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.
I can’t imagine a stranger saying those things to me! I asked my wife “does that not happen to me - because I’m a man? Or does it happen to me, but I don’t notice - because I’m a man?” She said “probably both”
I think it's the opposite, actually. This sort of thing has happened to me twice but never to my wife, I think because being a man makes people assume I'm an incompetent parent who needs their advice.
“using such big words in front of such little children” Sweet merciful…this kind of passive aggression would lead to a confrontation that my kids would be talking about in therapy for years to come 😭 I am so irritated at 7am I need to talk my therapist about why it’s so triggering to me lol.
Also the notion that “eVERy OnE Is TOo FocUSeD ON THemSelVEs tO nOTIce YeW!” is utter, utter horsesh*t!
The amount of not so complimentary comments I get on the healthy lunch / snacks I bring in (none are smelly or stored in a communal space!) disproves that bit of wisdom.
One time in 2014 I decided to wear a pair of doc martens to my job site, using this above logic as motivation, and the way I got roasted by my all male coworkers would be considered assault and battery by many on Twitter 😖 (lone female coworker complimented!). Non-stop harassment for 20 minutes lol.
The point is, I need to learn to not GAF what others think, which feels like a state of enlightenment that only liquor/hard drugs (20 years sober!) can accomplish. Keep fighting the good fight CCH!
Anytime I catch myself judging other parents in public I try to deflect the frustration onto the environment.
Why the hell don't airports have ball pits and nap pods for little kids? What happened to restaurants printing puzzles and things to color on the place mats and bringing the kids crayons?
Our public environment makes very little allowance for the needs of young kids. What kind of loser would get pissed off or judgemental about, say, a guy in a wheelchair trying to manoeuver through an inaccessible space? Even if he's blocking your way he's not the problem.
Our local Kia dealership has a play area that is larger than the waiting room. I swear that plays into the number of Kias filled with kids I see around here.
I used to be extremely self conscious about using public transport with my large SUV-like stroller but now I’m completely over it. Especially if the person rolling their eyes or otherwise acting rude is traveling with a bike (which takes up just as much room if not more)
If there's a flight of over 4 hours we download the entire BBC Iplayer library onto our phones and let the kids have at it. Flights are unlimited screen time. But we have #Europeanprivilege (mainly being poor and not having aircon), so most of our trips are under 3 hours. As your kids get older, they get easier to entertain - in fact, my 7 year old wants to read these days. This is a big turnaround from 2 years ago when he staged a meltdown because his father's iphone died midway through a Shaun the Sheep episode.
I don't judge people travelling for screen usage - things like colouring are almost impossible on a plane, although we try and use colouring books/puzzle books for train journeys with bigger tables. Easier as they get older!
If anyone is going to save the BBC it's a campaign from parents of small children - the respectability of the branding and lack of adverts makes it feel like you don't have to do quite as much justifying...
I’ve found myself doing stuff like this and I always roll my eyes at myself. People are going to judge my parenting no matter what I do. I’ve seen people clearly judge me for being too harsh by setting firm boundaries. I literally saw a woman texting on a plane about what a terrible mother I was because I *wasn’t* being strict enough with my tantruming 2 year old. You’re screwed either way.
I don’t judge iPads on planes but I literally can’t stop myself from judging them at restaurants. Sorry, is what it is!
Yeah I think she was about 20 months old, there was just no stopping her. She was miserable on the plane after many successful plane rides so we were totally thrown off. We were doing our best but you can’t exactly do time out when she’s literally sitting on your lap lol. The girl was young and texting her boyfriend, clearly childless and just had no clue what it’s like to be in that kind of situation.
I'm thinking if a frazzled parent who has 20 things to do and the kids are bouncing off the walls and so they plop them in front of a screen. Great, kids can zone out for a while and the parent can also relax for a bit and tackle what needs to be done.
The alternative often seems to be stress and resentment and frustration simmering essentially all the time - with a constant barrage of, "stop it, knock it off, stop hitting your sister, put the cat down, no, stop it..." in increasingly angry tones and that's not healthy either.
I have little kids, so if it’s any consolation, I wouldn’t be judging you! iPads for all:) I am laughing about the coat and people being worried about your kid getting cold. My parents are always telling me my little girl needs a coat. I always resist the urge to tell them that it’s germs and viruses that make you sick, and not cold air. 😆
The quality of the content matters more. Social media and phone games are worth the shaming but actual movies/shows and real games, such as a Switch or Steam Deck, is fine. Good art & video games do cultivate the mind.
I’ve definitely been there, on both the performing and judging side. Sounds like CHH is a parent who shows enough caring she would avoid judgement from the likes of me.
As a parental judge, I at least try to take an understanding perspective as a caring parent. I’ve given up on any illusions of remaining totally judgement free. This is impossible and would not be appropriate any way. There is a lot of inattentive parenting out there where childrens poor public behavior is not mitigated by the parents and that is worthy of judgement.
And that is where parenting *should* be performative if necessary. If your kid is kicking the back of the seat in front of you for hours, you’d better keep admonishing them no matter if it has no effect and is a totally futile exercise. You owe the attempt to the people around you that your kids are disturbing.
As a grandparent I'm now totally immune to caring what people think when my young grandchildren have tantrums. Or judging other parents in the same predicament.
But I didn't feel that way thirty years ago when it was my children causing a scene.
The fact that someone is *Tweeting* about “iPad parenting” renders their opinion immediately invalid and they can be safely ignored. They are either a hypocrite or completely immune to irony and either way you don’t need them in your life.
Well. I have definitely been one of those childless people who judges random parents in public. Not for tantrums or such, but for kids staring at screens. But this essay has made me realize I should be doing that a lot less. I'm sorry that our stares are making this parenting thing even harder than it already is.
We do a lot of road trips and I would frankly kill to get my kids to use the tablet. They would rather pick on each other, sing obnoxious songs, and ask me questions without listening to the answers. "Are we there?" going 70 in the middle of a cornfield. We'd be thrown out of an airplane over the ocean. Just watch a show 😭
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.
I remember driving to the Jersey shore with my parents and my brother and I had a gigantic bag of taffy with us lol
Candy! The gateway to screens!
I can’t imagine a stranger saying those things to me! I asked my wife “does that not happen to me - because I’m a man? Or does it happen to me, but I don’t notice - because I’m a man?” She said “probably both”
Maybe bc I live in Seattle, the land of awkward introverts, but as a mom I truly never get these comments from strangers.
I think it's the opposite, actually. This sort of thing has happened to me twice but never to my wife, I think because being a man makes people assume I'm an incompetent parent who needs their advice.
Now you can start Airdrop Bombing people’s iPhones in the vicinity with links to this article 😏
“using such big words in front of such little children” Sweet merciful…this kind of passive aggression would lead to a confrontation that my kids would be talking about in therapy for years to come 😭 I am so irritated at 7am I need to talk my therapist about why it’s so triggering to me lol.
Also the notion that “eVERy OnE Is TOo FocUSeD ON THemSelVEs tO nOTIce YeW!” is utter, utter horsesh*t!
The amount of not so complimentary comments I get on the healthy lunch / snacks I bring in (none are smelly or stored in a communal space!) disproves that bit of wisdom.
One time in 2014 I decided to wear a pair of doc martens to my job site, using this above logic as motivation, and the way I got roasted by my all male coworkers would be considered assault and battery by many on Twitter 😖 (lone female coworker complimented!). Non-stop harassment for 20 minutes lol.
The point is, I need to learn to not GAF what others think, which feels like a state of enlightenment that only liquor/hard drugs (20 years sober!) can accomplish. Keep fighting the good fight CCH!
My son still talks about “that mean guy who thinks you’re a bad mommy” and laughs about how he scared him off!
W son
Anytime I catch myself judging other parents in public I try to deflect the frustration onto the environment.
Why the hell don't airports have ball pits and nap pods for little kids? What happened to restaurants printing puzzles and things to color on the place mats and bringing the kids crayons?
Our public environment makes very little allowance for the needs of young kids. What kind of loser would get pissed off or judgemental about, say, a guy in a wheelchair trying to manoeuver through an inaccessible space? Even if he's blocking your way he's not the problem.
I agree wholeheartedly but “airport ball pit” made me WINCE. It would replace toilet seats as the germiest thing all other things are compared to.
“Did you know the underside of a flip flop has ALMOST as many germs as the airport ball pit?”
Our local Kia dealership has a play area that is larger than the waiting room. I swear that plays into the number of Kias filled with kids I see around here.
I used to be extremely self conscious about using public transport with my large SUV-like stroller but now I’m completely over it. Especially if the person rolling their eyes or otherwise acting rude is traveling with a bike (which takes up just as much room if not more)
If there's a flight of over 4 hours we download the entire BBC Iplayer library onto our phones and let the kids have at it. Flights are unlimited screen time. But we have #Europeanprivilege (mainly being poor and not having aircon), so most of our trips are under 3 hours. As your kids get older, they get easier to entertain - in fact, my 7 year old wants to read these days. This is a big turnaround from 2 years ago when he staged a meltdown because his father's iphone died midway through a Shaun the Sheep episode.
I don't judge people travelling for screen usage - things like colouring are almost impossible on a plane, although we try and use colouring books/puzzle books for train journeys with bigger tables. Easier as they get older!
If anyone is going to save the BBC it's a campaign from parents of small children - the respectability of the branding and lack of adverts makes it feel like you don't have to do quite as much justifying...
I’ve found myself doing stuff like this and I always roll my eyes at myself. People are going to judge my parenting no matter what I do. I’ve seen people clearly judge me for being too harsh by setting firm boundaries. I literally saw a woman texting on a plane about what a terrible mother I was because I *wasn’t* being strict enough with my tantruming 2 year old. You’re screwed either way.
I don’t judge iPads on planes but I literally can’t stop myself from judging them at restaurants. Sorry, is what it is!
OMG! How can someone even be strict with a 2 year old! Lol
Yeah I think she was about 20 months old, there was just no stopping her. She was miserable on the plane after many successful plane rides so we were totally thrown off. We were doing our best but you can’t exactly do time out when she’s literally sitting on your lap lol. The girl was young and texting her boyfriend, clearly childless and just had no clue what it’s like to be in that kind of situation.
I'm thinking if a frazzled parent who has 20 things to do and the kids are bouncing off the walls and so they plop them in front of a screen. Great, kids can zone out for a while and the parent can also relax for a bit and tackle what needs to be done.
The alternative often seems to be stress and resentment and frustration simmering essentially all the time - with a constant barrage of, "stop it, knock it off, stop hitting your sister, put the cat down, no, stop it..." in increasingly angry tones and that's not healthy either.
I have little kids, so if it’s any consolation, I wouldn’t be judging you! iPads for all:) I am laughing about the coat and people being worried about your kid getting cold. My parents are always telling me my little girl needs a coat. I always resist the urge to tell them that it’s germs and viruses that make you sick, and not cold air. 😆
The quality of the content matters more. Social media and phone games are worth the shaming but actual movies/shows and real games, such as a Switch or Steam Deck, is fine. Good art & video games do cultivate the mind.
I can't express how much I'm looking forward to my daughter being old enough that I can share my favorite games with her
This reminds me so much of the Eurydice post last month
https://eurydicelives.substack.com/p/feminists-guilt-and-female-blind?utm_campaign=posts-open-in-app&triedRedirect=true
“why are you cowed by people shaming you with values you find ridiculous?“
I’ve definitely been there, on both the performing and judging side. Sounds like CHH is a parent who shows enough caring she would avoid judgement from the likes of me.
As a parental judge, I at least try to take an understanding perspective as a caring parent. I’ve given up on any illusions of remaining totally judgement free. This is impossible and would not be appropriate any way. There is a lot of inattentive parenting out there where childrens poor public behavior is not mitigated by the parents and that is worthy of judgement.
And that is where parenting *should* be performative if necessary. If your kid is kicking the back of the seat in front of you for hours, you’d better keep admonishing them no matter if it has no effect and is a totally futile exercise. You owe the attempt to the people around you that your kids are disturbing.
As a grandparent I'm now totally immune to caring what people think when my young grandchildren have tantrums. Or judging other parents in the same predicament.
But I didn't feel that way thirty years ago when it was my children causing a scene.
The fact that someone is *Tweeting* about “iPad parenting” renders their opinion immediately invalid and they can be safely ignored. They are either a hypocrite or completely immune to irony and either way you don’t need them in your life.
Well. I have definitely been one of those childless people who judges random parents in public. Not for tantrums or such, but for kids staring at screens. But this essay has made me realize I should be doing that a lot less. I'm sorry that our stares are making this parenting thing even harder than it already is.
We do a lot of road trips and I would frankly kill to get my kids to use the tablet. They would rather pick on each other, sing obnoxious songs, and ask me questions without listening to the answers. "Are we there?" going 70 in the middle of a cornfield. We'd be thrown out of an airplane over the ocean. Just watch a show 😭