To feel depressed at someone yapping on her phone while on a ride in Legoland with her daughter?

[whistlejacket]

After shelling out on a treat for the kids, you'd think she'd be keen to spend some quality time with them. I couldn't hear what she was talking about. Maybe it was "Let's discuss the Q1 sales figures, you'll have to excuse the background noise I'm on the Dino Safari."

OMG I am constantly amazed by just how judgemental people are and how easily they are 'depressed' by fairly normal behaviour.

I think I might stop going out of the bloody house with the kids for fear of someone being 'depressed' by one of the kids not being centre stage for 2 minutes.... sheesh....

TBH it's the parents that don't let the children have a minute to think for themselves that are the ones who 'depress' me. They are the ones that are bringing up the nighmare children who think the world revolves around them and that it's their right to be entertained/have their way 24/7.

FairLAdyetc - I wouldn't have thought twice about it if the little trailed us onto 3 pieces of equipment - the first one we thought was coincidence, so we moved to let him play, but then he moved with us, and when we moved back he followed again. If he had just got on with it we honestly wouldn't have given it a thought.

Kid possibly wanted to play with your Kid though....I know my boys all love Baby's and will attach to a Baby/Tot is there is on...

It just depends how often that sort of thing happens.
There is lady at a playgroup that I go to, who spends practically the whole time on her mobile. Fair enough, except it does get to me when her little boy misses out on song time because his mum is sitting the other side of the room and he won't sit with anyone else.

I loathe Legoland and heartily wish I'd had a mobile phone to talk into the one time we capitulated and took the children there back in 1998 or so; even better if I could have discussed Q1 figures whilst riding the dreary rides...

I still am that this has been turned into a debate about parenting when surely it's about manners.

(Actually now I have typed that I have just glanced up and seen the OP again, and that is more about parenting, but I've started so I'll finish)

I'm sure we all agree that there are certain circumstances where a mobile phone should be switched off (weddings, funerals, theatre, child's nativity play).

And there are times when the phone may well be on but ought to be ignored. Obviously when driving of course, and I am probably stricter than most, I would also say in any circumstance where you were having intercourse (not necessarily sexual!) with one other person (my examples would be: on a date, having sex, a meeting with the teacher, a heart to heart with a friend, even a casual chat at the school gates) Of course you may have been waiting for an important call but it would be the height of rudeness not to say "Do you mind if I get this?" to your companion.

And there are times when an existing phone call should be brought to an end. (my examples would be: child hurting itself badly, someone putting a plate of food they have cooked you in front of you, needing to go to the toilet - unless you are able to do so very quietly, and I would add, when you are about to go on a ride with a child at a theme park.)

Other people have different ideas of course.

... actually come to think of it, using my criteria, I wonder what the etiquette is if you should be having sex with more than one person?

Shame that manners column in the Times on Saturday seems to have disappeared .

lol @ BalloonSlayer...
am chuckling childishly at teh intercourse that one could have with their Kids teachers

YANBU - there is a woman I used to often see on the bus with her child. She was always on the same bus and every single time I saw her she spent the entire time on the mobile.

This was a nicely dressed, very well made up woman who did not work who had a lot of leisure time to herself so we are not talking an over stressed mother trying to arrange business meetings while she is taking her kid to school. The mother never passed a word to the child. I even saw her doing it in town. Her child sometimes pulls on her arm to get her attention and she just ignores her.

I see a lot of people doing it. People are addicted to mobiles. People doing it on holiday just make me want to walk up to them and chuck it in the pool. Men are the worst. They go on holiday and take their mobile and are on it all the time to work colleagues back home.

I just want to shout: "Get a life you sad little man. You may be a hedge fund manager or whatever master of the universe you think you are but you are really not that important in the grand scheme of things. The world will not stop going round if you stop talking abouit work for a couple of hours and talk to your wife and kids instead."

Maybe I should do that. My wife says I am really quite impressive when I get all masterful and incensed.

fairlady - delayed answer to your qu: I wasn't on the ride because I was with my 9 month old who wasn't allowed to sit on my lap on the ride. Therefore DH went on with my 3 year old and I watched with 9 month old.

The OP has been interpreted as me judging this woman as a bad parent, I want to make it clear I wasn't doing that. I've already said she's probably a better mum than me. Yes I made a judgement and that was on whether it was an appropriate time to use the phone. And we all have opinions on when it is / isn't.

On being 'depressed' - I get depressed easily. And tbh I couldn't think of another word to use - will give my phraseology some better thought next time.

fair enough....

thing is, if you get depressed by it....well...if it is true that you were just questioning the appropriateness of using a Mobile phone on the right, than getting depressed over it seems a bit strong....imo...I think it was you using such emotive language that made people think you were critizising the mums parenting skills...
if you had said: AIBU to feel it is inappropriate to take a call on a right...blablabla...than maybe it would have been clearer....

I think what the OP feels is more depressed at the way in which busy parents these days don't have as much time for their children as perhaps they 'ought' to... I know I am guilty of that at times just as much as any other - I'm certainly not judging anyone's standards here!

The snapshot that the OP saw of the mother talking on a phone whilst on a Legoland ride was I think seen as an image representation of the way things often are nowadays... therefore I don't know if the OP was so much firing a judgement and feeling depressed at this particular woman so much as the way things are generally. IYSMIM . Our lives are so busy that I do think sometimes we lose sight of what is actually important in life, such as sharing memories and fun times with our children.

That said, they certainly aren't Greek gods (lol) and the method of helicopter parenting is IMVHO just as questionable!

Without knowing what the woman in question was talking about on her phone, it's really pointless to use it as an example of how we are all so busy / stressed / have no time.

As many posts have pointed out, it could have been an urgent or important call from a close friend or family member.

I'm sure everyone here could be the topic of discussions like this if a three minute snapshot of your life was taken at the "wrong" time!

I like your post ABetaDad, and agree with it.

I think FWIW, that the reason my DH was so at the man on his mobile on the roundabout was less the child being ignored and more the sheer wankiness of the "I'm so important and indispensible to my work that I can't even take three minutes off to go on a roundabout" impression he was trying to project.

I agree with ABetaDad and BalloonSlayer about mobile phone use.

Walking down the street, waiting in a queue, on public transport - sharing their inane prattle with everyone within earshot.

It's never an important call from a family member - it's banal twaddle from self important numpties.

by the way I share people's opinion on Mobile phones....I truely only have a mobile in order to be reachable by Kids school etc....

and Moose...I think we are now more under pressure re Quality time than ever before....as a parent you now seem to equal the full time entertainment, it seems....and surely that is not really what Kids need, neitehr....all about balance, I suppose...

What a depressing op.

Haven't read many replies, so apologies if this as been said many times already.

I very rarely get saddened by threads here, most make me laugh.

I think what makes me sad is the all pervading attitude that we have to be dotting wonderful parents.

I say the kids are very lucky to be taken to the theme park in the first place.

I can quite understand the need to talk to another adult whilst being with kids. Sometimes being with kids is boring.

We have and are breeding generations of spoilt pampered kids who expect to be entertained , taken to expensive theme parks and be given complete attention by their parents. We are doing this because sadly there are too many people like the op who think that being on a moblie phone and not giving your kids ALL your attention makes you are bad parent somehow.

So it's the Easter holidays and I am caught between wanting my kids to entertain themselves the way I used to quite happily and then feeling so awfully guilty that I am not stimulating them by taking them out .

My 7 year old asked me what we would be doing today. I told her she should go off and find something stimulating to do and not to look to me to keep her occupied!!!!!

Point taken Fairlady.

Altho emotive language creates an emotive response doesn't it?

well i was judgy over a man walking his two children home from school, mobile phone glued to his ear, the whole walk!!
not depressed, but judgy and i know don;t like that particular wanky man!

What a weird thing to judge a parent about. Nothing better to do?

who me,
well it was a boring walk tbh...
dc's all run off with friends -- i wish i'd had a mobile
but his kids were stuck to his side,