How much do you 'ignore' your children?

[Gameboy]

Have just been out with two families - friends of ours- who have kids about the same age, and I have to confess, I am amzed by the extent to which they actively 'ignore' their children trhoughout the whole afternoon.

By this I mean they seem to 'zone out' from all the various requests/ questions/ constant 'to-ing and fro-ing' that seems typical of under- 6s??

As a result they actively seem to enjoy themselves more, manage to have 'adult' conversations (which I gave up years ago )and it seems that their kids eventually give up and go and sort out themselves whatever it is they want....( which seems like a good thing I suppose)

I can't decide whether I'm just a mug with my kids and let them dominate my life too much... but I simply CAN'T ignore them - it seems really rude and uncaring somehow??

Jimjams i think she believed they did do that

not too difficult to do if that was the rumour at the school gates

Thanks jimjams... two people backing me up, this is amazing...

May post on these controversial threads more often...

Oops, I said I was going to back out of this didn't I?

PMSL Erikblack...

Can I be in your fanclub, weesaidie?

zippi - surely the research would be for the other poster's information, not your own?

it's time to put on make-up .....

it's time to light the lights..

PMSL Eric. Zippi- then it just comes down to whether an individual believes that its plausable that an entire playground would think that true. Some will, some won't and people will make their own conclusions. But I do think it is valid to ask for clarification of that type of thing (and clarification did come and quite a few left the thread alone then).

Caligula - When I'm having a discussion with my friends about something we don't really agree about, we offer opinions, we listen to each other, we draw our conclusions.

What we don't do is run around looking for hard evidence as to the origin of our opinions! And totally discredit the opinion if no hard evidence is produced!

Perhaps its more about respect then. I respect the fact that my friends really believe what they are saying so more than likely have read it somewhere, or have been told that info. I don't automatically assume that if you can't produce evidence then they must be making it up!

This is a discussion board for christssake..... not a court of law!
Weesaidie - Its okay... I'll get you at the meet-up.

music? can't remember the next line!!

Sure Caligula... I'll be sure to send you an application form.

I can promise you a bi monthly news letter, a keyring and a badge with my smug smiling face on it.

sh*t! Forgot about the meet-up, typical I would get myself involved in a 'debate' (shall we call it) the week before....

... you know, think I may be coming down with something...

You can't back out now! I'm already frantically CAT'ing all the other Scottish MNer's to make sure they "convert" you.

Jimjams
I know diddly about milupa. when lil man was a baby he couldn't have sma and i tried cow n gate was wonderful..... mind yuu he was a greedy baby...

milupa gave ds3 a rash!

Yes but don't you find it more interesting and enlightening when people produce evidence to back up their opinions? Of course it all depends on the context of a discussion. But like Jimjams said earlier, if all she'd done for the last however many years was say "I don't vaccinate because I don't", most people would still not understand why she doesn't. Whereas now, people do understand - they may not agree, but they do understand. But I don't think she could have done that without providing evidence.

And also, for me, the value of Mumsnet is that it's not just a discussion board - without wanting to be pompous about it, it is really informative and educational. I've learnt tons of stuff I wouldn't have learnt from reading threads on here. And if people hadn't produced evidence occasionally, I wouldn't have learnt quite as much.

but if it lightened up why the need to bring it all up again? People were starting to get on nicely again!

I just don't understand it! Yes I was on of the ones who was critical (FWIW I still don't see how someone who's been around the school for 23yrs would have picked up the wrong information at the school gates) but that finished last night (well I thought it had).

I'm bowing out of this one now - and perhaps start a new thread to discuss whether a dog says bow wow, or woof woof

zippi - what a completely reasonable point of view. I am sorry if I gave you the impression of thinking differently.

toothache - I think that is taking it to logical extremes. We all justify our opinions to some extent, in quite an informal way, in normal conversation.

Here's another thing: not everybody's opinion is equally valid!
If my friend is feeling ill, I can give her my opinion about what it is. So can the doctor, but his opinon is backed up by research and experience. So his opinon would be more valid than mine.

There are however some thing s where scientists have made independent investigations and so you can read up and reach a conclusion and use that evidence to debate but

you can't really do that about how much you ignore your child in the same way

You ain't got my GP then.

what about this for a new MN philosophy:

I will absolutely defend your right to talk total toss.
however, I will also retain the absolute right to tell you in no uncertain terms that you are talking total toss.

that seems to be the way most people interpret anyway. if you want warm and fuzzies, try the WI.

QoQ - I've asked you a really nosy and personal question on another thread about SAHP... you still haven't answered it!
I haven't stirred it all up.... it may have been resolved between some MN'ers.... but not between everyone involved.

Caligula - I agree with you about it being more interesting. But Its one thing to want a more interesting debate.... its entirely another to attack a poster for not producing hoards of relevent scientific data though!

On the other hand, whatever opinion you hold you can usually find some evidence to back it up if you try hard enough

whether it's correct evidence is another matter

and if you know you could find the evidence then others will know that too so no one need bother

just continue expressing IMO

caligula

good point zippi - when I first thought about this question, I thought about other parents and children that I know, books I have read, and about my own upbringing which had positive and negative aspects. I also talk to dx and to various friends about this sort of issue, and that was my input.

not hoards of scientific data - just some thoughts beyond "its my opinion"

hey, what happened to your meeting Toothache? Are you sitting in the meeting with a laptop and an internet connection??