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

My child is speech delayed and the SALT literally gave us the advice to narrate everything in the way that makes other people roll their eyes 🤣 sure it probably seems performative to others but we are just trying to support our son at every opportunity, naturally being out and about brings more opportunities to model different words than at home.

Also, my 12 year old is deaf and performance parenting is totally different to the kind of talking you need to do when you are talking to a deaf child.

I wouldn’t know @elliejjtiny but I can tell you that the kind of narration that OP and other PP have described is exactly how you need to talk to an autistic child with a gestalt language processing presentation in order to help them move beyond echolalia to develop functional, novel speech.

I'm sometimes this parent. If I'm being overly enthusiastic my youngest, it's usually because they are close to having a tantrum and I'm trying to gee them on. You might find it annoying when I excitedly point out ducks or praise one of them for building a tower, but you'd find their shrill tantrum scream more annoying.

Or you might think I'm performance parenting when I'm purposefully speaking clearly, or even in a sing song voice with my eldest. But that's because he is Deaf and I'm following the advice of professionals in how to help him build listening skills and (hopefully) eventually spoken language. Believe me, I don't want you to pay me attention when I do this. In fact, I had to work hard to get over the embarrassment of knowing people like you would be judging me in order to parent this way outside of the house. But it's what my child needs so I have to.

I think the most obvious is the throwing of the voice. They’re projecting to everyone, not their child who is a meter away.

There's a difference between being loud for your child and being loud for the imagined adoring audience. No one minds the former, it's when people are saying things clearly above the understanding of their small child and looking around to check that everyone knows what an amazing parent they are. Loud is OK, performance isn't.

What does that even mean?

I've only ever heard that term in relation to ventriloquism. I can't say I've seen a parent do anything remotely like that.

I'm not quite sure the distinction between looking up occasionally and looking around would be sufficiently clear to me to tell the difference.

Of all the things that didn't happen, this didn't happen the most 🙄

I saw some at a university open day.

‘this is the first time you have ever been on a bus! How does it feel being on a bus for the first time? You’ve never needed to go on a bus have you?’ Etc.

Then you haven’t seen it. 🤷‍♀️

You don’t need to understand it before you’ve seen it. I’ve only seen a handful in my lifetime tbf.

However the vast majority (if not all) of what people are describing on this thread is simply people talking loudly. So what is the difference?

Sounds like these people are talking to your children. Do you prefer to ignore yours?

Unfortunately this did happen – pretty much word for word... She then went on to ask if the 5 year old wanted to "play doubles tennis on the weekend with papa".

The child couldn't have cared less about Georgia O'Keefe, long division, or playing doubles with papa... and it was fairly obvious none of it was being said for the benefit of the child (which is very different to what a lot of people are talking about on this thread – I have zero issue with a parent narrating to a child, explaining something to a child that the child is clearly interested in, or talking to a baby. I think that's just good, engaged parenting.)

Preferable to those dunce-tier walking lobotomies who scream things like “Febreeze, fuckin’ gerr’ere NOW!!!” while holding a vape in one hand and a phone in the other.

It's the names that are the giveaway it seems. If the child is called Jacasta, it's 100% PP, no question. It never seems to involve a child called Sarah.

God yes, we saw this last year. And it’s also painful watching and hearing parents trying to teach their kids to swim in completely the wrong way. Telling them to swim doggy paddle, keep their heads up out of the water or hold their breath when they do swim head down. Usually whilst in armbands.

The worst was a dad berating a kid of about 4 years old and then saying to his mum really loudly “why are you telling him he’s doing well? He’s absolutely rubbish! 😟

People with booming voices in public generally are awful. There’s always someone with their kids, all in a shop gobbing off loudly. People don’t seem to be able to speak to their kids in a normal voice. No one cares if it’s their first time on a bus. You don’t need to announce it. Just get on it. You’re not the first person to be a bloody parent.

Last night out for a pub dinner and a couple were not only talking weirdly loudly to each other but their bored sausage dog kept letting out a short but ear piercing bark every 5 mins. All everyone could hear was them. Then there’s my noisy neighbours, screechy kids, door slamming adults. Ugh.

Just go away loud people 🖕

It’s because they are never saying ‘oh, you got five out of twelve on your spelling test, that’s even better than last week, well done’ because all children have spelling tests and most can get less than 50%.

@Sugargliderwombat deal but let’s make a day of it and hit as many places as possible, maybe a park, cafe and soft play 😂

It doesn't seem to be discussing actual results much at all, from what's been said on this thread.

Actually I did hear a parent in a cafe berate a child for the marks they got in a test once. That wasn't pleasant listening.

😂

Yanbu. I’m at the airport and a family took ages to go through the security scanners. The staff were shouting at them to move forward and they were completely oblivious. Why? Because they were crouched down explaining loudly to Hubert and Pubert what the scanners do, how they’re going to go through this then go and get a yummy croissant, you like a yummy croissant, don’t you Hubert? Pubert can have a rice cake as he prefers rice cake and he had some carrots with his lunch, but you didn’t so you must have some crudités when we get though. Ok, let’s have a look at these scanners we showed you, you can go through when you are ready,

You are not unreasonable at all. I get hugely annoyed by loud/performance parenting. Example: you go to the GP, you're waiting in the waiting room, a parent with a toddler comes in, toddler starts building a tower or whatever. Toddler makes a bit of noise, all good, kids will be kids, no problem. But the parent just can't leave the toddler alone. 'OH WELL DONE JAMIE! LOOK AT YOUR TOWER AND HOW HIGH IT IS! DID YOU WANT THIS YELLOW BUILDING BLOCK TOO JAMIE? DOESN'T THIS TOWER LOOK LIKE THE AMAZING ONE YOU BUILT LAST WEEK? OH AREN'T YOU CLEVER NOW YOU'RE ALSO BUILDING A BRIDGE! LOOK JAMIE WHEN YOU'RE DONE, WOULD YOU LIKE TO PLAY WITH THIS TRAIN!? THAT'S REALLY GREAT JAMIE I JUST LOVE THAT BRIDGE YOU'RE BUILDING IT'S BRILLIANT JAMIE' ... and on, and on, and on it goes! The child is is lovely, but the parent just won't shut up and has clearly never learned to use their 'indoor voice' argghhhhhhh (I don't say a thing. Soon enough, or not, the GP will save me ...)

I get you, OP, our NDN's have got a 3 year old and the performance parenting at full volume makes me want to throw something over the fence. They're older parents, and terribly indulgent. It took them an hour to persuade him inside the other night for bed...... I nearly yelled GET TO BED YOU LITTLE SHIT for them! The worst part is that she's heavily pregnant and there's going to be 2 of them to praise constantly. We're using our garden an awful lot less than usual because I just can't sit and listen to it.

I understand, I've got autistic children too.

It's difficult to describe if you haven't seen it but performance parenting usually comes with a combination of things where to do one or two of them is normal but to do all of them at once is performance parenting. The person I was talking about earlier also does a lot of name dropping about expensive places they have or will be going to with, like just randomly saying "so darling, what was your favourite ride at Disney world" when they went ages ago and nobody else was talking about Disney, rides, theme parks etc. Also making rude remarks about other children e.g. "I'm so glad you don't behave like that darling". Or "spending time with those children makes me thankful mine aren't like that".