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’d rather they let them go on phones if it means they’re quiet. Now my kids are grown and I’m a bad tempered menopausal mess I can’t stand the sound of kids or performative parenting. God knows how I’ll cope if we ever get grandkids.

I did hear/see one Mum recently doing some loud parenting, in Tesco express one evening.

Lilydarling was being adjured to 'Help Mummy look for the broccoli'. "Can you see it Lilydarling? Is it there?" "Is that it Lilydarling?" "Have you found it Lilydarling?" Lilydarling was staring at the apples.

No problem with that, per se- except Lilydarling was all of two years old and her mother had left her in front of the vegetable section while she perused goods, out of sight, on another aisle, so was using the loud conversation as a kind of location klaxon.

Generally I think if you're bellowing loudly enough at your child that others can hear you from the other end of a shop (museum/gallery/cafe) then you're probably performance parenting. If you're just being bright and chirpy that's different.

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,

🤣🤣🤣

See mumsnet normally complains about parents who screech ‘Oi ged ere now!’ in the supermarket but this sounds 1000x more infuriating

It's the tone of voice that's used. I wouldn't think that you'd be explaining the genus of various fish species long and loudly. Verbally or in sign language.

I think the people we are referring to are like this anyway, but just are now parents. Loud voiced people who talk about themselves a lot. Often found shouting into a phone on public transport or dominating work meetings. Annoying people reproduce and become annoying parents.

One thing I've been trained to do, as an early years worker is not to constantly pass information to a child, but to get them to notice things and figure things out for themselves. Ask questions, or say open ended things like 'I wonder what that means..' then have a dialogue. If they stop responding then it's your cue to shut up too. You could still talk to yourself a bit in a way they can hear, very simple narrating but just a little 'I'm getting a ticket now, let's wait for the green man' etc.

I personally don't like the 'parenting' verb, it's not a role you play its the relationship with your kid. If you are at the park with them then you are at the park with them, not 'parenting'. The fact that people think it's something they are actively doing implies they switch it on and off, but it's a constant thing.

Talking normally to your child in public = teaching them vocabulary and about the world

Performance parenting = teaching your kids it’s ok to be loud and obnoxious in public

Exactly. Based on this thread, performance parenting seems to be generally defined by the offender mentioning things like ‘kale’. That most of those who are reporting these awful offences are also deciding to give these children assumed names such as Tarquin and Jocasta there seems to be an awful lot of inverted snobbery going on.
For all that people are saying that the difference is obvious, the examples given are generally clearly mostly about interpretation and perception.
Now I’ve come across many a loud show off in my time and many an exhaustingly perfect parent (they often like to eulogise about the fact that their child is now 8 and has yet to be subjected to the horrors of refined sugar). BUT based on this thread, I’m suspecting that performance parenting has been invented by the sort of person on here complaining about it. It seems there are an awful lot of rather intolerant and rather insensitive inverted snobs here! Someone so appalled by another mother asking for Kale soup when playing cafes that she had to text her mum’s network to bitch about her. Lots of rather nasty stuff here today.

That’s what I’m saying. It’s not everyday stuff that we are all doing. It’s to say ‘we are considerably better than you’.

I think another definition of it is when the parent is pretending the kid enjoys something when the kid doesn't give a shit. 'Look at the ducks, you love ducks don't you, there are more ducks there. Let's count them together!! 1,2,3,4 ducks!! See them swimming, you like swimming don't you...." meanwhile the child is licking a stone ignoring the ducks and the parent.

Some people do speak overly loud in a public spaces, but I really can’t get too annoyed about someone speaking to and encouraging their children. On the whole it is surely ‘A Good Thing’ and far better than the alternatives.

The finest and funniest parenting compliment that I ever received was from a very well spoken lady in a north-London park cafe. We got into conversation and she asked to whom my then two-year-old belonged. I replied that I was my DC’s mother. She expressed surprise, and said: ‘Oh but you were speaking to [them] so nicely and sometimes the mums you see can be so impatient with their children. I thought you must be a really good Nanny!’ 😁😂 😁

Or, maybe the parent has a loud voice anyway. 🤷‍♀️

The reality is, it’s only in the minds of the spectator that it exists. Nobody actually knows.

The kind of thing you would do with a child who is nervous of them.

oh my goodness! All this time it appears that I’ve been parenting terribly - I (stupidly) thought that parenting was about encouraging a child’s interest, both in those things they are already interested in and also gradually widening their field of possibility by bringing other things into their lives… but no! Apparently this is wrong and I should have just left them to licking stones and scratching their bums! Silly me. So pleased and relieved that I have been corrected!!! (Though thankfully we made it past toilet training before I realised my error)

Don't. You are doing the right thing. Talking to your children about anything and everything is the best thing you can do to encourage their speech, understanding, thinking etc etc. If other people don't like hearing it then it's their problem not yours.

Agree. I have noticed several families with young kids walk by our house whilst the mother/father is doing a loud narrative voice on everything so whole road can hear them 🙄

Of course the other possibility is that this thread is full of joyless unimaginative rather horrid little people making envious attacks on parents who are able to engage with and enjoy their children

This.

It's not just the volume. With performance parents, their supposed engagement with their kids is just fake public role-playing that they turn on when other adults are around, because they think it will impress.

And it clearly does impress at least some gullible souls, judging by the posters here defending them.

Performative parenting is annoying yes. However lots of the examples of this thread just read like good language development. I’ve cared for kids with speech delay or auditory processing challenges and you do have to speak loud and clear. Kids with anxiety may need talking through what’s happening/about to happen. Why should the child not get the best support for their language development because others don’t want to observe it?

Surely it’s more the content than the loud/exagerated voice? There’s no “normal” way to talk to an 18 month year old. Because most barely know what the fuck you’re talking about. And if you don’t talk in a loud exaggerated voice often many won’t even acknowledge that you’re talking to them. So yes some parents might sound stupid, but they’re basically prioritising interacting meaningfully with their child over sounding like an idiot to strangers. Which I would have thought ought to be applaud. The issue surely is rather more one content, ie of stuck up/smug parents being stuck up and pretentious (talk of Land Rovers, talk of famous artists with 2 and 3 year olds etc etc), and using chatting to their child as another opportunity to try to show off to passers by.

I actually can’t stand people who loud… anything! Let alone loud parent. I was on the bus the other day and two young guys were talking about the pub they wanted to go to/the price of a pint/which pubs they liked, so loudly and I thought shut up! No one cares?! Some people talk for attention!

Agreed. As I say it’s more about weird content than any “silly” or exaggerated voice IMO. I suspect some of thise judging would probably cringe if they heard the voice they used to use (or will one day use) to talk to their own toddlers /children under 5.

Or.. some people like attention in public.

Is that really so unbelievable and offensive to say?

Your comment is horrid. Why so angry?

This has been a revelation, performance parenting. I didn’t grow up in the UK and couldn’t for all these years understand why British mums (and some dads) were so loud, encouraging and like in a TV ad when they were talking to their kids. It seemed like (still does) that no one actually talks to their kids like that but I did doubt my mothering skills myself more than once why I didn’t do that. No longer!

My brother is the worst for this…. It’s so cringey 😬

The funniest one I remember is when we were at a soft play, majority of my family were there (brother isn’t local and we don’t see him very often), anyway brother who is very big headed had popped out to buy snacks for his family to have whilst travelling home that evening. Obv his son who was only around 3 at the time had seen the snacks and didn’t want to wait…

Cue my brother trying to show great parenting skills ‘we can’t eat the snacks now Christopher, but we can have a sandwich now and save the snacks for later…. We can’t have snacks now but we can have sandwiches, it’s not good to eat too many snacks Blah blah blah This continued with him very loudly going on and onnnn checking around to make sure people were watching etc 🙄 it was quite obvious that Christopher usually gets his own way.

Christopher won in the end and had his snacks bless him 🤣😊

Brother appeared quite embarrassed that his ‘skills’ hadn’t worked….