Children should be seen and not heard

[ItsUpToYou]

Does anyone else think we’re slowly (very slowly) heading back to this attitude towards children? From the families who plonk iPads in front of their kids at every unstructured moment to keep them quiet, to the constant complaints on MN about children (who aren’t plonked on their iPads) playing too loudly in their gardens or wherever else, it seems like the overall consensus is that children either need to be perfectly placid at all times or completely silent.

Everything is so structured and regimented for children nowadays in a way that it wasn’t when I was growing up in the 90s. The way DM described her childhood in the 60s and 70s sounds ever freer than mine was.

AIBU to feel a bit sorry for the current generation of children (and feel super pressured as a parent to make sure my children appear “perfectly placid” at all times for fear of judgement!)

Not in real life (as I said, my children are generally quiet kids so would have the bitter adult seal of approval), but it’s on MN and other online spaces every day. It’s on this very thread! Surely you’ve seen it?

Me too, and I always engage with children where I can (if it feels appropriate) - this weekend a toddler sat opposite me on the train and I ended up playing his game with him. It was lovely, a real joy and good for kids to get positive attention rather than daggers from misers.

I saw a quite the other day saying “You are entitled to a child free life but not a child free world”. People need to remember that

I was told by a parent once around an incredibly loud child 'they are finding their voice' voice my arse

No i don't need to hear excessive noise because people are too lazy to parent not does anyone else

I've only really heard people moan about screeching and iPad noise in public. I haven't ever heard or seen anyone moan about children making a noise chatting, playing, laughing etc out in a restaurant or elsewhere.

My experiences don’t echo this at all and I have two little ones including a toddler. If people are tutting or huffing at us when we’re out and about I’m afraid it’s passed me by.
My kids make less noise playing in the garden than my neighbour’s horrible loud dog so I doubt anyone’s bothered by them digging up my flower beds or playing on the slide.
When I take them on the bus people tend to chat to them or smile at them. We were at an outdoor event all of today and they were running around like mad things at times - safely, in a big green space - and the comments I heard were how nice it was to see them having fun, that they played well together etc.
I rarely meet a child I don’t like tbh and I find people who brand “all children x” or say they don’t like children very odd. We were all children once. Most people are decent and most children have many good qualities.

@ItsUpToYou

Is it really the children or is it actually the parents that people may be criticising?

Just wondering.

Why does a child having a loud voice, as many children do, mean the parent isn’t parenting? Or do you just mean they’re not parenting in the way that you would parent your children?

I’m very much a conformist type parent as I’m far too insecure as a person to let myself be judged by other people for my parenting, but I do respect the parents who are bold enough to allow their children the freedom to be children. I’m not talking bad behaviour, by the way, I’m talking simply laughing and playing in the way that children have laughed and played for decades.

Eh, I don't really want to see them, either. 😉

Our kids live ridiculously busy lives.

That’s usually a choice. Wearing children out with organised fun or loads of activities to the extent that they need to sit zonked in front of a screen to relax isn’t necessary. Some people are competitively busy and drag their kids into the same breathless race through life and it’s not doing all of them a favour.

Agree, I do believe we need a more child friendly culture in restaurants, so no one feels children can’t make a normal amount of noise. I like restaurants where it’s not deadly quiet and there’s families chatting and laughing. It’s something that is relatively new here, compared to places in the Med (im in my 40’s and Mcdonalds was the only ‘restaurant’ I really remember as a child).

We’ve taken our kids out from being newborns, taken toys, books, colouring etc over the years for entertainment and still play games at the table today. When mine have had enough of games, we’ll allow a short time on the phones/ipad usually because we also want time to chat just amongst ourselves for abit (after most of the other hours awake have been running around after the kids!)😅

I like the cut of your jib!

I think on the whole parents now interact and spend way more focused time on their children than a generation ago so “parents don’t want to parent anymore” doesn’t even make sense. Lots of “parenting” 30 & 40 years ago was simply leaving your kids to run the streets for 8+ hours a day from no age.

We were out for lunch today, and DS went to chat to two other small boys. The parents & both kids were on devices.

They all ignored DS. Going out used to be about socialising.

The world definitely has become less child friendly!

You hardly ever see fast food places or restaurants with play areas or that give kids crayons and colouring sheets anymore.
No toys in waiting areas anywhere anymore either.

I agree which is why mine have plenty of downtime too. I was referring to just how busy the whole week is in general and how busy life is- school, both parents working, clubs (if they want to do them which lots of children do), kids parties etc. In Primary school, there was a party or two most weekends. On top of that, parents actually want to enjoy quality time with their children after being in an office all week. My parents did the supermarket every Saturday - I would never drag my kids to do the weekly shop at the weekend as I want to enjoy the time with them. If you’ve had a busy Saturday out and about and a child has a few minutes playing a game on an ipad over dinner, not really ‘plonking’ them on it.

Exactly! How the latchkey generation all claim they managed to play without “shrieking” if there were fewer hands on adults around to stop them from doing so is beyond me. (Also, how do you stop a child from shrieking? Once you’ve heard the shriek, it’s already been shrieked…)

I agree.

We took our DD in to restaurants from a very early age and she never misbehaved. This isn't because we put a tablet in front of her (they weren't actually around then) or even a colouring book. Instead we talked to her, we made her feel included and found things to interest her. As a result she came to associate eating out with a pleasurable experience because she always had the attention of at least one person at the table.

After all, you wouldn't take an adult guest out to dinner with you and then proceed to ignore them and have conversations that completely excluded them.

I hope we aren't moving back to children should be seen and not heard given the rest of the poem is

Children should be seen and not heard
Beaten and not fed
Deprived and harried
And comprehensively oppressed.

My mother used it as a how to guide for child rearing, I'd hoped people with her attitude would have died out by now.

People are so quick to judge about screens, for me it's part of a toolbox of things I can use when I'm out and about with my children. There's a balance somewhere, and not just because I can't be arsed talking my child.

Nobody is plonking anything. Back in my day as a kid (40 years ago) you were always given something to keep you entertained when you were out for dinner etc. Whether it was a book, or colouring in, puzzles, or a toy, you were never expected just to sit with nothing to do. Restaurants always had kids menus with stuff on them for kids to do and still do now. But people go nuts when other’s use tech instead. No idea why.

I feel this way too. I don’t actually disagree that many (most?) children are in need of more boundaries and better manners, but this isn’t because ‘other people’s children’ are intrinsically annoying. Parents in particular, but also society in general, need to put in the leg work and actively engage with children and young people, rather than dismissing them as feral and handing them screens to keep them quiet. We need to start actually talking to children and including them in public life, so they know how to behave properly in a range of scenarios, rather than either barking orders at them or ignoring them.

There does seem to be a bit of a trend towards intolerance of children within the public sphere (although I also think the U.K. has always been quite bad at this, compared with countries such as Spain and Italy). We seem to have completely lost any sense of child-reading being a collaborative effort (the proverbial ‘village’) and increasingly view children, rather like pets, as optional and slightly exotic accessories. rather than future adults.

We did the same thing, but even children get bored and antsy if they are hungry and the food is taking a long time. They don’t always want to chat. We had some easy pen and paper puzzles we played. My daughter was always very well behaved and loved to chat but we remembered she was also still just a kid and sometimes chatting just isn’t enough.

Maybe they didn’t want to chat to a random kid. Mine would have completely ignored him too. She hated that sort of thing. How would you feel if some rando adult came up to start speaking to you whilst you were eating? That would be weird, no?

You might see us now all on devices whilst waiting for food to turn up (daughter is 15) because we have online scrabble tournaments with the three of us. I’ve also seen it happen if we are holiday and planning what we might do that evening or the next day so we’ll be researching places to go.

Exactly.

Seen and not heard? If only.

They are louder than ever anywhere we go. It’s shameful.

You tell them it’s not acceptable so they won’t do it again.