To think this is lazy and bad parenting?

[Carlie97]

A woman got on the bus with her two young boys. She was playing something loud on the phone and one or both of the boys were. There was very little conversation between.

Aibu to think this is lazy parenting and setting a bad example to the kids that it's ok to be antisocial?

Doesn't matter. They should have watched on silent, or worn headphones.

You must have quite an empty miserable life if you're focus is on judging others based off a 5 minute observation. Maybe next time you have these kind of thoughts, give them a smile and say hello instead of being so cruel. I am pretty sure it will improve you're own wellbeing.

All these threads tend to excuse parents being on their phones, ignoring their children.
It's a sad sign of the times that's now being normalised.

That was a snapshot moment in their day, impossible to know how much she engages with them the rest of the time.

It’s up to her what she and they watch but I am fully of the view that people should wear headphones and ensure the kids do too. I don’t understand when it became fine just to annoy others with selfish behaviours like this. We live overseas and it is not something people do on public transport at all.

I called around at a friends house yesterday with her birthday card……she had her two DGC for the day, but only sees them every month or so, both were glued to tablets all the time I was there - around 2 hours. I spoke to both children several times and they didn’t look up once although they did say Hi when I arrived. I thought how sad it was that they were so invested in screens.

A “friend” you say? 😆

🙄

I imagine you sitting at your friend’s with a cat’s bum expression on your face!

Screens meh.

Screens out loud, not ok.

Callm me judgey, because yes I judge.

I'm sick of seeing kids on screens everywhere and then dealing with the result of their ridiculously short attention span in the classroom.

You're on a bus...teach your kids to look out of the window, have a conversation, or just sit there with their own thoughts.
Thrusting a screen at your kids is not the only way to keep them quiet, but it is the easiest.

The impact of screen use has been so detrimental to kids development I just wish people would limit their use.

Not so……..you assume incorrectly! I simply stated that I made conversation with the children who were too engrossed in their devices. Clearly your think that children being glued to electronic gadgets is how to parent!

Yes @MyDeftDuck that is exactly how I parent 😆

There have been generations of parents watching the TV or reading newspapers.
I have seen parents on the bus talking to other parents the entire time.

Kids don’t need to have constant interaction.

Mind your own business. Maybe she's normally parent of the year but today she had just had some devastating news or has been up all night with a baby, and exhausted. Maybe she is solo parenting and her kids have special needs and she just wants 10 minutes on the bus to decompress and turn her brain off for a reset. Or maybe you're right and she is rubbish and lazy. Whichever one it is, still none of your business. Keep your nasty judgment to yourself.

Lazy as fuck but I'd overlook it with headphones. Wothoutnheadphines, I've taken to doing exactly the same - play insta reels on a volume I can tune into.

Her parenting is nothing to do with anyone
but loud volume on devices the woman is a selfish twat her kids will know no better

Report them to SS. How awful.

or just mind your own. Doesn’t sound particularly horrendous. 🙄

I'm reminded of the story told in one of the Stephen Covey books where he talked about being on a subway with a guy who was completely failing to parent his out of control kids. Covey described how he and fellow passengers were getting increasingly irritated by the guy's total lack of effort with regard to making his kids behave, and he ultimately decided to take the guy to task over it. It turned out that the guy's wife had just died and they were on their way back from her funeral.

I don't know if that story was true or not, but what is definitely true is that we never really know exactly what is going on for other people that makes them behave like they do. Maybe this woman was just lazy and a crap parent. That's entirely possible. However, perhaps she was distracted, exhausted or just at the end of her rope for some reason.

It's easy to judge when you don't know the full story, but I guess none of us really know when we might need a stranger to extend some compassion and understanding, or just to give us the benefit of the doubt.

Not going to judge the parenting, but it is anti social and rude to have volume on and no headphones in public.

Exactly. Children need to have time to look, think about things, daydream, see what's going on around them. Not be staring at a screen, especially when they're out and about in the world.

And a parent reading a newspaper isn't the same thing really is it.

Oh go eat some Easter egg and stop being so judgmental!

If those children do that bus journey almost every day (twice a day if there and back) then I am sure they've had plenty of looking out of the window at the view.

Maybe...maybe not. They still don't 'need' a screen!

Maybe not.
But (other than the sound being up - which is bloody annoying) who cares?