Whipped them all soundly, and sent them to bed. A nation of child haters.

ess0two

Orpheo wrote: »

I don't make many spelling mistakes, congratulations on spotting one. By doing so you have debunked my whole post and I shall resign from teaching immediately. That is a typo. Nothing is copied and pasted, how very dare you.

And the apostrophe replaces the missing letters in a contraction - isn't. Are you a mere mortal too? If you are going to pick up on someone's spelling and call it sloppy, you might at least make sure that in doing it that you get yours right. Three question marks, its instead of it's, and a lower case s for sloppy when it begins a sentence! Abysmal!

Sloppy!

Yawn...........thanks for taking the trouble to enlighten me.

toby3000

I think the OP proves exactly WHY those of us with no interest in children find parents and their offspring so annoying.

We don't care about your parenting. We don't care about your children. What they have done is of zero interest to me. I will never find your daughter interesting or worthwhile to talk to.

I don't care that 'all children have tantrums'. If your child isn't able to behave in public then don't bring it to the shops where I will have to listen to it and dodge it and its mother with its massive buggy. I don't wish to watch you breast-feed when I'm drinking my coffee. I don't want to hear it screaming on my bus ride home. Until children are suitably socialised they shouldn't be inflicted on the rest of us in shops/restaurants/pubs/public transport.

MRSTITTLEMOUSE

toby3000 wrote: »

I think the OP proves exactly WHY those of us with no interest in children find parents and their offspring so annoying.

We don't care about your parenting. We don't care about your children. What they have done is of zero interest to me. I will never find your daughter interesting or worthwhile to talk to.

I don't care that 'all children have tantrums'. If your child isn't able to behave in public then don't bring it to the shops where I will have to listen to it and dodge it and its mother with its massive buggy. I don't wish to watch you breast-feed when I'm drinking my coffee. I don't want to hear it screaming on my bus ride home. Until children are suitably socialised they shouldn't be inflicted on the rest of us in shops/restaurants/pubs/public transport.

I'll happily admit to feeling the same and always have done.
I've had three daughters myself and now have five grand-children (one who is getting married soon and intending to start a family too) however I will admit to the fact that although I adored my own on the whole I just can't abide children and find them annoying in the widest sense.
I was realy strict with my kids outside the home,they would'nt dare misbehave however I always wished other parents would have applied the same rules to their children who quite frankly seemed to be allowed to run wild ruining many an occasion.
My whole life I've avoided other people's children like the plague,especially this past 20 years when parents seemed to start to go over the top and become so competetive with their kids.
I just don't think some parents realise that they have a social responsibility to make their children behave in public for the comfort of others.
Perhaps if parents could just realise that life does not revolve around their little darlings and the majority of people realy could'nt care less about them they might just control them more.

richardvc

Orpheo wrote: »

I'm taken sweetheart.

Are you this patronising with your children ?

I agreed with a lot of what you said - I haven't got kids but am amazed at friends who always wanted kids never seem to want to be responsible for them - that's always baffled me.

Generali

toby3000 wrote: »

I think the OP proves exactly WHY those of us with no interest in children find parents and their offspring so annoying.

We don't care about your parenting. We don't care about your children. What they have done is of zero interest to me. I will never find your daughter interesting or worthwhile to talk to.

I don't care that 'all children have tantrums'. If your child isn't able to behave in public then don't bring it to the shops where I will have to listen to it and dodge it and its mother with its massive buggy. I don't wish to watch you breast-feed when I'm drinking my coffee. I don't want to hear it screaming on my bus ride home. Until children are suitably socialised they shouldn't be inflicted on the rest of us in shops/restaurants/pubs/public transport.

How do you propose that children become 'socialised' if they aren't allowed to be in social situations?

FWIW, I think the attitude to children in the UK stinks. My kids are very well behaved* but they are kids and will do what kids do and that includes having tantrums.





*Due to Mrs Generali's excellence, I do not take credit for anything other than doing what I'm told by her. She is regularly complimented by strangers for their good behaviour.

ceridwen

I also agree that children need to be taught (from an early age) to behave properly in public. It may be that even the best-behaved children occasionally decide to "throw a screaming fit" in public - well, in that case, its up to the parent to take them out of any shop/other building they are in at the time and not take them back in again until they have calmed down. It is not fair on other people to have to put up with a child literally screaming near their ears - some of them scream so loudly that it is very upsetting to anyone unfortunate enough to be next to them. No - it really doesnt make the person who is getting upset by a child screaming near them feel any better at all to see the parent feebly going "shush, shush" or the like to a child (we know they dont really mean it..the child knows they dont mean it). If they really meant it they would tell the child "Stop screaming NOW - or I'm taking you out of the building" and proceed to do so if the children didnt shut up instantly. Having experienced so many children being allowed to scream near me now I just think "Two can play at that game - ie bad manners" and openly put my fingers in my ears to try and block out the noise, whilst looking straight at the parent concerned or ask them to take the child out. A parent that does not have the manners to make sure their child acts with manners as well is bringing them up to be a selfish spoilt individual.

As for parents who actively teach their child to ride a bike along pedestrian only pavements - words fail me...

neverdespairgirl

Caroline_a wrote: »

I like children, it's just badly behaved ones I can't stand, caused in the main by bad parenting. Far too many people these days (ok I'm old ) seem unable to make choices for their children, they want the child to make the decision for themselves. 'What do you want to eat/wear/do?' when asked of a 3 year old is a nonsense.

Open choices are no end of trouble. But there's nothing wrong with asking a child to make some decisions, including a three year old - "do you want the red trousers or the blue ones?"

Troythecat

MRSTITTLEMOUSE wrote: »

I'll happily admit to feeling the same and always have done.
I've had three daughters myself and now have five grand-children (one who is getting married soon and intending to start a family too) however I will admit to the fact that although I adored my own on the whole I just can't abide children and find them annoying in the widest sense.
I was realy strict with my kids outside the home,they would'nt dare misbehave however I always wished other parents would have applied the same rules to their children who quite frankly seemed to be allowed to run wild ruining many an occasion.
My whole life I've avoided other people's children like the plague,especially this past 20 years when parents seemed to start to go over the top and become so competetive with their kids.
I just don't think some parents realise that they have a social responsibility to make their children behave in public for the comfort of others.
Perhaps if parents could just realise that life does not revolve around their little darlings and the majority of people realy could'nt care less about them they might just control them more.

Well said, I could have written this myself!

Orpheo

richardvc wrote: »

Are you this patronising with your children ?

No. Just with people that criticise my posts without reading them.
How interesting it is that you take my reply to an adult poster who admitted that she didn't read my post and yet she responded to it with complacent, uncritical hostility from the outset and, from my reply to her, you presume to judge how I treat children. Or was it a rhetorical question? Considering that she never read my post and yet kept popping up with an opinion, I assumed she was infatuated.

richardvc wrote: »

I agreed with a lot of what you said - I haven't got kids but am amazed at friends who always wanted kids never seem to want to be responsible for them - that's always baffled me.

@Neverdespairgirl - I certainly do not believe that working mothers = bad mothers, not at all. I do believe that children are best raised by a parent, not necessarily mum, I am chief child-carer (parenter) at home and I am dad, not mum, as some posters have assumed. I work part-time in order to enable me to be there for my daughter. This certainly sacrifices income, but we don't pay childcare costs and our daughter is raised according to our values. Of course I understand that some mums must work full time and there are plenty of mums that work full time and still make time for their children. On the other hand, if a child's life is childminder, school, childminder, home to tired, irate parents, bed, then you have to ask who is parenting the child?

Child-care, school and parenting are three different things. Unfortunately many parents view child-care as an entitlement, some parents and employers view school as free child-care and politicians and parents are increasingly pushing parenting as a responsibility of school. I am aware of my pastoral responsibilities as a teacher, but as a parent I would never have chosen to have 34 children. Where I stick my neck out is to say that as a parent you are entirely responsible for your child's physical and emotional well-being, social and moral education, behaviour, values and self esteem. If you contract any of these things out it doesn't absolve you of responsibility.

You shouldn't trust your child's education entirely to the government's curriculum. You shouldn't assume that the values of the people who look after your child are the values that you want your child to have.

The term 'you' used above is generic and does not mean 'you' specifically.

Here's another one for the forum members' hackles...

Are you the parent of a boy? Have you heard that girls are outperforming them academically? It's true, very observably so. So what are the values and environment in which you are raising your boys in order to make this so? Anecdotally, I had a meeting with a parent once to discuss the issue of their boy's consistently undershooting his academic potential and the response from his father was, "but he likes his football though." When I pointed out that the boy was not going to be a professional footballer, dad looked at me as if I'd told him his mother was a !!!!!.

Orpheo

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

Open choices are no end of trouble. But there's nothing wrong with asking a child to make some decisions, including a three year old - "do you want the red trousers or the blue ones?"

This is exactly right.