I can’t get my head around a little kid asking adult guests to be quiet, when those adults are first of all, guests and secondly, adults.
Yep. Your chatter came up on the front page and distracted me from all the serious stuff. 
Just a question: are you talking loudly enough to disturb her show?
If you were watching a show and a buch of 4 year olds were talking, would you ask them to quiet down?
Whence the difference? The oldest person in the room is always deferred to? Why?
The adult is deferred to because the adult KNOWS ALL SORTS OF STUFF THAT IS USEFUL THAT A FOUR YEAR OLD DOESN’T KNOW.
An adult knows that one must be trained properly to know how to honor your guests, how to be a gracious host. An adult knows how to assign things for a child to do, give her a book to read, or a toy to play with. An adult knows how much tv or ice cream or cookies is too much and a four year old, if left to her own devices, will think that enough ice cream is ALLLL THE ICECREAMMMM!
An adult is in charge and the child learns to hone her reasoning skills and her manners and her logic to a point that she gets to sit at the grown up table, like A Nested Thorn referred to. It is our job as adults to help a kid get there.
Apparently.
Depends. Am I in their house, or are they in mine? Did I invite them over to visit? Did they bring me cookies?
This is the part I struggle with. I appreciate her being polite, and I appreciate that she’s graduated from yelling “IT’S TOO LOUD!” to asking politely. But at the same time, we’ve been invited over to their home for visit. We see them about once a month, and we want to catch up. We love the GD and love playing with her and interacting with her. But once she’s bored with us, that’s when it’s TV time, and time for the adults to be quiet. It just feels off to me.
I totally get that it’s “their house, their rules” though.
If there is a new baby, she probably needs some attention for herself instead of everybody going crazy over the newbie. Engage her in conversation, about the baby perhaps.
Yep, we were very careful to do all of the above. When we brought a gift for the newborn, we included a gift for GD as well, so she wouldn’t feel left out (a necklace that said “Big Sister” in a Disney Mouse bangle. She loves all things Disney). Talked with her about being a big sister, and what did she think of the new baby. She had some very strong opinions about the pooping and the barfing.
The confusing part to me is parking the kid in front of the TV AND insisting on being in the same room. I would ask the parents what they wanted out of this arrangement, because it seems like out of the 3 parties, 2 of them are losing one of which is the guest. If they stand firm, I’d probably excuse myself until they get their hippy dippy heads out of their hippy dippy asses.
Cesar Milan would whip that child right into shape.
"Listen kid, there’s a time and place when Spongebob Squarepants overrules everything else, but… This. Isn’t. It! Now you pipe down and let the adults speak, or else it’s no Spongebob for a month. "
Well, I think there is a nice way of stating it, but in essence: Yeah, exactly. And what’s wrong with that? There is a time and place for children’s activities to overrule all and when company is over is never that time (unless it’s for that child’s birthday, then I’d say their activities take precedence). Why shouldn’t a parent teach their children that and have consequences for not respecting that?
Yup. If the parents aren’t interested in letting you do something besides watch the goddaughter watch TV (like by moving to an adjacent room where she still knows you’re around), then you just say you’ll come back at a better time and head out. I wouldn’t touch a parental argument over discipline with a 10’ pole.
The OP reminds me of a great scene in a movie that I don’t remember the title of. A woman has let her daughter (around 8?) and friend each keep an item of her constume jewelry. Later, to her horror, the mother realizes that an heirloom was mistakenly with her costume jewelry, and this was the piece that her daughter’s friend kept. She goes to the daughter’s friend’s apartment and explains the situation to her parents. The daughter starts screaming, “No! It’s mine!”
The father tries to console the daughter, “Now, honey, I know you’re disappointed . . .” and other such mush.
After a few minutes of the father crooning and the daughter screaming “It’s mine!”, the mother finally mumbles, “Aren’t there any fucking adults around here?”, snatches the jewelry and leaves.
I have to agree with this to an extent - the parents have set up a rule that it is OK, even encouraged for her to watch TV when you’re over. And generally, it’s rude to talk in a room where someone is trying to watch TV.
If there are other rooms where she could watch TV and not be in your hair, I personally would tell my kid, “You can be in the living room with us and not watch TV, or you can go in the den and watch TV without anyone bothering you - choose.” By setting up the situation the way they have, the parents have created a situation where someone is going to be made to be unnecessarily uncomfortable - i.e., they’re being rude. But it’s not the kid’s fault, and I think she’s acting like a normal 4 year old.
So what we have here is
-
Child watching TV and adults talking. Child politely ask adults to quiet down.
Result: Child in the wrong. -
Adult watching TV and children talking. Adult politely asks children to quiet down.
Result: Children in the wrong.
That’s the problem, if the situation is reversed the child(ren) are always in the wrong. Why is that? Why is the same behavior that is right for the adult wrong for the child? It not alcohol, drugs, tobacco or sex that normally has an age-based criterium to morality.
It can’t be what others have said about teaching proper behavior as others have claimed because no matter what thebehaviors are, the adult is always right and the child is always wrong.
I think it’s more of a “I’m the goddamn adult and they are the punkass kid so I’m always in the fucking right!”
There isn’t really a parental argument per se. The husband’s position seems to be cater to his daughter’s every whim. Example: We are having dinner (in their kitchen, since they took all the furniture out of their dining room as GD wanted it as a “play space”). He and I are sitting directly opposite each other talking. GD sticks her hand directly in front of his face and says “WIPE!”. He immediately apologizes to her (interrupting me mid-sentence), and gets up to get a wetnap to wiper her hands.
Mom seems to want to enforce more discipline, but isn’t particularly consistent about it.
No, the problem here is the presence of guests. If I’m in my own home and my son is watching TV and I’m being too loud for him to hear, I would absolutely quiet down for him if he asked me politely. I’m not going to be rude to him because he’s a child; far from it.
Children aren’t always wrong, but they do require instruction. I don’t think anyone would argue with that. Children are apt to make noise and be impolite, and they have to learn to be quiet and polite before adulthood or they will have difficulties in society. Problem is, the OP really can’t say much because the parents are instructing as they see fit, and the OP believes the behavior is rude.
I’ll add that if I were at a friend’s house and an adult asked me to quiet down because they were watching TV, I would consider that rude as well. If an adult is so disengaged and antisocial as to ignore guests in his home, he should retire to a different room instead of admonishing a guest.
Okay, here is where the wheels fell off, I think. If mom says that it’s time to turn the TV off, that’s not the time to start begging to have it on again, and the parents shouldn’t cave in.
But what if your 4 year old daughter has guests (other 4 year olds) over and they are talking a little bit loudly. Would you ask nicely if they would quiet down?
Not at all. If I had a house full of 4 year olds, I would be a good host and offer them snacks, play games with them or set up games for them as needed, and tolerate the racket as best I could until they left 
Kids deserve to be rambunctious, just not when I have adult guests over and I’m trying to have conversation in the common room. I’d even welcome my children into the conversation if it was appropriate for his/her age.
Sorry for the double-post, but Saint Cad, if you meant that my 4 year old has guests at the same time that I have adult guests, the solution would be situational. For the sake of argument, though, I’d probably ask them to go to her bedroom and play so the adults could talk in the common room.
IMO, there is a logical fallacy in assuming adults and children deserve the same treatment at all times except in cases of age-based morality. Children expect and need to be guided by adults, and don’t bat an eyelash when even strangers tell them what to do; adults, on the other hand, don’t appreciate being bossed around, in general.