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.
The thing about those long car rides (I was on a plane exactly once before I was 22) is that there were no other parents there to judge our parents when we were having our meltdowns because it was hot and some sibling’s leg WAS TOUCHING MY LEG!!! and even entertaining ourselves trying to make m&ms melt in our hands resulted in sticky discomfort and I would get carsick if I tried to read and then there would be a fight about exactly who saw the far away license plate first. Our parents’ coping mechanism seemed to be taking turns being the one who screamed at us, again with no one to judge them.
Typing this I just remembered that my now 22 year old kid was an excellent flyer (with two EPIC exceptions) on trans continental and transatlantic flights, but would go absolutely nuts if we were in the car for longer than 45 minutes.
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”
Me too. I’m a mom in the Bay Area and no one has ever said anything to me except an older lady one time said she thought my baby should be wearing socks and I just pretended not to hear her.
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.
In fairness, my dad is big on walking ahead of people. Circa age 10 I once tripped up a staircase in a mall and strangers had to help me up coz he was strides ahead of me and completely oblivious.
Interesting. My general outlook, which I think is stereotypically “male”, is that it’s embarrassing enough (to them) for other people to think they know better than me - and it’s incomprehensible to me they would want to further embarrass themselves by saying it out loud 😂
No one has told either me or my husband how to parent in public somehow. They do tell our kid "listen to mom" or "listen to dad", which I appreciate greatly.
We stay local mostly, and our kid is a local celebrity it feels like, and I'm just the lady who takes her out of the store/restaurant when the meltdown gets intense. I literally went to a restaurant once that I'd never been to, and a waitress, who I could swear I've never seen before, was like "Did you not bring the little one?".
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.
Haha yeah fair point. Counterpoint: airports are already filthy and kids are already getting into everything, there's got to be a way to make that more pleasant for everyone.
How about an indoor playground that's sterilized as often as the bathrooms?
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.
Do the restaurants you go to not offer coloring??? Everywhere we take my kids has coloring sheets!
I try not to judge and then sometimes it’s just ridiculous. We often go to a family friendly diner with our kids. There’s coloring, the waitstaff are all so nice to the kids, it’s always busy and chaotic so kid noises are totally fine. And every time we go at least 1/3 of children are on iPads. So often there’s multiple tables with both parents and grandparents and then 1-3 children glued to screens for the entire dinner. I’m not a screen free parent but come on now, that’s just messed up.
I haven't seen it in quite a bit, but to be fair I live in New York which I think is unusually child hostile.
I agree, but I do think it's a vicious cycle. If we take it for granted that kids have to be pacified a lot of the time they're in public, of course that will bleed into situations where it's not necessary as well. We're not making it easy for parents to draw reasonable lines.
Basically if one parent is making suboptimal choices that's their problem, but if a third of the parents you see are doing the same subotimal thing, that's a societal problem.
Interesting! I’ve travelled a lot with my kids and never run into that issue but I also haven’t taken my kids to NY yet.
I think the premise that kids need to be pacified a lot in public isn’t an inherent given. I take my 2 kids pretty much everywhere (I’m a stay at home mom) and pretty much never use screens for pacification while we’re out. Airports are a uniquely awful experience for basically everyone so they’re a notable exception. But myself and I don’t think any of my friends (most of whom have 3-4 kids) actually use screens to get through normal public outings.
I’m not a uniquely incredible mom and my kids aren’t well behaved angels. Outside of serious disabilities, which I have no experience with, it’s not actually necessary to use constant screens. But it can make something that comes with a degree of friction, like taking your kids to the store or a restaurant, and virtually eliminate it. It’s more of a temptation, that a significant minority of parents sadly give into, than an actual necessity.
A large chunk of people will always choose the screens over the coloring pages at restaurants because they’re easier. The only societal level solution to this that I see is mass public shaming, which I’m not advocating for. You can make the world as child friendly as possible but a bunch of people will still pick screens because there’s simply nothing like it for kids other than literal drugs.
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)
But near everyone is judgmental about the person in the wheel chair. I’ve been in a wheel chair in a public space from post surgery fatigue and people are judgmental as hell and when you talk to people they immediately come up with how it’s different.
The instinct to be judgmental in a mercurial way about strangers is very strong. But it does not stick if you get to even acquaintances.
Are you fairly young? I’ve traveled with my dad when he’s used a wheelchair, and no one questions it, but he’s 75, so that probably makes a difference!
I was and there was nothing visibly wrong with me I just couldn’t walk more than 1/4 mile before I became totally exhausted. So I looked like a healthy person using it to get shortcuts I’m sure.
I am beyond thankful that when I was raising small children, there were no cell phone cameras nor social media (or tablets or smartphones, for that matter - it was fairly easy to keep the kids off the desktop computer and TV, which were all we had for screens in those halcyon days).
Even so, I remember having a vague but persistent fear that I'd end up on the six o'clock news, with ominous music and the announcer intoning "A Massachusetts woman was arrested today on three counts of child abuse in the Market Basket parking lot. Eyewitnesses say the woman was physically sitting on a naked, screaming toddler while trying to strap the child into a car seat."
My second child in particular was one of those strong-willed semi-feral children who hated clothing, confinement, cleanliness, and any attempts to thwart her desires. She was always escaping from the house and running amok through the neighborhood, stark naked with twigs and leaves tangled in her hair, covered in mud and popsicle stains, and usually howling at the top of her lungs.
She especially hated supermarkets (I can't tell you how many times I abandoned a full cart of groceries in the frozen foods aisle because she was having a giant audio-visual freakout and once those started, there was no hope of her calming down), so some of my worst parenting moments occurred in the supermarket parking lot. On more than one occasion, she would unstrap herself from the car seat and take off all her clothes while I was distracted by the other two kids and/or attempting to put the groceries in the trunk. Then, I'd have to wrestle a freakishly-strong and completely naked child back into her car seat, which I usually accomplished by basically sitting on her while I strapped her down, amidst ear-splitting howls of displeasure.
The other two would usually also start crying too, in sympathy for their sister's plight, and my eldest was capable of a particularly earsplitting and glass-shattering register.
We got a lot of side-eye, to say the least.
Thankfully, we live in a small town with a surprising number of big families, so the majority of people were sympathetic. When you have three or more kids, there's usually at least one (usually one of the middle children) who is just an incorrigible force of nature and seems destined for reform school.
My daughter also used to do a thing where she would fling herself against the walls while screaming "STOP HURTING ME!!!!" at the top of her lungs. I used to go outside and stand in the yard while she was doing this, so the neighbors would see that I wasn't even touching her. My next-door neighbor was a mom of seven, so she'd reassure me that some kids are just like that and she'd turn out fine eventually (she was correct, my daughter is now 23 and the most even-tempered, responsible, hard-working young adult I know so I guess she got it all out of her system early in life).
She was quite a handful up until about age nine or so. However, she was an angel at school - her teachers always commended her for her kindness and compassion, and she was always winning the "Peace Maker" award (ironic because at home she was The Instigator who pushed everyone's buttons and made everyone cry). She excelled academically; her only problems were messiness, fidgetiness and an inability to stand nicely in line.
I was fairly sure that she, like me, had ADHD - but since she was doing so well in school I didn't want to put her on medication. She did need a lot of supervision and re-directing on my part in doing homework, as she was capable of stretching out a 15-minute assignment for two hours due to distraction, etc., and every morning was an exercise in chaos management to get her out the door in time.
Once she reached middle school, I sat her down and explained that if she missed the bus due to dawdling, goofing around, not having her backpack ready, etc., it was now HER problem, not mine. If she missed the bus, she'd have to either walk or ride her bike, and if that made her late, well, she'd just have to accept whatever the consequences were - like getting detention. She tested this out once or twice and quickly learned that I meant it, and then her morning behavior improved dramatically.
I was bracing myself for the teenage years to be horrific, because her personality and temperament are eerily similar to my own and I was an extremely rebellious teenager and a major discipline problem at school. But, in a shocking turn of events, she was an absolute joy as a teen (once we got through the emotional up-and-down phase from 12 to 14).
I think the things that made a difference were:
1. Giving her more autonomy. As I mentioned above, I talked to her about how getting herself dressed, packed up and out the door on school mornings was now HER problem, not mine. She has the sort of personality that detests feeling micro-managed and hates being told what to do, so I always tried to frame things has "Well, these are your choices. You can choose to ___ with ___ consequence, or if you choose to do ____, the consequence will be ____." I tried to "outsource" the consequence as much as possible, i.e., "your teacher" or "the school" or "your karate instructor" etc., to remove the power-struggle element.
2. Finding a sport she loved. She is a naturally gifted athlete, but every sport she participated in (soccer! gymnastics! swimming!) always started out great and then devolved into a nightmare, because she got bored easily and then didn't want to go to practice, was late to games, etc.. Part of that is her ADHD, and part of it is that because she was usually pretty good at athletic things immediately, and thus didn't feel like she needed to put in the time and effort to get really good. She's also not much of a team player. Finally, when she was twelve, she convinced me to enroll her in karate. We had a long talk about how the dojo expected her to show up 3x per week, and how this was VERY EXPENSIVE and we had to sign up for a full-year commitment so the condition was she had to go and she had to promise to not make it annoying for me. She absolutely LOVED karate, and after three months the sensei came to me and asked if he could put her into the adult class because "that level of focus and athleticism is far above and beyond what I expect from a 12-year-old." Naturally, she was delighted by this and ended up being the star of the dojo, competing in the adult category, and winning a few competitions. I think the combination of physical and mental practice really seemed to be what she needed, because her behavior improved dramatically after just a few months of karate.
3. I had an instinct that she would do best in a hands-on type of program for high school - she likes to DO stuff, not sit there listening to a lecture. We have an excellent vocational/technical school in our district, with high academic standards, and I knew she'd love it - but I also knew if she thought I was trying to make her go there, she would refuse. So I had to play it like I had absolutely no interest in whether she decided to continue at our local high school or if she wanted to apply to the Tech school. She ended up applying of her own accord, and absolutely loved it. It alternated one week of academics with one week of "shop," - she studied Information Technology and graduated with high honors and a bunch of CompTIA and Cisco certifications. She also landed a paid internship in her senior year, and they loved her so much they hired her full-time the day she graduated.
4. She was surprisingly well-behaved as a teenager. I took the "pick your battles" approach, so when she wanted to dye her hair blue, pierce her nose, and dress in Army surplus or in weird goth clothing, I shrugged and said "whatever." I didn't really assign a curfew, we sort of took that on a case-by-case basis. I made her aware that she had a lot of freedom because I trusted her, but if she did something irresponsible that violated that trust, she would lose that freedom. She was really good about it - on the very few occasions when she did something like drink alcohol or smoke weed, she would confess to me later. I also made it clear that if she went to a party and drank or smoked weed, or the person driving her drank or smoked weed, she could call me AT ANY TIME OF THE NIGHT and I would pick her up, because I'd rather get dragged out of bed to drive her home than dragged out of bed to identify her body. She ended up being incredibly responsible; she is 23 now and while she'll have a drink from time to time, she never has more than one and she will not drink at all if she is driving.
5. I remember how angry I used to get over what I perceived as arbitrary and stupid rules; so when I told her "OK, you can go to ___, but I want you home by midnight" or whatever, she was allowed to dissent provided she stated her case clearly and calmly. I would then say, "OK, let me think about that" and after I thought about it, sometimes I agreed with her proposal, and sometimes I didn't - but I would explain my thought process and reservations calmly and unemotionally to her. Now that she's a grownup, she told me she really appreciated that I did this, instead of getting angry at her and yelling at her the way some of her friends' parents did.
6. Naturally, I wanted her to go to college (I dropped out of college myself, and got passed over for some jobs/promotions that required a bachelor's degree as a result). But, once again, I knew if I told her she HAD to go, she would refuse on general principles. So, I just made sure she knew that while her company valued certifications more than a degree, other companies for some stupid reason are obsessed with that piece of paper. She decided to go to college part-time while working full-time. Since she already had considerable work experience in her field, as well as a ton of certifications, she was able to waive some of the course requirements - and as far as the courses they insisted she take, she utilized that single-minded perseverance to absolutely hound her professors and wear them down until they agreed to let her just take the exam instead of taking the class. I rejoiced, because finally she was using her powers for good! She graduated with her associate's degree in 18 months; and is now almost finished with her bachelor's degree - while working full-time as a network engineer. She's 23 and makes more money than I do, and loves her job. It's very project-based, with a fair amount of travel - so it's well-suited to someone with ADHD. She utilizes her ability to hyperfocus, as some projects involve working on-site for 18 hours; and the fact that she consults for a bunch of different clients and travels satisfies her need for novelty. Plus, she can set her own hours - as long as she gets her work done, she can do it whenever she wants, which works well with her night-owl circadian rhythms.
When she was little, I used to repeat to myself over and over "She has the gift of perseverance. She's going to do great things someday, it's just a bit disconcerting to encounter such a strong will in someone who is only 30 inches tall," and it was the absolute truth. We always joke that she was born mentally 36 years old, so she found being a toddler/preschooler/child extremely frustrating.
All in all, I was totally shocked at how well she turned out. It was pretty rough during that first nine or ten years, but I am so proud of her now and we have a great relationship.
This is such a heartwarming story, genuinely. You have an amazing kid but she's thriving precisely because you gave her the steady support and boundaries that allowed that and created a strong emotional foundation for her. It so easily could have gone the opposite way with a less attuned, more controlling parent.
Haha, well, fortunately her personality and temperament are VERY similar to my own. Many times when she was being a complete pain in the ass I would start to get really angry with her - and then I'd burst out laughing, because I totally remember being that kid and doing exactly the same thing!
When I was a kid, one of my favorite ways to entertain myself was to wind other people up. I'd just pick fights, start arguments, make outrageous statements solely to get a reaction out of people. It's pretty common for ADHD kids to do that; if things are too peaceful we have a strong instinct to shake it up by being obnoxious. So while I didn't *like* it when my daughter would do this, I remembered being exactly the same way when I was her age.
I also remember being one of those kids who would do naughty things, knowing full well that there was A Consequence, but feeling like it was *worth it.* One time my daughter was being naughty and I told her to knock it off or she'd lose a privilege, and she responded "I'M THINKING ABOUT IT!" I saw red for a moment...then I started laughing because I suddenly remembered how I used to do exactly the same thing! I used to think "hmmm, I'm having a lot of fun...I know I will get grounded for not being home on time - BUT IT'S WORTH IT!"
I also absolutely hated anyone telling me what to do. Teachers, parents, anyone - if I was a kid today, I would undoubtably be diagnosed with Pathological Demand Avoidance or whatever. I was quite the rebel without a cause - if you told me not to do something, I would not rest until I did it; and if I felt like someone was trying to force me to do anything, I absolutely would NOT do it, even if it was something I actually wanted to do.
My mother used to tell me "I hope you have a daughter EXACTLY LIKE YOU!" and her wish came true! But the funny thing was, I found my mini-me to be easier in some ways than my youngest daughter, who is a totally neurotypical normal sort of kid. I found the normie kid a lot more baffling, because her brain works very differently than mine!
“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!
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.
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’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.
We were flying back from Disney World with our 4 kids around 15 years ago and my then 5yr old son lost his mind when I told him we had a layover and that meant we to get off one plane and board another one.
He spent the next 10-15 minutes ranting like a demented Grover(he had a very gravely voice at the time) about how I was basically ruining his life by making him get on another plane, because he was only supposed be on one plane not two, and he how could he get on another plane when he was supposed to get into the car AFTER ONE PLANE AND GO HOME. He was so unhinged I started laughing, which made him even madder. Luckily the people around me that I could see were chuckling too, but I’m sure there were some that agreed with his withering criticism of my flight bookings. I mean he wasn’t wrong, as we had to run(literally) to catch our connecting flight-lol. I’ve never booked a non direct flight since;)
Those articles about how “childfree” people feel judged because people occasionally ask them about it crack me up because to be a mom of small children is to be judged every time you leave the house. You just have to swallow your pride. But sometimes it’s hard.
Once, I crossed an intersection with my then 2 year old and he suddenly broke free from my hand, did a 180, and tried to dart back into traffic. (His reason? We “forgot” the scooter he absolutely refused to bring 5 minutes earlier.) I grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back onto the sidewalk and then, in what was perhaps understandable but not my finest parenting moment, I scolded him harshly while he wailed. What he did scared me. Guess what? A man across the street was sitting in his car FILMING the entire thing on his phone. Maybe it’s on the internet, I don’t know! He could have come over and asked me what was going on, he could have stepped in if he was actually concerned. I still think about this and I know it affected my toddler-parenting in public.
This story is TERRIFYING omg I feel like I would have walked up to that guy and been like "Hey, are you filming us because you're a pedophile" but realistically I'd have just been scared and ran off lol
I should have said that!! Instead I just yelled some choice words at him until he drove off. He looked absolutely shocked that I even confronted him at all.
Also, this was literally a plot line in SVU! Olivia grabbed her son from running in front of a car and then got investigated by CPS over it because she left a bruise. I know SVU is over the top but… is it that far fetched?
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.
It's so different, isn't it? As a grandma, I don't give a fuck about other parents' judginess. But I did thirty years ago (although probably not as much as CHH, because I'm an ornery bitch).
My kids grandfather was out with her and some mom started to fuss at her. He looked the mom right in the eye, said a firm “No”, and went back to tending to my kid. I wish I had the ovaries to do that haha
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.
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...
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.
Your son screaming operatically at the man who questioned you for saying fuck was just perfect hahahahah.
Don't worry too much CHH, most people don't care about what kids do as long as they are quiet. And in emergency situations when they are not quiet there's always the option of noise free headphones. None of their behaviors or judgements is your problem.
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!
The thing about those long car rides (I was on a plane exactly once before I was 22) is that there were no other parents there to judge our parents when we were having our meltdowns because it was hot and some sibling’s leg WAS TOUCHING MY LEG!!! and even entertaining ourselves trying to make m&ms melt in our hands resulted in sticky discomfort and I would get carsick if I tried to read and then there would be a fight about exactly who saw the far away license plate first. Our parents’ coping mechanism seemed to be taking turns being the one who screamed at us, again with no one to judge them.
Typing this I just remembered that my now 22 year old kid was an excellent flyer (with two EPIC exceptions) on trans continental and transatlantic flights, but would go absolutely nuts if we were in the car for longer than 45 minutes.
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.
Me too. I’m a mom in the Bay Area and no one has ever said anything to me except an older lady one time said she thought my baby should be wearing socks and I just pretended not to hear her.
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.
This. I haven't had people tell me how to parent differently but I have had:
- People tell me how great it is that they see me playing outside with my kids (like, my A+ extra effort is table stakes for moms) and
- I had a woman RUN in and try to grab my son when he tripped on an escalator -- she clearly thought I was going to let him get injured.
The energy I got from that second thing was not "I'll help" but "I'll rescue cuz dads, whaddaryagonnado".
In fairness, my dad is big on walking ahead of people. Circa age 10 I once tripped up a staircase in a mall and strangers had to help me up coz he was strides ahead of me and completely oblivious.
Interesting. My general outlook, which I think is stereotypically “male”, is that it’s embarrassing enough (to them) for other people to think they know better than me - and it’s incomprehensible to me they would want to further embarrass themselves by saying it out loud 😂
No one has told either me or my husband how to parent in public somehow. They do tell our kid "listen to mom" or "listen to dad", which I appreciate greatly.
We stay local mostly, and our kid is a local celebrity it feels like, and I'm just the lady who takes her out of the store/restaurant when the meltdown gets intense. I literally went to a restaurant once that I'd never been to, and a waitress, who I could swear I've never seen before, was like "Did you not bring the little one?".
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?”
They would quickly turn into the source of any new international outbreak.
Haha yeah fair point. Counterpoint: airports are already filthy and kids are already getting into everything, there's got to be a way to make that more pleasant for everyone.
How about an indoor playground that's sterilized as often as the bathrooms?
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.
Do the restaurants you go to not offer coloring??? Everywhere we take my kids has coloring sheets!
I try not to judge and then sometimes it’s just ridiculous. We often go to a family friendly diner with our kids. There’s coloring, the waitstaff are all so nice to the kids, it’s always busy and chaotic so kid noises are totally fine. And every time we go at least 1/3 of children are on iPads. So often there’s multiple tables with both parents and grandparents and then 1-3 children glued to screens for the entire dinner. I’m not a screen free parent but come on now, that’s just messed up.
I haven't seen it in quite a bit, but to be fair I live in New York which I think is unusually child hostile.
I agree, but I do think it's a vicious cycle. If we take it for granted that kids have to be pacified a lot of the time they're in public, of course that will bleed into situations where it's not necessary as well. We're not making it easy for parents to draw reasonable lines.
Basically if one parent is making suboptimal choices that's their problem, but if a third of the parents you see are doing the same subotimal thing, that's a societal problem.
Interesting! I’ve travelled a lot with my kids and never run into that issue but I also haven’t taken my kids to NY yet.
I think the premise that kids need to be pacified a lot in public isn’t an inherent given. I take my 2 kids pretty much everywhere (I’m a stay at home mom) and pretty much never use screens for pacification while we’re out. Airports are a uniquely awful experience for basically everyone so they’re a notable exception. But myself and I don’t think any of my friends (most of whom have 3-4 kids) actually use screens to get through normal public outings.
I’m not a uniquely incredible mom and my kids aren’t well behaved angels. Outside of serious disabilities, which I have no experience with, it’s not actually necessary to use constant screens. But it can make something that comes with a degree of friction, like taking your kids to the store or a restaurant, and virtually eliminate it. It’s more of a temptation, that a significant minority of parents sadly give into, than an actual necessity.
A large chunk of people will always choose the screens over the coloring pages at restaurants because they’re easier. The only societal level solution to this that I see is mass public shaming, which I’m not advocating for. You can make the world as child friendly as possible but a bunch of people will still pick screens because there’s simply nothing like it for kids other than literal drugs.
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)
Singapore Airport has a ballpit and it's amazing.
Wtf I love Singapore now.
But near everyone is judgmental about the person in the wheel chair. I’ve been in a wheel chair in a public space from post surgery fatigue and people are judgmental as hell and when you talk to people they immediately come up with how it’s different.
The instinct to be judgmental in a mercurial way about strangers is very strong. But it does not stick if you get to even acquaintances.
Are you fairly young? I’ve traveled with my dad when he’s used a wheelchair, and no one questions it, but he’s 75, so that probably makes a difference!
I was and there was nothing visibly wrong with me I just couldn’t walk more than 1/4 mile before I became totally exhausted. So I looked like a healthy person using it to get shortcuts I’m sure.
Wow, that's depressing to hear. I'm really sorry you had to deal with that on top of surgery.
The last two airports I flew through did have little indoor play areas for kids and they were a life saver for me flying with a toddler.
Probably because these things are largely designed by men...
Now you can start Airdrop Bombing people’s iPhones in the vicinity with links to this article 😏
I am beyond thankful that when I was raising small children, there were no cell phone cameras nor social media (or tablets or smartphones, for that matter - it was fairly easy to keep the kids off the desktop computer and TV, which were all we had for screens in those halcyon days).
Even so, I remember having a vague but persistent fear that I'd end up on the six o'clock news, with ominous music and the announcer intoning "A Massachusetts woman was arrested today on three counts of child abuse in the Market Basket parking lot. Eyewitnesses say the woman was physically sitting on a naked, screaming toddler while trying to strap the child into a car seat."
My second child in particular was one of those strong-willed semi-feral children who hated clothing, confinement, cleanliness, and any attempts to thwart her desires. She was always escaping from the house and running amok through the neighborhood, stark naked with twigs and leaves tangled in her hair, covered in mud and popsicle stains, and usually howling at the top of her lungs.
She especially hated supermarkets (I can't tell you how many times I abandoned a full cart of groceries in the frozen foods aisle because she was having a giant audio-visual freakout and once those started, there was no hope of her calming down), so some of my worst parenting moments occurred in the supermarket parking lot. On more than one occasion, she would unstrap herself from the car seat and take off all her clothes while I was distracted by the other two kids and/or attempting to put the groceries in the trunk. Then, I'd have to wrestle a freakishly-strong and completely naked child back into her car seat, which I usually accomplished by basically sitting on her while I strapped her down, amidst ear-splitting howls of displeasure.
The other two would usually also start crying too, in sympathy for their sister's plight, and my eldest was capable of a particularly earsplitting and glass-shattering register.
We got a lot of side-eye, to say the least.
Thankfully, we live in a small town with a surprising number of big families, so the majority of people were sympathetic. When you have three or more kids, there's usually at least one (usually one of the middle children) who is just an incorrigible force of nature and seems destined for reform school.
My daughter also used to do a thing where she would fling herself against the walls while screaming "STOP HURTING ME!!!!" at the top of her lungs. I used to go outside and stand in the yard while she was doing this, so the neighbors would see that I wasn't even touching her. My next-door neighbor was a mom of seven, so she'd reassure me that some kids are just like that and she'd turn out fine eventually (she was correct, my daughter is now 23 and the most even-tempered, responsible, hard-working young adult I know so I guess she got it all out of her system early in life).
How did it pan out with your second kid? That's my daughter and I worry honestly.
Read the last sentence, she addressed that!
Yeah I was curious about the intermediate years.
She was quite a handful up until about age nine or so. However, she was an angel at school - her teachers always commended her for her kindness and compassion, and she was always winning the "Peace Maker" award (ironic because at home she was The Instigator who pushed everyone's buttons and made everyone cry). She excelled academically; her only problems were messiness, fidgetiness and an inability to stand nicely in line.
I was fairly sure that she, like me, had ADHD - but since she was doing so well in school I didn't want to put her on medication. She did need a lot of supervision and re-directing on my part in doing homework, as she was capable of stretching out a 15-minute assignment for two hours due to distraction, etc., and every morning was an exercise in chaos management to get her out the door in time.
Once she reached middle school, I sat her down and explained that if she missed the bus due to dawdling, goofing around, not having her backpack ready, etc., it was now HER problem, not mine. If she missed the bus, she'd have to either walk or ride her bike, and if that made her late, well, she'd just have to accept whatever the consequences were - like getting detention. She tested this out once or twice and quickly learned that I meant it, and then her morning behavior improved dramatically.
I was bracing myself for the teenage years to be horrific, because her personality and temperament are eerily similar to my own and I was an extremely rebellious teenager and a major discipline problem at school. But, in a shocking turn of events, she was an absolute joy as a teen (once we got through the emotional up-and-down phase from 12 to 14).
I think the things that made a difference were:
1. Giving her more autonomy. As I mentioned above, I talked to her about how getting herself dressed, packed up and out the door on school mornings was now HER problem, not mine. She has the sort of personality that detests feeling micro-managed and hates being told what to do, so I always tried to frame things has "Well, these are your choices. You can choose to ___ with ___ consequence, or if you choose to do ____, the consequence will be ____." I tried to "outsource" the consequence as much as possible, i.e., "your teacher" or "the school" or "your karate instructor" etc., to remove the power-struggle element.
2. Finding a sport she loved. She is a naturally gifted athlete, but every sport she participated in (soccer! gymnastics! swimming!) always started out great and then devolved into a nightmare, because she got bored easily and then didn't want to go to practice, was late to games, etc.. Part of that is her ADHD, and part of it is that because she was usually pretty good at athletic things immediately, and thus didn't feel like she needed to put in the time and effort to get really good. She's also not much of a team player. Finally, when she was twelve, she convinced me to enroll her in karate. We had a long talk about how the dojo expected her to show up 3x per week, and how this was VERY EXPENSIVE and we had to sign up for a full-year commitment so the condition was she had to go and she had to promise to not make it annoying for me. She absolutely LOVED karate, and after three months the sensei came to me and asked if he could put her into the adult class because "that level of focus and athleticism is far above and beyond what I expect from a 12-year-old." Naturally, she was delighted by this and ended up being the star of the dojo, competing in the adult category, and winning a few competitions. I think the combination of physical and mental practice really seemed to be what she needed, because her behavior improved dramatically after just a few months of karate.
3. I had an instinct that she would do best in a hands-on type of program for high school - she likes to DO stuff, not sit there listening to a lecture. We have an excellent vocational/technical school in our district, with high academic standards, and I knew she'd love it - but I also knew if she thought I was trying to make her go there, she would refuse. So I had to play it like I had absolutely no interest in whether she decided to continue at our local high school or if she wanted to apply to the Tech school. She ended up applying of her own accord, and absolutely loved it. It alternated one week of academics with one week of "shop," - she studied Information Technology and graduated with high honors and a bunch of CompTIA and Cisco certifications. She also landed a paid internship in her senior year, and they loved her so much they hired her full-time the day she graduated.
4. She was surprisingly well-behaved as a teenager. I took the "pick your battles" approach, so when she wanted to dye her hair blue, pierce her nose, and dress in Army surplus or in weird goth clothing, I shrugged and said "whatever." I didn't really assign a curfew, we sort of took that on a case-by-case basis. I made her aware that she had a lot of freedom because I trusted her, but if she did something irresponsible that violated that trust, she would lose that freedom. She was really good about it - on the very few occasions when she did something like drink alcohol or smoke weed, she would confess to me later. I also made it clear that if she went to a party and drank or smoked weed, or the person driving her drank or smoked weed, she could call me AT ANY TIME OF THE NIGHT and I would pick her up, because I'd rather get dragged out of bed to drive her home than dragged out of bed to identify her body. She ended up being incredibly responsible; she is 23 now and while she'll have a drink from time to time, she never has more than one and she will not drink at all if she is driving.
5. I remember how angry I used to get over what I perceived as arbitrary and stupid rules; so when I told her "OK, you can go to ___, but I want you home by midnight" or whatever, she was allowed to dissent provided she stated her case clearly and calmly. I would then say, "OK, let me think about that" and after I thought about it, sometimes I agreed with her proposal, and sometimes I didn't - but I would explain my thought process and reservations calmly and unemotionally to her. Now that she's a grownup, she told me she really appreciated that I did this, instead of getting angry at her and yelling at her the way some of her friends' parents did.
6. Naturally, I wanted her to go to college (I dropped out of college myself, and got passed over for some jobs/promotions that required a bachelor's degree as a result). But, once again, I knew if I told her she HAD to go, she would refuse on general principles. So, I just made sure she knew that while her company valued certifications more than a degree, other companies for some stupid reason are obsessed with that piece of paper. She decided to go to college part-time while working full-time. Since she already had considerable work experience in her field, as well as a ton of certifications, she was able to waive some of the course requirements - and as far as the courses they insisted she take, she utilized that single-minded perseverance to absolutely hound her professors and wear them down until they agreed to let her just take the exam instead of taking the class. I rejoiced, because finally she was using her powers for good! She graduated with her associate's degree in 18 months; and is now almost finished with her bachelor's degree - while working full-time as a network engineer. She's 23 and makes more money than I do, and loves her job. It's very project-based, with a fair amount of travel - so it's well-suited to someone with ADHD. She utilizes her ability to hyperfocus, as some projects involve working on-site for 18 hours; and the fact that she consults for a bunch of different clients and travels satisfies her need for novelty. Plus, she can set her own hours - as long as she gets her work done, she can do it whenever she wants, which works well with her night-owl circadian rhythms.
When she was little, I used to repeat to myself over and over "She has the gift of perseverance. She's going to do great things someday, it's just a bit disconcerting to encounter such a strong will in someone who is only 30 inches tall," and it was the absolute truth. We always joke that she was born mentally 36 years old, so she found being a toddler/preschooler/child extremely frustrating.
All in all, I was totally shocked at how well she turned out. It was pretty rough during that first nine or ten years, but I am so proud of her now and we have a great relationship.
This is such a heartwarming story, genuinely. You have an amazing kid but she's thriving precisely because you gave her the steady support and boundaries that allowed that and created a strong emotional foundation for her. It so easily could have gone the opposite way with a less attuned, more controlling parent.
Haha, well, fortunately her personality and temperament are VERY similar to my own. Many times when she was being a complete pain in the ass I would start to get really angry with her - and then I'd burst out laughing, because I totally remember being that kid and doing exactly the same thing!
When I was a kid, one of my favorite ways to entertain myself was to wind other people up. I'd just pick fights, start arguments, make outrageous statements solely to get a reaction out of people. It's pretty common for ADHD kids to do that; if things are too peaceful we have a strong instinct to shake it up by being obnoxious. So while I didn't *like* it when my daughter would do this, I remembered being exactly the same way when I was her age.
I also remember being one of those kids who would do naughty things, knowing full well that there was A Consequence, but feeling like it was *worth it.* One time my daughter was being naughty and I told her to knock it off or she'd lose a privilege, and she responded "I'M THINKING ABOUT IT!" I saw red for a moment...then I started laughing because I suddenly remembered how I used to do exactly the same thing! I used to think "hmmm, I'm having a lot of fun...I know I will get grounded for not being home on time - BUT IT'S WORTH IT!"
I also absolutely hated anyone telling me what to do. Teachers, parents, anyone - if I was a kid today, I would undoubtably be diagnosed with Pathological Demand Avoidance or whatever. I was quite the rebel without a cause - if you told me not to do something, I would not rest until I did it; and if I felt like someone was trying to force me to do anything, I absolutely would NOT do it, even if it was something I actually wanted to do.
My mother used to tell me "I hope you have a daughter EXACTLY LIKE YOU!" and her wish came true! But the funny thing was, I found my mini-me to be easier in some ways than my youngest daughter, who is a totally neurotypical normal sort of kid. I found the normie kid a lot more baffling, because her brain works very differently than mine!
“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
You’re clearly raising him right if that’s what his instinct was in that situation.
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.
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’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.
We were flying back from Disney World with our 4 kids around 15 years ago and my then 5yr old son lost his mind when I told him we had a layover and that meant we to get off one plane and board another one.
He spent the next 10-15 minutes ranting like a demented Grover(he had a very gravely voice at the time) about how I was basically ruining his life by making him get on another plane, because he was only supposed be on one plane not two, and he how could he get on another plane when he was supposed to get into the car AFTER ONE PLANE AND GO HOME. He was so unhinged I started laughing, which made him even madder. Luckily the people around me that I could see were chuckling too, but I’m sure there were some that agreed with his withering criticism of my flight bookings. I mean he wasn’t wrong, as we had to run(literally) to catch our connecting flight-lol. I’ve never booked a non direct flight since;)
Those articles about how “childfree” people feel judged because people occasionally ask them about it crack me up because to be a mom of small children is to be judged every time you leave the house. You just have to swallow your pride. But sometimes it’s hard.
Once, I crossed an intersection with my then 2 year old and he suddenly broke free from my hand, did a 180, and tried to dart back into traffic. (His reason? We “forgot” the scooter he absolutely refused to bring 5 minutes earlier.) I grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back onto the sidewalk and then, in what was perhaps understandable but not my finest parenting moment, I scolded him harshly while he wailed. What he did scared me. Guess what? A man across the street was sitting in his car FILMING the entire thing on his phone. Maybe it’s on the internet, I don’t know! He could have come over and asked me what was going on, he could have stepped in if he was actually concerned. I still think about this and I know it affected my toddler-parenting in public.
This story is TERRIFYING omg I feel like I would have walked up to that guy and been like "Hey, are you filming us because you're a pedophile" but realistically I'd have just been scared and ran off lol
I should have said that!! Instead I just yelled some choice words at him until he drove off. He looked absolutely shocked that I even confronted him at all.
Also, this was literally a plot line in SVU! Olivia grabbed her son from running in front of a car and then got investigated by CPS over it because she left a bruise. I know SVU is over the top but… is it that far fetched?
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.
It's so different, isn't it? As a grandma, I don't give a fuck about other parents' judginess. But I did thirty years ago (although probably not as much as CHH, because I'm an ornery bitch).
My kids grandfather was out with her and some mom started to fuss at her. He looked the mom right in the eye, said a firm “No”, and went back to tending to my kid. I wish I had the ovaries to do that haha
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.
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...
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
Your son screaming operatically at the man who questioned you for saying fuck was just perfect hahahahah.
Don't worry too much CHH, most people don't care about what kids do as long as they are quiet. And in emergency situations when they are not quiet there's always the option of noise free headphones. None of their behaviors or judgements is your problem.
The Elder hath cursed that man
🤭🤭🤭