Yes, I'm A Performative Parent
I want everyone watching me to know I'm not a bad mom, and yes, they ARE watching me.
One thing you might have picked up about me from reading this Substack: I travel on planes with my husband and kids a lot, sometimes internationally. This was not how I imagined my parent-life would be, especially since I grew up with a horrible fear of flying, but somehow in the past couple years, my husband and I simultaneously developed an interest in travel. Given that we both work remotely, and given that I have an even more flexible schedule than he does (doing, well, this) we go on a lot more trips than your average family, and yes, I know this is a fortunate position. We’ve actually gotten the hang of this routine and it’s become very manageable, so I plan to write some tips and tricks soon! Anyway, on these trips, I give my children (age five and two) Amazon Fire tablets with a few favorite, age-appropriate movies downloaded with good, comfortable headphones.
The rule about these tablets is that they are only for vacations. They can use them as much as they want on planes and in airports, and they can use them a little bit in hotels. Then, as soon as we go home, the tablets disappear. At home, they can watch a little bit of TV or a movie on the family television, but we usually cap screen time at one hour a day—and it’s always after 3 PM. Am I a hunter-gatherer Substack-style perfect mom who eschews television, diapers and checks notes sofas? No. But I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a mom who expects nonstop algorithmic screens to “raise my children.”
Another thing you should know about me: I have OCD and I would be the first to admit I worry about things that nobody should really worry about. I spent about ten years convinced that I would die in a random ISIS beheading on the streets of San Francisco, and one time I suspected my therapist was a potential stalker because he asked me “too many questions about myself.” So yeah, I don’t have a great barometer on what’s reasonable to fear. And yes, I am in therapy and doing the work. I’m fully aware that people think anxiety and OCD are mental illnesses worthy of “support” until they see how these disorders actually present, and suddenly they’re mad that you’re mentally ill in a way they deem too annoying. I’ve heard it all before.
But I don’t think it’s entirely crazy to worry that when I’m at the airport with my kids, who totally locked into Curious George like they’re in the war room monitoring the bombing of a foreign adversary, that people walking by will look at me and determine that I’m a horrible, neglectful mother raising “iPad kids.” (That’s Amazon Fire tablet kids to you, asshole.) And whenever I catch people staring at us (which I definitely do, and I can only hope they’re staring and thinking, “How is that woman old enough to have children?!”) I revert to this very annoying habit and loudly declare, “Enjoy the tablets now, kids, because you ONLY GET THESE ON TRIPS. That’s right, NO TABLETS AT HOME!”
That’s right. I am engaging in “performative parenting.” And I strongly suspect I’m not the only one.
When I tweeted about this compulsion, I was told that “nobody is judging” but that’s…obviously not true. If you are in public and your child is using a screen, loads of people are judging and I know this because I’m constantly seeing people tweeting, writing about and talking about “iPad parents.” And these parents are usually just strangers they saw in public using an iPad. They have no idea if these parents allow iPads at home. They have no idea how often their kids are actually in front of iPads. Perhaps there are some outliers where the situation is obviously ridiculous—strapping an iPad to an infant’s stroller for a walk around town, for example—but most of the time, the “iPad parents” you see are parents who are pulling out a screen to keep their kids entertained and quiet in a place where they can’t afford for their kids to be disruptive.
And on a flight? Girl, they literally have tablets strapped to seats for the adults, so let’s be real about what’s reasonable to expect of a child. In fact, one of my commenters declared that “kids don’t need movies on planes” because they will be infinitely entertained by staring out a window for four hours at unchanging sky. Another person was confident that a singular deck of cards could entertain my kids for an entire flight (for the record, we frequently take flights that are over seven hours long).
You may still disagree with me, and think that kids should never see a screen, ever, under any circumstances. Fine. To you, I say: what are you looking at right now?
Also, if you feel that way, thank you! You have validated my fear and therefore my annoying habit of loudly disavowing the tablets in public. Clearly, it is warranted.
Being too-online, I have seen people say egregious things about parents they didn’t know at all, with zero humility or doubt. I saw a woman say that she saw an “abusive” mother at the park. What was the abuse, you might ask? The mother was pushing a screaming toddler in a stroller. Yep, that’s it. She was pushing the stroller without pausing to stop the toddler from screaming, because presumably, all he needed was a gentle cuddle. Now, basically every parent has done this. Every parent has had to take a toddler home when he or she didn’t want to go home, and they knew no amount of comforting would help. I have, in fact, carried my kids out of parks like screaming surfboards because they refused to leave. But rest assured, if you have done this, there’s some lady staring at you and tweeting about how you abuse your children.
And sure, let’s say someone silently judged me and never told me about it. I guess I’d be fine with that. What I don’t know can’t hurt me. For example, there was a group chat of mostly women on Twitter, all about my thick ankles, and none of it bugged me at all until someone told me (Reason #432940328 to keep photos of myself to a minimum on there).
But I’ve seen way too many people post creepshots of unsuspecting parents (AND THEIR CHILDREN) on social media, with their own fanfiction about the type of people they must be. I saw someone tweet a photo of a woman and her young daughter eating at a restaurant. The woman was on her phone and the daughter was watching a tablet with headphones. Was this scenario ideal? Not really, but not only do we not really know anything about these people, but even if this mother is a crappy mom, nothing justifies posting her photo (and worse, her child’s) online to make that point.
And sometimes, you will find out someone is judging you, because they will tell you. Once, a woman stopped me on the street to inform me my daughter looked cold (after she refused to wear a coat, which I had dutifully brought with us just in case.) Another woman stopped me to warn me my daughter would “catch a cold” because she was merely wearing a fleece, and not a full coat, in high-fifties weather. My most memorable moment was when my family got stuck at a chilly, wet train station for half an hour with no stroller or way to entertain the kids, and I accidentally let an F-bomb drop in front of them in the form of staring at the train schedule and saying, “Are you fucking kidding me.” An older man came up to admonish me for “using such big words in front of such little children” and informed me that I should be ashamed of myself. My son warded him off with a loud Opera-singer-inspired shriek, to which he responded, “I see you’re teaching them well already.”
I find myself tailoring my public parenting to the type of mom I want people to think I am (aka, the type of mom I wish I was all the time) loudly declaring, “Make sure to say please and thank you!” and making a point not to capitulate to tantrums, raise my voice or show any frustration, even when I’m dealing with a particularly annoying meltdown over an absurd thing (one example: my son once had a meltdown when he realized we couldn’t bring the nondescript gray hotel umbrella home with us). The funny thing is, if you ignore a tantrum and refuse to give in, your kid will be louder and more annoying, which also earns you a fair amount of glares from the public who are convinced they could parent your kid better than you could. And if you yell at your child in public or threaten some consequence (and remember, you have to actually make good on the threat which could prompt more tantrums) people will think you’re a monster. You can’t win. And my head is always on a swivel for these people.
I know this habit is insecure and stupid. I know a better mom wouldn’t give a shit. I know I can be judged for worrying about being judged, because of course, and I know that the correct answer is “just don’t care.” But it’s so hard not to care! My kids are little. They still sometimes melt down in public, especially if we’re traveling. I know it’s easy to say “just make sure they get sleep” or “just make sure they get snacks” but sometimes shit happens. Sometimes your plane is diverted to another city and you’re stuck there with no place to sleep for five hours. I have seen grown-ass adults cry at the airport over this stuff (I’d be lying if I said I didn’t melt down when my flight was delayed for eight hours in one-hour increments, and then canceled due to underbooking) so I expect that my kids will have these rough moments too. And given that I don’t want to make it everyone’s problem, giving them a couple movies seems to help.
I experienced a particularly rough time the other day when we were flying after a flight that had been delayed for a few hours. Both of my kids were pretty grumpy, but up until that point they had been placated with their tablets. Then, my son’s tablet ran out of battery. By then, he was sleep-deprived and just plain pissed off (as was I and every damn adult on the plane, honestly) so he began crying and banging the screen. I’m sure someone saw him do this and thought, Wow, what a spoiled iPad kid! He can’t even handle one MINUTE without the tablet. His mother must NEVER spend time with him. Like, I’ve fully melted down over frustrating flight situations before—not my finest moments, of course—but if a grown adult can lose it after dealing with the incompetency of American Airlines, surely we can extend some grace to a young child and his parents.
While it might make sense to some people (including me, before I had kids) to just tell parents never to travel when their kids are little and unpredictable, that means forcing parents to stay home for ten or more years, if they have multiple children with age gaps. And honestly? I am really happy with the fact that my kids are experiencing so many adventures at a young age, especially now that my son is old enough to remember our vacations, even if we do have occasional hiccups.
But am I happy with the fact that I never know who’s judging, or worse—who’s filming? No, not really. But I guess, in the spirit of my OCD therapy (also known as exposure response prevention therapy) the only way through is to do exposures to what I fear. And I suppose the ultimate exposure would be to be a shitty iPad mom in public and not perform the compulsion of disavowal.
The pro-natalists should stop putting up charts and graphs and warning of dire societal outcomes and instead focus on a campaign to stop judging parents in public. It's that kind of scrutiny that makes the fertile folk go, "No, thanks, I don't need this in my life."
Plane rides, waiting rooms, and all those spaces where you are stuck have always been hard for kids, even way back in antiquity when I was a child. It was unusual to fly back then, but my dad's family lived in Seattle, so we trucked across the country on a plane periodically. My mother fed us chocolate HOURLY to keep our mouths occupied and our whining to a minimum. Was it ideal? Hardly. Did we get much of it at home? Nope. Did people judge? I am sure they did. Side-eyeing parents an occupation as old as time, but it still doesn't make it a good thing.
Now you can start Airdrop Bombing people’s iPhones in the vicinity with links to this article 😏