allow their child to build trust in themselves (rather than helicopter them). Also, children aren’t also reliable witnesses about their parents’ state of mind.

It’s the snatching of food that WOULD have got to me.

Don't be daft 😂

Yup. Combined with permissive parenting, excessive screen time for the kids too, and it’s a bit of a shit show.

I’ve also noticed a lot of parents letting their kid snatch stuff and either smiling - “oh they are so cheeky” or shrugging - “what are you going to do about it eh”

Tell them to stop it and give it back, for gods sake!!

Something that makes my blood boil is when a child snatches something off DD and the parent comes over and says "sharing is caring" but then doesn't make them give it back (as if it's directed at my DD). That's not sharing is it!? I'm always left in a half mind about whether to advocate for DD or just move her on to something else