It’s weird that it’s completely necessary for every single person to make that choice! Also, the kind of people that actually parent and don’t just unleash their loud, hyperactive child on strangers don’t get memes made about them.
Source: I was a loud, hyperactive child, but I was taught respect, consideration, and made to follow rules.
Doesn’t help that people judge 2 year old parents when their child is crying. Not like they could hold a debate with someone who can not comprehend the concept of self control.
People also don’t get how different children are and how much neuro diversity is out there. Comments below say to remove the child from the venue or keep them at home. It’s been years and I’ve hardly left the house for social enjoyment. My kid finally gets excited about going to the cinema, so we go,and he ends up having difficulty regulating himself there…I guess I better scoop him up and fuck off back to the cave we crawled out of.
Managing children is difficult, and if a child is dedicated to their course of action, then you can’t win. You can never win a battle of wills against a young child. A child has infinite energy, infinite time and a single minded focus. They’ve got nowhere else to be nothing better to do.
As one of those neurodivergent kids, my mom explicitly laid all the blame on me whenever she felt embarrassed in public. I was removed from activities countless times without any clear understanding of why - all I knew was I wasn’t allowed to do fun things. There was no accommodation for sensory issues, no space provided for me to self-regulate, no understanding that I was having a difficult time and needed support - just labels thrown at me for “being difficult”, as if by merely existing, I was a problem.
Every child deserves to participate in enriching activities regardless of their neurotype. By removing neurodiverse kids (and not returning after they calm down) or outright keeping them away from such events, they may internalize the idea that who they are is not acceptable. Parents, there are resources available today that didn’t exist in the 90s. There is no reason to raise your neurodiverse kid the way we used to be raised. If you don’t know what to do with your kid and you haven’t already done so, get help. Please.
We have a ND kid who has the standard AuDHD diagnosis, and we do our best to allow them to participate in activities, and they’re getting a lot better at self regulation since we’ve been able to get them into therapy/OT/various other things that I did t get a chance to have when I was that young.
It’s hard, but just stopping and explaining things to kids goes so far, even if they can’t internalize it in the moment, those lessons build up and give them the base they need to participate in a world that has no empathy for the ND.
Agree completely. That’s what people don’t see when they’re being judgemental and demand that a child “be sorted and quietened now”. I need time to help my kid self-regulate and adjust and be supported in the environment…but I need the community’s support in tolerating a “loud and disruptive” child for a moment.
This is the unfortunate truth. If someone has “easier” children they become even more judgemental of “difficult” children. They take it as a skill issue as if their expert parenting was all that mattered and thus other parents are failures.
If you had that “difficult” child with the set of social circumstances as that family, then you might have struggled too. Withhold that judgement. Most are trying their best. Sometimes you might even see me “doing nothing” about my out of control child…but that’s because I’m trying to regulate myself before I lose my shit; just need a moment.
My kid finally gets excited about going to the cinema, so we go,and he ends up having difficulty regulating himself there…I guess I better scoop him up and fuck off back to the cave we crawled out of.
If they are doing something really disruptive like crying for extended periods of time just remove them from the setting for long enough to regulate themselves and go back in. Keeping them in a setting where they can’t regulate themselves for extended periods of time is counterproductive. I stepped out into the hall with my klddo to get away from the loud noise and bright screen so she could get herself under control a lot of times, and eventually she figured out how to regulate herself in those same situations.
Now if people are shitty because the kiddo is doing regular kid things or because they were disruptive for a short period of time then they can go eat a turd.
That just reinforces their behavior and they keep doing it. If they dont want to go to the grocery store or what ever, they cry, they go. They learn crying gets them what they want and they become spoiled brats. Tantrums and crying are growth opportunities some times, and not to mention, other times the parent needs to be there and they dont have other child care options.
How do you think they’re going to learn to behave in public if they’re just cooped up 24/7? People being annoying and noisy is just a part of existing as a human being. We shouldn’t stunt the growth of entire fucking generations just because they make you uncomfortable.
Removing from the venue changes the setting and makes it easier to talk to the child about what they were doing, and even more likely address whatever the child had going on. Removing them from the setting temporarily makes parenting easier and benefits everyone else.
My parents made tons of mistakes, but the word shh being acknowledged as existing wasn’t one of them.
People love to act like children are always so difficult they cannot be reasoned with, but shushing isn’t actually trauma. And it works very often. Guess what, everywhere I go people have horribly behaved dogs while mine is an angel in comparison. Why? Because I didn’t just let them do whatever whenever. I made small corrections consistently. And my dog seems quite happy. I’m sure you’ll get all mad that I’m “comparing children and animals” but honestly you can see the same kinds of boundary testing and reactions from both so I think it’s fair.
They learn how to behave because when they behave inappropriately, they are punished. No one here is opposed to a charming little kid wandering around and doing cute shit. They are opposed to kids throwing 45 minute long temper tantrums because the italian restaurant doesn’t have chicken nuggets. You can practice this feedback cycle both at home and in public (in public, of course, remove the kid from the situation where they are annoying everyone first).
I understand but also not my problem? If you are too tired to deal with your children maybe keep them at home. If you are going to bring a child to a public place you got to be prepare and willing to educate them. Your children are special bundles of joy for You, and you only. People are not ok in having to deal with an unhinged savage child because parenting is hard. People take the “it takes a village” wrong. Not everyone you see is on your village.
exactly. They are mad because it’s NOT about the kids. Kids will be kids and thats why they have PARENTS. the Parents are the fucking lazy people that are “too tired” but keep having children becuase “oh my god it takes a vilage” Fuck off go raise your child
Children are a part of the society that you live in, whether you liked it or not. I don’t know who hurt you, but you were also a child once. You pooped your diapers, you cried, you misbehaved. How your parents have treated you when you did these things has a very direct effect on how you behave and think right now. My guess is they were shitty, it would explain your irrational anger and hatred towards kids.
Misbehaving in public is a necessary step to learning how to behave in the first place. It’s a learning by doing thing. You won’t get your child prepared to act kind, nice, and considerate with other people if you don’t let them meet other people. You cannot teach your kid how to behave on the outside at home. How is that not obvious to you? It is inconvenient, it is annoying, it is hard, and it has to be done so that we don’t have underdeveloped, immature, dysregulated asshole adults a generation’s time from now.
Parents are always obligated to watch for their kids and show them how to behave. This doesn’t mean they can, or should, control their every move, word, reaction, emotion, or behavior. If a 3 year old cries and it is uncomfortable for you, that’s your problem. It is not the child’s or the parent’s duty to shut them up with a gag ball ffs. It is their duty to help them resolve and guide them through their overwhelming emotions. So that they will grow up to be emotionally healthy adults.
Children have an innate need to play. They learn via playing. They learn via trying things out and touching them. They learn to walk and run by walking and running - and falling and failing. They also learn about the world from the world’s reaction. Being met with disdain for solely existing and breathing won’t help them to grow up to be adults with a lot of self worth.
You don’t get to decide who is part of the society and village you live in. You don’t get to cherry pick your neighbors.
You don’t want kids in your village go live in a cave.
Judgement is only partially the problem. You are never as full of yourself as a parental figure as before you become one. Neglectful parents should be held accountable, that is not the core of the issue.
What bothers me immensely is the thought that “your kid, not my problem, but actually it is my problem, because I want them to behave differently”. This is like eating your cake and have it too.
The other thing that I find awful is that just existing on the outside (for some families even inside) is so anxiety evoking because of all these judgements. Parents end up micromanaging their kids and berating them for minor things because they are so fucking scared that people will judge them or yell at them for not having a picture perfect child that you can overlook. Children are not allowed to show any childish behavior on the outside. And this is what bothers me so much. You have to constantly choose between supporting your kid and gentle (not neglectful) parenting where you don’t yell or hit and simply being on their side or trying to appeal to the scrutiny of the public eye because it wants perfect order and quiet.
When you go vacationing in a child friendly country (looking at you, Croatia) and you feel supported instead of frowned upon for the exact same behaviors of your kid, because they are just having fun and not destroying anything and just minding their own business while not perfectly sitting still, then you just understand how shitty it is to go every day feeling the cold stare of everyone around who wished children would just die out.
I am a parent. My kid knows that some things aren’t okay to do in public and especially not in the direction of people who are trying to live their own lives. Teaching courtesy is not complicated.
Your third paragraph, from beginning to end, is INSANE and you’re telling on yourself quite a bit there.
Thank you for representing a normal parent reaction here. I too think this user comes off unhinged. It also seems to me like they think all their parenting shortcomings are someone else’s fault. If no one else’s, those people silently suffering in the public spaces they share with their screaming kids.
That’s a lot of anger you’re spitting just because someone doesn’t want to hear screaming children. My siblings and I were never allowed to scream in public.
Every child screams in public at some point? That’s normal development. You and I did too. They may just be excited.
Of course if a child is screaming constantly then the parents need to intervene. But expecting children to be seen but not heard is unrealistic by any standard.
Hmm my mother says I was quiet and I observed normal amounts of fussiness from my other siblings that was far less than screaming at the top of their lungs. If they had done that, they would have been shushed, comforted, talked to, or taken somewhere else because my parents took responsibility for their own decisions and for what their children did. Instead of pretending it’s hopeless and that whatever impulse we had was fine.
My son was, too. I didn’t raise him strictly (I was a hippie mother, raised in the 70s), but gradually acclimatised him through smaller interactions (small groups to larger, to regional to public), because I had that luxury. Lots of parents over the past 10 years were deprived of that, and it’s been exceptionally difficult to get a child acclimatised to an increasingly hostile world.
People have been far less patient in public – which is entirely understandable, given the circumstances – so many parents and other caregivers (teachers, counsellors, etc) who are trying their best can’t help but be defensive when they hear negativity towards children online, because I’d wager everyone encounters people who are excessively put out by the slightest transgression of a child in their proximity.
It may not be the way the majority react, nor how you react, but it happens regularly enough to become exhausting.
So, in these conversations, I feel like many people are responding to children who are clearly being publicly misparented, and then there are many parents who are thinking of the times someone overreacted to a social faux pas by their child.
I feel like people are misdirecting their anger here.
I think you’re dead on actually. The person I responded to is so defensive because they’ve probably been talked to about it before. No matter how awful it’s been I never have done that. And if they realized that they as a parent are used to the annoyance, but others aren’t, it actually takes restraint not to at least glare. So when that commenter got so pissed, I assume their child is poorly behaved enough for the parent to get told semi-often
Right, and if their child does only occasionally act out (as literally all children do at least a few times in their life), they might assume a commenter is that one guy who is overly put out over a minor social infraction, because just like you’re picturing the stand-out moments you’ve seen when it was bad, so are they. But their stand-out has been someone confronting you because your* eldest started stacking boxes in the aisle whilst you were tending to the baby for 30 seconds.
We’re all thinking of our own extremes and are kinda talking past each other. It seems that, unlike some conversations lately, everyone is kinda right, but it also seems that we need more empathy towards the fact that raising young children has been more societally difficult lately, and kids need less hostility to become emotionally healthy adults.
Not really. There are kids louder than others. And while there may be some internal aspects to that a lot of that have to do with education. Specially as they grow and education starts becoming more a defining factor.
Yes, I have a lot of anger for people who meet the most vulnerable parts of our society with hostility. I have an immense anger for people who don’t think these vulnerable people in the making have a place in society.
Congratulations on not being allowed to scream in public, ever. Did you good. Your parents had shitty standards and now you want to enforce these on other children so that they will also grow up and hate children. Great idea.
What you don’t understand (or pretend not to) is that you’re the one being judged, not the kids. It seems obvious from this chain that your kids are out of control and you get judged for it. I can think of no other reason you’d act this way.
I think the point of contention is that the user you debate is under the (right) assumption that when a child cries in public, this is just a small snapshot out of all the time the parents took them to any public place. A child crying is not a bug, it’s an inherent feature. They sometimes just do that, they don’t even know themselves, so it’s not the parents fault that their mini-human isn’t behaving like a fucking Gucci bag. Everything volvoxvsmarla said is true, children learn through trial an error and yes, you need to sometimes take the brunt of this process, I’m sorry little one. When children don’t learn how to behave in (for example) supermarkets because you banned them, then you get teenagers who didn’t learn to behave. You can’t pass the problem on forever. I’m a teacher and it really fucking shows when kids never learned how to exist in a public place.
BTW., this is not an excuse for parents who evidently don’t give a fuck or even worse, motivate their children to be brats so they entertain themselves. Scum of the earth. But it’s perfectly possible for parents to try their hardest and still fail sometimes.
I can tell you a specific scenario I take issue with. At the grocery store the other day, a child screamed at the top of its lungs all over the store. The parent never seemed to notice or care, but people everywhere were looking at each other, all clearly bothered. I’m sorry but that’s not my problem, that’s their shit to work out and they clearly don’t give a shit about others. Shitty parenting, 100% worthy of judgement.
We don’t have to assume that everyone bothered by kids at all hates kids or has no tolerance for their annoyances. OP did that, and took out what seems obvious to me as parental stress on users ITT. So I don’t really have much capacity left to empathize with them in particular.
Neglectful parenting is worthy of judgement. What I take an issue with is that what you observed was a situation - it was a snapshot of a whole day, of a whole life that these people lead. Is the issue that they didn’t care, that they didn’t try to console the kid? How often did you, as an adult, get mad and calmed down after someone said “calm down”? Are you just bothered that they didn’t remove the kid from the situation for your convenience, as well as for their own embarrassment asap? There can be so many reasons why the kid screamed (didn’t get a piece of candy, didn’t get to throw over cans of beans - which you wohld also not like, probably and understandably -, was told to calm down, had a fight with a sibling, hurt themselves, couldn’t get a booger out), why the parents didn’t care (did they not care, did you see them after they had already tried to calm the kid down, talk to them, walk them through everything, do they try not to give more attention to something that was already talked about, or, god forbid, might they just be absolutely exhausted after the 5th tantrum with no reason in a row), why they didn’t leave (great idea to leave behind a full trolley with products for the workers to put back and go home with no groceries after having already spent time and energy to go to the store and have the shopping almost completed, also cool lesson for the kid that it can just yell long enough if they don’t like being somewhere so that they can leave. Works great in schools and hospitals too). But you saw that and decided the kid is feral and the parents are awful human beings that should have no right to a kid.
You both say that’s not your problem and they have to work it out, yet you are absolutely making it your problem and demand they work it out in a way that you find suiting.
I see so many people who think that if you are just loving and caring to a child and work them through their emotions and all they will be just reasoned to calm down. Man, this isn’t even how it works for adults, with developed brains. You guys don’t just expect too much of parents but also of kids. They cannot reason themselves out of these situations just as their arms are simply to short to wipe their own butts for the first three years.
And you might think you only judge the parents and not the kids, but the kids do feel your disdain. They feel your lack of compassion, understanding, and companionship. They learn so fast that the world is full of people who don’t like them. I’m not even going to start with the parents who are being judged no matter what they do. They are judged because their kid is their own person, that has a personality, and if that isn’t a pleasant personality, well fuck them. And if their kid is pleasant, then they have been too controlling and demanding and were too strict and helicoptered them into obedience.
If you, however, have friends or relatives that you know and see regularly and can make a more sophisticated guess on their parenting style, that might be another issue. Still a high horse to judge from, especially when you don’t have kids, but at least you have more than one point in time to make assumptions from.
What you don’t understand is that if that parent gives into the crying and does something different, that child will now continue that behavior because they learned if i scream long enough loud enough, I get my way. Yeah it sucks to be you to have to listen to the crying being a grown-up and all. But it probably sucks to be the parent in that situation even more.
No one is saying kids shouldn’t be allowed in public. They’re saying if your kid is losing their shit in a restaurant, remove them from the restaurant until they are done losing their shit.
Honestly, the judgement of parenting is not my main issue here. It’s the hypocrisy of at the same time saying “this is your problem, not mine” and “you have to deal with your problem so that I am not inconvenienced.”
Like, you can’t have it both ways. Either you don’t care, and then other people deserve the right to also not care about your opinion, or you do indeed care, and then it is your problem too. Your quote about not being part of the village is the one that I am saying fuck off to. You want to take yourself out of society and of the context, yet expect the other part to not take themselves out of society. You don’t even decide to look away, you decide to look with destructive criticism. I don’t see how this is supposed to help anyone, you included.
You come off as the type of person who will look at both the kid and the parent in disdain for being a nuisance even when they did something absolutely minor that you could easily avoid, ignore, or get away from. Are you assuming the kid will differentiate between your reaction towards them and their parent? Or that your reaction has no effect on the parent’s treatment of their child, perhaps in a more negative than positive way?
As for the judgement part, as I have pointed out somewhere else, you are seeing a sniplet of a day, of a life, of an hour. Yet you feel like you have enough information to rightfully judge. It’s correct that the kid might be subjected to bad, neglectful parenting and the parents do not care if their kid behaves awfully. Or you might have just met them in a vulnerable, bad moment. Somehow you know tho. Why not give them the benefit of the doubt or, God forbid, ask whether yoh can help? Offer a supporting smile to someone struggling? Why be hostile instead?
Because even if you took a perfect parent who does everything according to textbook from beginning to end, the kid will still have meltdowns in the most inconvenient and absurdly embarrassing moments in public.
And I have seen way too many parents who devote an insane amount of time and effort to their parenting, are reflected and have the best intentions and approaches, are incredibly level headed and collected (definitely not me tho), and give it their all, still being talked down upon by absolute strangers if they cannot make their preschool kid calm down within ten seconds. If these parents don’t stand a chance in the eye of public scrutiny, then I just don’t even know how a normal parent who doesn’t spend 24/7 thinking about their parenting choices has a chance.
I’ve also seen cases of what I would call bad parenting. Shaming, yelling, ignoring cries for help. But at least I can realise that I don’t know the full story. So unless I have a direct offer of help (tissue, water, bandaid, carrying something, etc) I let them be and hope that they know what they are doing and handling the situation to the best of their ability. I also know a kid who died of shaken baby syndrome because the new partner of their mom couldn’t handle the cries. I’d much prefer he ignored the cries and tantrums instead of killing the two year old boy.
It’s the hypocrisy of at the same time saying “this is your problem, not mine” and “you have to deal with your problem so that I am not inconvenienced.”
What the hell are you even talking about? It’s not complicated. Because you aren’t taking care of the issue, it became mine (and every other person being bothered). I can’t take enough drugs to understand how that wouldn’t be obvious, or how it could be “hypocrisy”. What the actual fuck. I chose not to have kids, you chose to. Therefore I cannot and should not be expected to help them not lose their shit. That is your job. Do it.
Also, you confused me with someone else. I didn’t mention “the village”. You must have also missed my comment where I said that I lost my empathy for you after your ragey diatribes where you shirk all your responsibility.
And for the record, when I see the parent actually trying, I don’t judge them, I just try to get through it and ignore the child’s cries, such as a baby screaming on a plane. What I cannot have compassion for are the people who do not seem to be trying in the least. Which is far too common.
You can look around and see that the world is not ok on you imposing your misbihaved child on everyone.
I was once a child, correct, and I couldn’t leave my table in a restaurant, that was not even a question. I had to learn to behave otherwise I would be grounded at home. My father left the table more than once in a restaurant to take my brother to be grounded in the car. And came back once it was understood.
Limits are healthy and if it’s tok hard you can always gibe them to social services or not fucking having them.
Just look around a little. Nobody else cares about you baby or you.
Society norms have to be bilateral, and convenient for every member of the society.
One member of society cannot fuck around not expecting to, eventually, find out.
This is why we have laws, norms and social customs. So we can live in a society.
If members of society feel that they cannot longer live next to other members is when society breaks, and, you like it or not, the social pact gets broken.
You cannot force members of a society to live en the minimum common suffering denominator. To lower everyone standards of living to the one provided by the most annoying member of the society. That’s a highway to the society giving the big F to that member.
It should be the contrary, society should try to live to the standard of the less annoyance. To avoid bother the most sensible member of the group.
It’s a everyone loses vs everyone wins situation. We should aim for the later.
Actually yes. Humans are just not good. Israel proves there’s no redemption for humanity.
I get daily contempt, just trying to do a few basic things as a non-neurotypical. Society hates humans so much, that if you show signs that you exist, and you show any humanity, you get so much hatred.
Humans aren’t appreciated in this world. Let them have their perfect AI, let humans die out.
Being a parent is hard af
If every single one of your ancestors did something and so did everyone else’s on a planet of 8 billion, the thing is not that hard.
It’s weird that it’s completely necessary for every single person to make that choice! Also, the kind of people that actually parent and don’t just unleash their loud, hyperactive child on strangers don’t get memes made about them.
Source: I was a loud, hyperactive child, but I was taught respect, consideration, and made to follow rules.
Tell me you’re not a parent without telling me you’re not a parent…
Let me know when you can participate in a genuine conversation without exclusively regurgitating tiktok phrases!
Being a good one is.
I would argue that being a bad one even has its challenges.
even being a bad parent can be very tough
Doesn’t help that people judge 2 year old parents when their child is crying. Not like they could hold a debate with someone who can not comprehend the concept of self control.
2 year olds should really not be parents.
People also don’t get how different children are and how much neuro diversity is out there. Comments below say to remove the child from the venue or keep them at home. It’s been years and I’ve hardly left the house for social enjoyment. My kid finally gets excited about going to the cinema, so we go,and he ends up having difficulty regulating himself there…I guess I better scoop him up and fuck off back to the cave we crawled out of.
Managing children is difficult, and if a child is dedicated to their course of action, then you can’t win. You can never win a battle of wills against a young child. A child has infinite energy, infinite time and a single minded focus. They’ve got nowhere else to be nothing better to do.
As one of those neurodivergent kids, my mom explicitly laid all the blame on me whenever she felt embarrassed in public. I was removed from activities countless times without any clear understanding of why - all I knew was I wasn’t allowed to do fun things. There was no accommodation for sensory issues, no space provided for me to self-regulate, no understanding that I was having a difficult time and needed support - just labels thrown at me for “being difficult”, as if by merely existing, I was a problem.
Every child deserves to participate in enriching activities regardless of their neurotype. By removing neurodiverse kids (and not returning after they calm down) or outright keeping them away from such events, they may internalize the idea that who they are is not acceptable. Parents, there are resources available today that didn’t exist in the 90s. There is no reason to raise your neurodiverse kid the way we used to be raised. If you don’t know what to do with your kid and you haven’t already done so, get help. Please.
100%.
We have a ND kid who has the standard AuDHD diagnosis, and we do our best to allow them to participate in activities, and they’re getting a lot better at self regulation since we’ve been able to get them into therapy/OT/various other things that I did t get a chance to have when I was that young.
It’s hard, but just stopping and explaining things to kids goes so far, even if they can’t internalize it in the moment, those lessons build up and give them the base they need to participate in a world that has no empathy for the ND.
Agree completely. That’s what people don’t see when they’re being judgemental and demand that a child “be sorted and quietened now”. I need time to help my kid self-regulate and adjust and be supported in the environment…but I need the community’s support in tolerating a “loud and disruptive” child for a moment.
I was always told that I’d be more charitable about this kind of thing once I had kids.
No idea where anyone got that idea. After becoming a parent I’m WAY more judgy about bad parenting.
This is the unfortunate truth. If someone has “easier” children they become even more judgemental of “difficult” children. They take it as a skill issue as if their expert parenting was all that mattered and thus other parents are failures.
If you had that “difficult” child with the set of social circumstances as that family, then you might have struggled too. Withhold that judgement. Most are trying their best. Sometimes you might even see me “doing nothing” about my out of control child…but that’s because I’m trying to regulate myself before I lose my shit; just need a moment.
I don’t judge difficult children, I judge crappy parenting. The kids are fine.
If they are doing something really disruptive like crying for extended periods of time just remove them from the setting for long enough to regulate themselves and go back in. Keeping them in a setting where they can’t regulate themselves for extended periods of time is counterproductive. I stepped out into the hall with my klddo to get away from the loud noise and bright screen so she could get herself under control a lot of times, and eventually she figured out how to regulate herself in those same situations.
Now if people are shitty because the kiddo is doing regular kid things or because they were disruptive for a short period of time then they can go eat a turd.
I don’t even know who does it worse.
People who have absolutely zero experience with children judging
Or the other parents who had a child that gave them no issues from birth. ‘Just politely ask them’ and they will be good. It ‘worked for me’.
Do you think “politely asking” is how you raise children that give you no issues?
It’s not hard to lead by example and to have important discussions with your kids. Kids understand until you show them they have the option not to.
smh
Depends on their age and how you define win.
For real, clearly they never had to explain to a 4 year old why they could not run around with crayons stuffed in their nose.
No, but you can remove them from the venue if it doesn’t stop crying, unless you’re on a plane.
That just reinforces their behavior and they keep doing it. If they dont want to go to the grocery store or what ever, they cry, they go. They learn crying gets them what they want and they become spoiled brats. Tantrums and crying are growth opportunities some times, and not to mention, other times the parent needs to be there and they dont have other child care options.
Sorry to inconvenience you
How do you think they’re going to learn to behave in public if they’re just cooped up 24/7? People being annoying and noisy is just a part of existing as a human being. We shouldn’t stunt the growth of entire fucking generations just because they make you uncomfortable.
Removing from the venue changes the setting and makes it easier to talk to the child about what they were doing, and even more likely address whatever the child had going on. Removing them from the setting temporarily makes parenting easier and benefits everyone else.
Source: am parent and was a child at one point
Thats not w what my comment said at all. Why are you arguing in bad faith?
My parents made tons of mistakes, but the word shh being acknowledged as existing wasn’t one of them.
People love to act like children are always so difficult they cannot be reasoned with, but shushing isn’t actually trauma. And it works very often. Guess what, everywhere I go people have horribly behaved dogs while mine is an angel in comparison. Why? Because I didn’t just let them do whatever whenever. I made small corrections consistently. And my dog seems quite happy. I’m sure you’ll get all mad that I’m “comparing children and animals” but honestly you can see the same kinds of boundary testing and reactions from both so I think it’s fair.
They learn how to behave because when they behave inappropriately, they are punished. No one here is opposed to a charming little kid wandering around and doing cute shit. They are opposed to kids throwing 45 minute long temper tantrums because the italian restaurant doesn’t have chicken nuggets. You can practice this feedback cycle both at home and in public (in public, of course, remove the kid from the situation where they are annoying everyone first).
My reading speed seriosly lags behind my decision making timeeeeeeeeeeeeees
I understand but also not my problem? If you are too tired to deal with your children maybe keep them at home. If you are going to bring a child to a public place you got to be prepare and willing to educate them. Your children are special bundles of joy for You, and you only. People are not ok in having to deal with an unhinged savage child because parenting is hard. People take the “it takes a village” wrong. Not everyone you see is on your village.
Speaking as a parent, you are correct.
Thank you. Just adding again I’m not agains kids. Just want parents to parent more sometimes.
Those snotrags are in charge of funding our retirements excuse me!
They won’t, the go on your nerves now and they won’t fund your retirement.
What retirement?
I’ll be long dead before retirement as they keep raising retirement age far beyond what most people in my family have lived.
They’re mad because you’re right and they have to deal with screaming brats all day because they chose to and you didn’t.
exactly. They are mad because it’s NOT about the kids. Kids will be kids and thats why they have PARENTS. the Parents are the fucking lazy people that are “too tired” but keep having children becuase “oh my god it takes a vilage” Fuck off go raise your child
Then, politely, fuck off.
Children are a part of the society that you live in, whether you liked it or not. I don’t know who hurt you, but you were also a child once. You pooped your diapers, you cried, you misbehaved. How your parents have treated you when you did these things has a very direct effect on how you behave and think right now. My guess is they were shitty, it would explain your irrational anger and hatred towards kids.
Misbehaving in public is a necessary step to learning how to behave in the first place. It’s a learning by doing thing. You won’t get your child prepared to act kind, nice, and considerate with other people if you don’t let them meet other people. You cannot teach your kid how to behave on the outside at home. How is that not obvious to you? It is inconvenient, it is annoying, it is hard, and it has to be done so that we don’t have underdeveloped, immature, dysregulated asshole adults a generation’s time from now.
Parents are always obligated to watch for their kids and show them how to behave. This doesn’t mean they can, or should, control their every move, word, reaction, emotion, or behavior. If a 3 year old cries and it is uncomfortable for you, that’s your problem. It is not the child’s or the parent’s duty to shut them up with a gag ball ffs. It is their duty to help them resolve and guide them through their overwhelming emotions. So that they will grow up to be emotionally healthy adults.
Children have an innate need to play. They learn via playing. They learn via trying things out and touching them. They learn to walk and run by walking and running - and falling and failing. They also learn about the world from the world’s reaction. Being met with disdain for solely existing and breathing won’t help them to grow up to be adults with a lot of self worth.
You don’t get to decide who is part of the society and village you live in. You don’t get to cherry pick your neighbors.
You don’t want kids in your village go live in a cave.
You think the judgment is being leveled at the KIDS? No, no, no… nobody’s judging kids for acting out. They’re kids.
Kids aren’t the problem. Bad parents are the problem.
Judgement is only partially the problem. You are never as full of yourself as a parental figure as before you become one. Neglectful parents should be held accountable, that is not the core of the issue.
What bothers me immensely is the thought that “your kid, not my problem, but actually it is my problem, because I want them to behave differently”. This is like eating your cake and have it too.
The other thing that I find awful is that just existing on the outside (for some families even inside) is so anxiety evoking because of all these judgements. Parents end up micromanaging their kids and berating them for minor things because they are so fucking scared that people will judge them or yell at them for not having a picture perfect child that you can overlook. Children are not allowed to show any childish behavior on the outside. And this is what bothers me so much. You have to constantly choose between supporting your kid and gentle (not neglectful) parenting where you don’t yell or hit and simply being on their side or trying to appeal to the scrutiny of the public eye because it wants perfect order and quiet.
When you go vacationing in a child friendly country (looking at you, Croatia) and you feel supported instead of frowned upon for the exact same behaviors of your kid, because they are just having fun and not destroying anything and just minding their own business while not perfectly sitting still, then you just understand how shitty it is to go every day feeling the cold stare of everyone around who wished children would just die out.
I am a parent. My kid knows that some things aren’t okay to do in public and especially not in the direction of people who are trying to live their own lives. Teaching courtesy is not complicated.
Your third paragraph, from beginning to end, is INSANE and you’re telling on yourself quite a bit there.
Thank you for representing a normal parent reaction here. I too think this user comes off unhinged. It also seems to me like they think all their parenting shortcomings are someone else’s fault. If no one else’s, those people silently suffering in the public spaces they share with their screaming kids.
That’s a lot of anger you’re spitting just because someone doesn’t want to hear screaming children. My siblings and I were never allowed to scream in public.
That person really feels entitled to inflict their children’s bad behavior on everyone else around them.
We should sterilize people who’s children tantrum in public, and have social services take their children.
You were not allowed to but I can guarantee that you were still screaming in public.
Every child screams in public at some point? That’s normal development. You and I did too. They may just be excited.
Of course if a child is screaming constantly then the parents need to intervene. But expecting children to be seen but not heard is unrealistic by any standard.
Hmm my mother says I was quiet and I observed normal amounts of fussiness from my other siblings that was far less than screaming at the top of their lungs. If they had done that, they would have been shushed, comforted, talked to, or taken somewhere else because my parents took responsibility for their own decisions and for what their children did. Instead of pretending it’s hopeless and that whatever impulse we had was fine.
My son was, too. I didn’t raise him strictly (I was a hippie mother, raised in the 70s), but gradually acclimatised him through smaller interactions (small groups to larger, to regional to public), because I had that luxury. Lots of parents over the past 10 years were deprived of that, and it’s been exceptionally difficult to get a child acclimatised to an increasingly hostile world.
People have been far less patient in public – which is entirely understandable, given the circumstances – so many parents and other caregivers (teachers, counsellors, etc) who are trying their best can’t help but be defensive when they hear negativity towards children online, because I’d wager everyone encounters people who are excessively put out by the slightest transgression of a child in their proximity.
It may not be the way the majority react, nor how you react, but it happens regularly enough to become exhausting.
So, in these conversations, I feel like many people are responding to children who are clearly being publicly misparented, and then there are many parents who are thinking of the times someone overreacted to a social faux pas by their child.
I feel like people are misdirecting their anger here.
I think you’re dead on actually. The person I responded to is so defensive because they’ve probably been talked to about it before. No matter how awful it’s been I never have done that. And if they realized that they as a parent are used to the annoyance, but others aren’t, it actually takes restraint not to at least glare. So when that commenter got so pissed, I assume their child is poorly behaved enough for the parent to get told semi-often
Right, and if their child does only occasionally act out (as literally all children do at least a few times in their life), they might assume a commenter is that one guy who is overly put out over a minor social infraction, because just like you’re picturing the stand-out moments you’ve seen when it was bad, so are they. But their stand-out has been someone confronting you because your* eldest started stacking boxes in the aisle whilst you were tending to the baby for 30 seconds.
We’re all thinking of our own extremes and are kinda talking past each other. It seems that, unlike some conversations lately, everyone is kinda right, but it also seems that we need more empathy towards the fact that raising young children has been more societally difficult lately, and kids need less hostility to become emotionally healthy adults.
Not really. There are kids louder than others. And while there may be some internal aspects to that a lot of that have to do with education. Specially as they grow and education starts becoming more a defining factor.
Yes, I have a lot of anger for people who meet the most vulnerable parts of our society with hostility. I have an immense anger for people who don’t think these vulnerable people in the making have a place in society.
Congratulations on not being allowed to scream in public, ever. Did you good. Your parents had shitty standards and now you want to enforce these on other children so that they will also grow up and hate children. Great idea.
What you don’t understand (or pretend not to) is that you’re the one being judged, not the kids. It seems obvious from this chain that your kids are out of control and you get judged for it. I can think of no other reason you’d act this way.
I think the point of contention is that the user you debate is under the (right) assumption that when a child cries in public, this is just a small snapshot out of all the time the parents took them to any public place. A child crying is not a bug, it’s an inherent feature. They sometimes just do that, they don’t even know themselves, so it’s not the parents fault that their mini-human isn’t behaving like a fucking Gucci bag. Everything volvoxvsmarla said is true, children learn through trial an error and yes, you need to sometimes take the brunt of this process, I’m sorry little one. When children don’t learn how to behave in (for example) supermarkets because you banned them, then you get teenagers who didn’t learn to behave. You can’t pass the problem on forever. I’m a teacher and it really fucking shows when kids never learned how to exist in a public place.
BTW., this is not an excuse for parents who evidently don’t give a fuck or even worse, motivate their children to be brats so they entertain themselves. Scum of the earth. But it’s perfectly possible for parents to try their hardest and still fail sometimes.
I can tell you a specific scenario I take issue with. At the grocery store the other day, a child screamed at the top of its lungs all over the store. The parent never seemed to notice or care, but people everywhere were looking at each other, all clearly bothered. I’m sorry but that’s not my problem, that’s their shit to work out and they clearly don’t give a shit about others. Shitty parenting, 100% worthy of judgement.
We don’t have to assume that everyone bothered by kids at all hates kids or has no tolerance for their annoyances. OP did that, and took out what seems obvious to me as parental stress on users ITT. So I don’t really have much capacity left to empathize with them in particular.
Neglectful parenting is worthy of judgement. What I take an issue with is that what you observed was a situation - it was a snapshot of a whole day, of a whole life that these people lead. Is the issue that they didn’t care, that they didn’t try to console the kid? How often did you, as an adult, get mad and calmed down after someone said “calm down”? Are you just bothered that they didn’t remove the kid from the situation for your convenience, as well as for their own embarrassment asap? There can be so many reasons why the kid screamed (didn’t get a piece of candy, didn’t get to throw over cans of beans - which you wohld also not like, probably and understandably -, was told to calm down, had a fight with a sibling, hurt themselves, couldn’t get a booger out), why the parents didn’t care (did they not care, did you see them after they had already tried to calm the kid down, talk to them, walk them through everything, do they try not to give more attention to something that was already talked about, or, god forbid, might they just be absolutely exhausted after the 5th tantrum with no reason in a row), why they didn’t leave (great idea to leave behind a full trolley with products for the workers to put back and go home with no groceries after having already spent time and energy to go to the store and have the shopping almost completed, also cool lesson for the kid that it can just yell long enough if they don’t like being somewhere so that they can leave. Works great in schools and hospitals too). But you saw that and decided the kid is feral and the parents are awful human beings that should have no right to a kid.
You both say that’s not your problem and they have to work it out, yet you are absolutely making it your problem and demand they work it out in a way that you find suiting.
I see so many people who think that if you are just loving and caring to a child and work them through their emotions and all they will be just reasoned to calm down. Man, this isn’t even how it works for adults, with developed brains. You guys don’t just expect too much of parents but also of kids. They cannot reason themselves out of these situations just as their arms are simply to short to wipe their own butts for the first three years.
And you might think you only judge the parents and not the kids, but the kids do feel your disdain. They feel your lack of compassion, understanding, and companionship. They learn so fast that the world is full of people who don’t like them. I’m not even going to start with the parents who are being judged no matter what they do. They are judged because their kid is their own person, that has a personality, and if that isn’t a pleasant personality, well fuck them. And if their kid is pleasant, then they have been too controlling and demanding and were too strict and helicoptered them into obedience.
If you, however, have friends or relatives that you know and see regularly and can make a more sophisticated guess on their parenting style, that might be another issue. Still a high horse to judge from, especially when you don’t have kids, but at least you have more than one point in time to make assumptions from.
What you don’t understand is that if that parent gives into the crying and does something different, that child will now continue that behavior because they learned if i scream long enough loud enough, I get my way. Yeah it sucks to be you to have to listen to the crying being a grown-up and all. But it probably sucks to be the parent in that situation even more.
Also fuck you bud.
No one is saying kids shouldn’t be allowed in public. They’re saying if your kid is losing their shit in a restaurant, remove them from the restaurant until they are done losing their shit.
Honestly, the judgement of parenting is not my main issue here. It’s the hypocrisy of at the same time saying “this is your problem, not mine” and “you have to deal with your problem so that I am not inconvenienced.”
Like, you can’t have it both ways. Either you don’t care, and then other people deserve the right to also not care about your opinion, or you do indeed care, and then it is your problem too. Your quote about not being part of the village is the one that I am saying fuck off to. You want to take yourself out of society and of the context, yet expect the other part to not take themselves out of society. You don’t even decide to look away, you decide to look with destructive criticism. I don’t see how this is supposed to help anyone, you included.
You come off as the type of person who will look at both the kid and the parent in disdain for being a nuisance even when they did something absolutely minor that you could easily avoid, ignore, or get away from. Are you assuming the kid will differentiate between your reaction towards them and their parent? Or that your reaction has no effect on the parent’s treatment of their child, perhaps in a more negative than positive way?
As for the judgement part, as I have pointed out somewhere else, you are seeing a sniplet of a day, of a life, of an hour. Yet you feel like you have enough information to rightfully judge. It’s correct that the kid might be subjected to bad, neglectful parenting and the parents do not care if their kid behaves awfully. Or you might have just met them in a vulnerable, bad moment. Somehow you know tho. Why not give them the benefit of the doubt or, God forbid, ask whether yoh can help? Offer a supporting smile to someone struggling? Why be hostile instead?
Because even if you took a perfect parent who does everything according to textbook from beginning to end, the kid will still have meltdowns in the most inconvenient and absurdly embarrassing moments in public.
And I have seen way too many parents who devote an insane amount of time and effort to their parenting, are reflected and have the best intentions and approaches, are incredibly level headed and collected (definitely not me tho), and give it their all, still being talked down upon by absolute strangers if they cannot make their preschool kid calm down within ten seconds. If these parents don’t stand a chance in the eye of public scrutiny, then I just don’t even know how a normal parent who doesn’t spend 24/7 thinking about their parenting choices has a chance.
I’ve also seen cases of what I would call bad parenting. Shaming, yelling, ignoring cries for help. But at least I can realise that I don’t know the full story. So unless I have a direct offer of help (tissue, water, bandaid, carrying something, etc) I let them be and hope that they know what they are doing and handling the situation to the best of their ability. I also know a kid who died of shaken baby syndrome because the new partner of their mom couldn’t handle the cries. I’d much prefer he ignored the cries and tantrums instead of killing the two year old boy.
What the hell are you even talking about? It’s not complicated. Because you aren’t taking care of the issue, it became mine (and every other person being bothered). I can’t take enough drugs to understand how that wouldn’t be obvious, or how it could be “hypocrisy”. What the actual fuck. I chose not to have kids, you chose to. Therefore I cannot and should not be expected to help them not lose their shit. That is your job. Do it.
Also, you confused me with someone else. I didn’t mention “the village”. You must have also missed my comment where I said that I lost my empathy for you after your ragey diatribes where you shirk all your responsibility.
And for the record, when I see the parent actually trying, I don’t judge them, I just try to get through it and ignore the child’s cries, such as a baby screaming on a plane. What I cannot have compassion for are the people who do not seem to be trying in the least. Which is far too common.
We are not talking about kids babe, we are talking about YOU that is too tired to educate
You can look around and see that the world is not ok on you imposing your misbihaved child on everyone.
I was once a child, correct, and I couldn’t leave my table in a restaurant, that was not even a question. I had to learn to behave otherwise I would be grounded at home. My father left the table more than once in a restaurant to take my brother to be grounded in the car. And came back once it was understood.
Limits are healthy and if it’s tok hard you can always gibe them to social services or not fucking having them.
Just look around a little. Nobody else cares about you baby or you.
volvoxvsmarla: “look at this fine example of parenting!”
I can’t find where the yoga pants part was supposedly said
Society norms have to be bilateral, and convenient for every member of the society.
One member of society cannot fuck around not expecting to, eventually, find out.
This is why we have laws, norms and social customs. So we can live in a society.
If members of society feel that they cannot longer live next to other members is when society breaks, and, you like it or not, the social pact gets broken.
You cannot force members of a society to live en the minimum common suffering denominator. To lower everyone standards of living to the one provided by the most annoying member of the society. That’s a highway to the society giving the big F to that member.
It should be the contrary, society should try to live to the standard of the less annoyance. To avoid bother the most sensible member of the group.
It’s a everyone loses vs everyone wins situation. We should aim for the later.
Absolutely. I swear, these people just want no one to ever dare have children and for humanity to go extinct.
Actually yes. Humans are just not good. Israel proves there’s no redemption for humanity.
I get daily contempt, just trying to do a few basic things as a non-neurotypical. Society hates humans so much, that if you show signs that you exist, and you show any humanity, you get so much hatred.
Humans aren’t appreciated in this world. Let them have their perfect AI, let humans die out.
Hahahahahaha
Right. Maybe that’s why you have mad social anxiety and the like. Because your parents beat your ass for even talking when out in public.
And entirely voluntary.
You’ve riled the forever alone nerds.