This is the thread where we judge other people's parenting

man alive that guy sounds like maybe hes in the grips of depression?

i recognize this thread is more for low-level disagreements about parenting, but i wasn't sure where else to link this story and discuss it. maybe it belongs more in a true crime type thread but idk it's related to this as well. it seems like there were so many warning signs of abuse and neglect and cruelty, and it all led to this.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/mystery-surrounds-hart-family-that-plunged-off-california-cliff/

I wonder about recognizing those signs in other families.

God, that's all so fucked.

ugh

Don't know how widespread this is, but a coworker was lamenting that a number of the parents in her social circle have Amazon's Alexa read to their children at bedtime.

jfc

lol, a few months ago I showed up to chaperone a field trip and my daughter's first grade teacher had pulled up a youtube of someone else reading a children's book to keep the kids occupied while she took care of some other task. I kinda judged.

we read books to our younger daughter at bedtime but then after a few books i'll put on a story on spotify and let it play while she falls asleep. it's just background noise to help her keep quiet and go to sleep. we did the same thing with our older daughter except with music.

Oh, my daughter can't fall asleep without Neil Degrasse Tyson's Cosmos on in the background. I'm sure I'm judgeable for that.

I have had Alexa read bedtime stories. It’s great.

https://bedtime.webguild.com/

I use this skill, you can write your own custom stories and put in your kids name.

Huh - when she was talking about it I was imagining a digital voice reading in a flat tone which seemed a little creepy; for some reason it didn't occur to me that they could just be asking Alexa to play an audio version of a story. That doesn't seem quite so bad as a supplement to (not replacement for) human interaction.

I listened to audio books all through my childhood and don't think it was a bad thing

My terrifying daughters left audiobooks on in their rooms the whole time they were doing other stuff INCLUDING READING. I once asked and yes, they were following both stories.

Our daughter listens to audiobooks when she goes to sleep, but we always read to her ourselves first. I have fond memories of doing the same when I was a kid--I had the absolutely splendid Nicol Williamson reading of The Hobbit on cassette, and the 8-hr radio play version of the first Star Wars movie, on cassette, and listened to them until the tapes broke.

Wow: the Nicol Hobbit is on Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/NicolWilliamsonHobbit

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/16/well/family/reading-aloud-to-young-children-has-benefits-for-behavior-and-attention.html

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/dont-want-attention-mother-6-year-old-boy-whose-birthday-party-guests-no-shows-speaks-185110033.html

i judge a bit here, i feel like if one thing is going to be traumatic and bad for the kid it's the damned viral news story (somewhat related to what i posted upthread about parents going to the media and putting their kid front and center regarding bullying situations.)

I am judge jury and executioner for the no-shows though

When the boy turned 8 last year, we had one kid show up at the party. They were half an hour late and hadn't RSVP'd.

Kid had told his mom that he had been invited to a party. He wasn't sure of the time, wasn't completely firm on the location. But his mom threw caution to the wind and managed to get there - with present- before it was all over.

We printed out invitations and everything. I think it's just kids being unreliable (because they are kids.) Goodness knows how many times I've found a crumpled invitation in the back of the backpack, inviting him to a party three weeks ago.

(This year, we had 3 officially RSVP. One of them cancelled at the last minute, but one of the other guys brought his brother with him.)

My son is seven and has had one (1) birthday party. He's disabled and nonverbal, but so are a lot of his classmates. We did evites, physical invitations, and reminder emails. We rented a fucking moon bounce, yo.

Almost no one rsvpeed. Almost everyone came to the party. But that "almost everyone" arrived 30 to 45 minutes into a 2-hour party.

I am judge jury and executioner for the no-shows though

― stet, Wednesday, October 24, 2018 4:16 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

agree on that

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/father-makes-10-year-old-daughter-walk-five-miles-school-punishment-bullying-163440797.html

the walk, the news story, the kid being named....i feel like this is all legalized child abuse.

that road seems a little unsafe to walk along for 5 miles in the half-light

wonder where she could have learned to be a bully

lol

btw the woman ref'd way upthread that hating pregnancy/babies and married a Star Trek LARPER is now a divorced single mom because the LARPER cheated on her and is moving to Arizona to be an actor. :( so now my judgment has been transformed into simple pity.

People who are already stressed out and their marriage crumbling after child #1 should not try for #2 in the vague hope it will somehow fix things.

So many parents failed to dress their kids for a field trip to a muddy farm in 45 degree weather and I am judging. There are kids in t shirts and shorts with no socks. And apparently no one ate enough breakfast either.

Xpost do idiots like these exist? I mean srsly.

I see parents bringing their kids to school in the freezing drizzle in winter here, and the kids are wearing shorts while their parents are wearing several layers of insulation.

My wife, who has our children wear longjohns if the temperature drops below 20°c, has to be persuaded not to tell them off in the street.

It is very possible that this is the result of a long negotation between kid and parent where the kid is like "It's not cold out, I don't want to wear a coat" and the parent ls like "it's 40 degrees and drizzly, you need a coat" and finally the compromise is that the kid goes to school with a coat stuffed in their backpack, the coat never leaves the backpack, other parents silently judge

I have a friend, who is me, who that happens to every day

I am pretty ok with kids wearing lighter clothing than what other parents would demand. My 14 yo didn’t want to wear a jacket the other day. She’s rarely cold.

It snowed here last night and I had to explain to my almost five year old in great detail exactly why he couldn't wear shorts and a t-shirt to preschool today.

One of my kids hates wearing jackets too. To his credit he never comes home and complains that he was cold all day.

I try to think, what would I wear if I were going for a run? Because they’re moving so much. I’m frequently the picker-up and carrier of the coat when we’re out.

I hate wearing jackets, coats, long sleeves in general, so I am sympathetic with your kids. I dress the same whether it's 100F or 45F : long pants, short sleeves. colder than 45 F, I'll reluctantly go for long sleeves or maybe still short sleeves + a jacket, because it may be cold outside but it'll be hot inside (in buildings, on trains + buses) and I'll be inside more than outside, plus once I'm outside for like 10 minutes I'll be hot and sweaty even if it's freezing outside.

my boy is like me but my girls are not.

I judge the writer of this letter. They can fuck right off.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/nov/16/a-letter-to-our-neighbours-with-a-baby

Haha, as a doting parent i wholeheartedly concur. Not certain how I would have responded back when I was a single child free antinatalist but I don't think I'd have been much more sympathetic. Why didn't they move their bedroom?

depends on the house doesn't it. all of our rooms share a wall with at least one neighbour. ofc everyone should be as considerate as possible but if you don't want to hear other people buy a detached house in the middle of nowhere

seething with hatred at your neighbours for three years but doing nothing to mitigate the problem and not saying anything to them = real england

some of the parents of my daughter's friends let them stay home from school "just because." which i was never allowed to do and none of my friends were allowed to do. you should at least have to learn how to fake being sick imo. then you're developing a skill.

but it is annoying because we don't let our daughter miss school without a good reason so she whines about how her friends can take days off and she can't

one of the families, the mom has weird work hours so i think some of the "just because" days are so she can have time with the kid, which i understand. the other family that does it just spoils the hell out of their kid and so i judge their parenting

We get the attendance committee on our asses every year and we only keep our kids home when they are actually sick. Don't know how these scofflaws get away with it.

yeah you would get booted out of your spot at school if you tried this in SF

schools in CA have their budgets approved based on student attendance!

My mum used to let me take a couple days off a year. She would have been beyond pissed if i had faked sick tho.

Honestly, I don't see a problem with it. One of my kids is very introverted and shes in middle school. I can see how being around that many people in a social setting exhausts her. Its all over her face. If she asks for the rare day off I'm inclined to say yes.

Here's where I judge my own parenting:

I realized a couple of months ago that my children DON'T KNOW HOW TO CROSS A STREET. They're 10 and 13. WTF.