Loud parenting in public spaces

[76born]

AIBU to say that even as a parent of two, I find loud parenting and following this, loud children really bloody annoying.
Two examples this week which have had me furious 😡 (I’m obviously bored and need to get a life)
Example one, sat in a cafe now enjoying a cup of tea whilst my two build Lego (it’s a Lego cafe) and one parent is commenting on her child’s building skills, eg “oh wow Timothy, great building of a really high tower Timothy, look jacasta, look how high Timothy’s tower is” (names changed). Now dad joins in. His I’m really mean..
Example two, walking home from school last week when a young g child of about two being pushed in a pushchair mumbled and pointed at something. Mum, in the loudest, poshest voice ever, “yes darling, that black Range Rover is like the one found at grampy’s house”.
i am perimenopause, I get the rage at minor things and just would enjoy your thoughts and of course, examples, to add to this thread.
I thank you

I agree. If you want to hear “conversation voices” avoid parks if easily offended by parents umm… interacting with their children.

I loathe Loud Dad and Loud Toddler who overlap with my childrens' activity at the leisure centre most weeks. He's more of the ignore, ignore, BOOM end of the market than pretentiously performative, and no matter how far I try to get away from the gobshite, the building is just too small to get far enough away from his voice to not hear every single bloody word in full HD surround sound (generally featuring 2 swearwords per sentence)

His conversations are not private, they are blasted out to fill the space.

He hypes the toddler until toddler squeals with eardrum reverberating screeches.

We also get the weeks that he ignores the toddler and lets it wander free-range across the whole space until it makes a bid for the freedom of the car park. Then there's bellowing at the toddler until toddler is captured, then starts screaming. Then there's the negotiating of all the things that Loud Dad won't will do while toddler screams "no no no"
And then repeat 5 minutes later.

He's inconsistent anyway, but it's the sheer volume of it that is enraging.
The irony is that my hearing is fairly ropey and I normally struggle to get through conversation without asking for repetition.

10 years ago the staff wouldn't have tolerated it, and were hot on not letting young children wander around. I doubt they would have put up with the bellowing either.

Toddlers are hard going. I've been there and done that with the joy of undiagnosed additional needs in the equation. But they can be parented with interactively at normal conversation levels. It does not take broadcasting every interaction to fill the space.

The only escape from his foghorn voice and mindnumbing conversations such as the crisps that went out of date on 2nd May would be to waste that hour by walking home then turning round to walk back 10 mins later, and I have an equal right to use the public space provided.

To balance, I was recently in a hospital waiting room and a mum was reading through the books avaliable with her toddler at normal levels of conversation, and it was a lovely, natural interaction. I have no objection to normal-range interactions at a volume appropriate to the setting which is the majority of the time and quite a broad range.

Genuinely hilarious.

I would assume she was just a bored mother making a joke.

Performance parenting. I work in a restaurant and see this literally all the time. We have a ‘mum club’ come in once a week and we dread it every time because of how in your face and loud they can be with it. We’ve even had a couple of guests request to move tables because of how insufferable they can be. But then a couple of them come in separately with their husband and child and the child will be sat on a phone or tablet being completely ignored, so you know the whole thing during ‘mum club’ is a show.

Whilst dictating the behaviour of those muttering and eye rolling 🤣🤣

My ex H was a top performative parent. He barely ever spoke to our child unless there was an audience - then he'd morph into this obsessively attentive dad, speaking constantly about himself in the 3rd person - daddy this that snd the other and pronouncing our daughters name with a weird french inflection. Drove me mad.

We used to call this performative parenting when our kids were young.

Oh God, I think I actually hate him!

Hey! I had the same thought too when I read this thread! Doesn’t help that I have a very loud voice too!

But I’m not going to stop it, I think it’s what’s best for my kids and if you feel the same, I don’t think you should either. Sending love and solidarity!

It’s when they’re loud and looking around to check others are listening for me… clearly strangers are the focus of what they’re saying and not their kids.

Yeah same. I sometimes say “shall we go get a coffee?” or like “okay, let’s go home!” or sing him a song (quietly). They literally tell you to do this, emphasise it’s the most important thing to do along with reading etc. People do look at me like I’m nuts to be fair. Can’t do right for wrong really

Or maybe they’ve been speaking / engaging with them all day and have decided to give the kid 30 mins on an iPad so they can drink a cup of coffee in peace? We’re all trying our best

Challenging people who are being rude to you (albeit in a cowardly, indirect way) is not remotely comparable to trying to make people interact differently with their children. Not sure what the laughing emojis are about, like you've had some kind of "gotcha" moment.

Except… this is very nearly an actual conversation I have had with my kids. Bridges were one of my DS’s hyperfoci. He would have been silent at the time so you’d think I was boring him, then corrected me quietly hours later with “that wasn’t a suspension bridge mummy, it was a cable tied bridge”. And if I don’t speak very, very clearly he doesn’t notice me speaking - that’s ADHD.

Some of us just have those kids!

Equally as irritating are the parents with, what I call, "flag babies." I was with my 4 y/o DD on a bus, and a lady got on with a pram. The baby was asleep- I could see into the pram. At the point she sat down, she loudly started cooing and making "ssssh" noises at the sleeping baby...she then got the baby out of the pram, swinging it around wildly...sort of cradling the baby. Whilst she did this, she was looking at everyone else on the bus, grinning and lifting the baby into our line of vision. The baby woke up and started screaming- she then jumped up, and paced the length of the bus singing, but waving the baby in various people's faces. Seriously, we could all see the pram- and there were lots of other children on the bus. It seems bizarre that In order to be looked at with the baby, she swang him around like a little flag. The poor little guy was asleep until she started the performance.
Come off it...it wasn't necessary. The worst thing...another buggy tried to get on, but she wouldn't move her pram 1 inch sideways. But she shouted at the other mum "I'm not moving. My baby is more important than yours."
Bus driver intervened then.
But wow....what an awful performance.

Yeah, you pushed that story beyond the realms of believable at the end there...

Very sadly that happened on the bus yesterday, and exactly as it happened. So be as snarky as you want.

You sound so pleasant. I'm sure it's the parents who are the problem and it's not just you being intolerant, nosy and judgemental. Definitely.

This feels really unreasonable to me. I've never heard of performance parenting before but I try to talk to my 4 month old as much as I can, to expose him to words and language and keep him stimulated. I obviously don't have an endless supply of things to talk about so I often just talk about what I'm doing, the scenery we are walking past, what's on the shelf in the supermarket aisle, what baby might be thinking about, etc. I'm now worried that other mums might be judging me for doing this when I'm out and about!

It's not nice to feel judged but honestly, imagine what an unhappy, inadequate person you would have to be to look at parents (mums, in most of the examples given) interacting with their kids, trying to engage with them or teach them stuff, and to be silently seething or "raging" as per the OP because you think they're a bit loud.

You sound like a great mum. Anyone who is going to judge you for talking to your baby is not a person whose opinion you need to worry about.

And then everyone clapped!

Oh god I think I'm probably perceived as a performative dog owner.

I think you need to loosen up and relax a little, we share the world with other people getting irate over every little thing other people do isn't great for your mental health.

The examples given are not a big deal at all, thugs/drunks/drug users loudly swearing and talking inappropriate in front of children would actually be irritating of course

I think this is the issue. I work with people like this. It smacks of entitlement - “my voice is so important”. Not to do with being a parent. Just being an entitled nobber who loves to shout (kids or no kids).

I don’t have any issue with people talking to their kids. I do it myself. What I have an issue with is how loudly some people do it.

I’ve just come back from a hotel and there was this family absolutely shouting across the lobby at each other - mum and dad, “OH GIVE ME THAT BAG DARLING, NO THAT ONE! I’M GOING TO THE TOILET!!!” etc and of course the kids were shouting too. Why can’t people just talk at a normal volume and try not to impact others’ environment?

This thread seems to have a defensive bunch of people who don’t get it. Talking to your kids is lovely. Just try and use your “indoor” voices, K? 🤣