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Parent rant: Bringing your kids - and your laptop - to the park? Come on!
Filed under: Toddlers Preschoolers, Preschoolers
Something I rant about often on my blog is cell phone madness - parents who use their cell
phones at the park instead of playing with their kids. And by kids, I'm talking the under-5 age range. I've seen dads
brushing toddlers off for business calls. Nannies
chatting away endlessly while the little ones they're supposed to be supervising just sit in the sand waiting,
waiting, waiting for someone to play with them. It drives me crazy. Why torment your kid by bringing him or her to the
park to play - and then, not!! But this weekend I saw something that wins the prize for "unclear on the concept of spending time with your kids at the park." A mom sitting on the park bench tapping away on her laptop. Oh, and she had her two sons with her - the oldest was about four and the youngest, maybe three years old. They both would play for a few minutes, then go to their mom and stare at her. She'd tell them to go back to playing. Would it have killed her to take 10 minutes to put her laptop down and hang out with them? Because that probably would have been enough to make them happy.
Maybe I'm just a goofball because I actually enjoy running around chasing after my son and going down the slide. I look forward to trips to the park as time to focus on just him - no distractions. I know, I know, sometimes when you're at the park it's the only time you get to talk on the phone with your peeps. Or you have a deadline that you have to meet. But if little Sally is sitting right next staring into space, couldn't you have done that at home? Or does it somehow make you feel better because they're outside?
Has the concept of bringing your kids to the park and actually playing with them been lost?
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ReaderComments (Page 2 of 2)
1-24-2006 @ 11:53AM
Spring said...Damned if you do, damned if you don't. If you play with your kids at the park you are hovering, not letting them learn social skills with their peers and overprotective. If you don't play with them you are neglectful.
I guess we're expected to sit on the bench, not interact unless necessary, but alertly monitor the children. I'll write that on my Perfect Parent To Do list.
Reply
1-24-2006 @ 1:04PM
mamaloo said...That's not what I said. But if you want to act like an areshole, if that's on your Perfect Commenter To Do list, be my guest.
Play with your kids when you want to. I don't care. Hovering parents and playing parents are two different things. And hovering, something discussed here within the last six months, is stifling whether you are 2, 6, 16 or 36.
Reply
1-24-2006 @ 1:29PM
charlene said...guys, this post is not about hovering or being neglectful of your kids. i ask if playing with your younger kids at the park is a thing of the past thanks to technology: cell phones and laptops.
it's about very young children who I've seen ignored or brushed off by their parents so that mom or dad can work on a laptop or chat on a cell phone. my thought here is that if a parent brings a child to the park, shouldn't mom or dad be *available* to them - in other words, at least be responsive to them when they want you...especially if they don't have anyone to play with and are too young to really know how to interact socially or be indepenent. seriously, what's the point of bringing your kid to the park and working on your laptop if your son is going to hang on you waiting for you to be done - and then when you ARE done you just pack up and go home instead of playing with him for a bit. it's not neglectful, it's not bad parenting. but it's something that just doesn't make sense to me. i don't know - maybe you've never witnessed a kid get brushed off by his mom or dad at that park in the ways that i have because of these things. you're right, i don't know what the individual situations are - but it doesn't make it any easier to see a young child sad because a parent is too busy - at the park - to play.
Reply
1-24-2006 @ 11:46PM
Spring said...mamaloo, it wasn't directed at you and I don't even know what you initially posted. It was commenting on the range of comments on the topic and that everyone parents differently and will judge others by those standards and you're never going to be able to get it 'right' by everyone.
Reply
1-29-2006 @ 1:33PM
Jerri Ann Reason said...My kids are still young enough that they require quite a bit of supervision but we don't play with them all the time. I have a friend who actually went to the kid's bedroom during a birthday party with her children and left the rest of the adults so that she could "play" with her kids. WTF? Kids with other kids don't want or need adults to play with, do they? And, at the park, the same goes, if they are old enough to play on the equipment alone or with other kids, I am not about to stand and hover. I think it is just plain unhealthy for everyone involved.
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