Baby at Burger King- do I live in a bubble?

[Howshat]

We live in the countryside. Took DC to the city today and had lunch at Burger King. There was a couple there with their baby, about 8 or 9 months old. Not walking. She was sitting in a high chair and had a phone in front of her. She was mainly ignoring it and looking around at the people in the restaurant.

Their food came and the parents fed her a burger, chips and apple juice, with the phone still in front of her.

I‘m happy to accept that I live in a bubble. But I‘ve never seen anything like this before and was very shocked. This was a baby, not a toddler.

Is this a normal thing nowadays?

I don't know what the fuss is about, it's not going to hurt this baby to have a burger occasionally. Such things are only harmful if that's all anyone ever eats.
As for the phone, the little one wasn't using it, it was there in sight of the parents in case anyone rang them.

Why are you looking at what other people do in restaurants anyway? That in itself is bizarre - and nosy.

The point is that by discussing what’s okay and not okay, we are creating/changing norms. Of course you don’t come up to people and ‘judge’ them in their face. But we can take this anonymous example as food for thought. Is it okay to feed junk food to a baby; is it okay to distract them with a phone etc. Is it not interesting and informative to see that for a lot of people on this thread neither is ok, for others totally fine and so on? If not then why engage in this conversation at all? To show off your white robe as a non-judgemental saint? Come on, you’re just judging those who judge. You can’t get rid of the judgement feature, it comes with the package. At the same time we can give some grace and compassion to the family in question if they were in a difficult situation but it doesn’t mean we have to approve of the behaviour. And thank god we don’t, unfortunately for many more people feeding junk to older kids on a regular basis is okay.

I didn't say I never judge anyone did I? I said what is the point of judging people when we have seen 5 minutes of their life? What does it achieve? Does it make people feel good to go oh well I'd never do that with my kids so I'm a better parent?
If you know the background and know it's just bad parenting or whatever that's one thing and you could judge them for that but people you don't know and have never interacted with, how can you judge?
When my mum was dying and I was trying to juggle everything the kids had take away and ready meals most nights for a week. Was it shit parenting?;No it was doing what I could to get through a traumatic period of my life.

Christ on a bike, again, it's not about judging that one scenario; it's using that as the starting point for a discussion about what's reasonable parenting and what's not. Literally not one person has said they'd march up to a parent and tell them to stop. The "good" of judging them, as a pp just said, is that just maybe, someone will read this thread who has, maybe through tiredness and busy and overwhelm, realised that this has crept in a bit too much and has been making themselves feel better by saying it's fine, when really it isn't. Not regularly. If this thread makes someone feel a bit shit and reassess some bad habits, or, makes someone who is genuinely unaware, that it isn't great to do this, I'd say that's a good thing.