I get it, Two Many Cats. I have never been around small children much, and am hypersensitive to sudden, loud, high-pitched sounds. Joyful sounds can be just as jarring to the nervous system as unhappy ones, especially if you’ve had a bad day.
But I also understand that kids need times and places to be kids, and in urban areas, they are hard to come by. Out in the country, when I was growing up, we could run around and make noise outdoors, and be kids, so it was easier to be quiet indoors. Also, our parents never took us out to restaurants while we were infants or toddlers, probably not before we were 8 years or older, and could behave in public. Even the local ice cream parlor…that was a special treat place, and we were required to behave well inside. As opposed to a drive-up ice cream stand, where you didn’t have to behave.
Nowadays, in urban areas, kids have to grow up in public and express themselves in public. Ice cream joints and Chuck E. Cheese and children’s movies and children’s museums and playgrounds are those places where kids can run around and shriek and be kids. I stay away from those places… Given your name, I assume you are fond of cats. Think of yourself as being like a cat, whose finely-tuned senses make it difficult to be around unpredictable sources of loud noise. Like a cat, choose your locations carefully, and have an escape route planned, and another source of comfort in mind when your first choice is neutralized.
Like others, it seems to me the child wanted attention from her father, and he was not willing to give it. It happens.
Not to pile on, but I am particularly sympathetic to the dad in situation.
My daughter is 5 years old and wonderful in every way, but she’s also needy. She has a speech delay and that has, unfortunately, trained her that, if we don’t respond the first time, saying the same thing again and louder will often do the trick. She also doesn’t have the best gauge of what is an appropriate volume level because of her sensory issues. This works in our favor most of the time because she is usually whispering but she’ll swing the other way too.
I can imagine the day for the dad went something like this. He started his day at 6 am, when his daughter woke up. Children don’t always sleep in on weekends. They had breakfast and his child talked non-stop, even while eating. She told him everything that was happening, how much she enjoyed breakfast, her hopes and dreams, what her imaginary friend was doing, etc. while he listened and engaged intently. They ran their errands and she behaved nicely (while still talking) so Dad decided she deserved some ice cream. Also, at this point, Dad is really craving some conversation that is not about what his daughter’s imaginary friend was doing. So he let her have her ice cream while he got some of the human interaction he needed.
Should he have handled it better? Maybe. But guess what, ain’t none of us perfect and we are all just trying our best.
Regardless, I’m sorry you had a bad time. I’m not sure what would have made it better for you. It is the unfortunate side effect of going out in public where there are other people.
I completely get that there are places where kids are welcome / expected to be loud but I’m not sure why an ice cream parlor is one of them (especially an upscale one). Why, because kids like ice cream so the shop automatically becomes their domain? :dubious:
What that article points out is that young children (babies, even) can use rudimentary process of elimination. It’s not a totally new discovery, as Piaget was aware that babies and infants could differentiate between themselves and other babies, but it’s a far cry from full-on logical analysis. To imply that your own children could somehow demonstrate abstract thinking at age two borders on ridiculous (no offense intended). I would suspect that you’ve experienced a degree of confirmation bias in dealing with your own children.
I can understand Two Many Cats’ frustration. There’s a certain pitch that some young children reach that stabs at my poor eardrums. Sometimes it actually makes me flinch.
I always hope the parents don’t notice and think I’m judging them because I really try not to, especially when the kid is happy. And when the kid isn’t happy, I think about how the parents probably don’t need the extra stress of knowing the child is bothering other people.
What helps me a lot is remembering, “This too shall pass.” In a few minutes or half hour the family and I will have parted ways and that will be that.
It’s the same thing I think when I’m in bed and a car pulls up to the convenience store next door with their super loud muffler. ground thumper, house-shaking vibrating thingy or good old-fashioned music that can be heard for blocks around. Thankfully, they don’t seem to find the parking lot conducive to hanging around for long so they’re on their way in five or, at most, ten minutes.
I used to work with a man whose first child had something that went way beyond colic; his longest crying session lasted - this is not a typo - FORTY HOURS. One and a half days, plus 4 hours, with no letup. My co-worker said his mother said he and his brother were the same way, and his grandparents said that his father, who died before my co-worker had his kids, was the same way.
It turned out the baby had very severe reflux, as his father, grandfather, and uncle probably also did, and medication relieved it to some degree. It also solved the projectile vomiting that he experienced with every feeding.
And it must not have been THAT bad, because they later had 3 more kids, all of them planned. :eek:
I found out about all this when he was looking at the ER roster, and there was a newborn whose visit reason was “Won’t stop crying.” He pshawed this, and explained why. I replied that maybe whatever that baby was doing was NOT normal for it, and that’s why the parent(s) brought it in.
I, too don’t mind children periodically shrieking with pleasure, and the situation between the little girl and her father was nobody else’s business. It sounded like he had some kind of meeting that needed to be done in a public place, and he didn’t have anyone else to watch the child. Whenever I see really truly horribly behaved kids, which is not often, the parents are almost always acting worse than the kids.
I didn’t say anstract thinking, nor did I try or intend to try to imply abstract thinking by toddlers. Thats the failure of adults I referenced. We, as adults, are so accustomed to having to think and act in complex ways that we often “stumble” when confronted by the simpler, less developed logic of children.
Also, perhaps something was lost in translation from thought to electron to pixel, a widely commented limitation of the medium of communication, but there was meant to be a bit of “this is ridiculous” humor in my post. As I said, the medium jas some failings, I may have been to subtle with it.
“colic” basically means, “the baby cries, you can’t figure out why, but the doctor says the kids is healthy and you shouldn’t worry”.
Is there some underlying medical reason? Probably. But if you can neither diagnose it nor treat it, and if the kid will grow out of it, then you just chalk it up to “the baby is crying because”. It’s pretty stressful for all concerned, though.
I swear, at some point, something broke in me. Maybe it was having my own kids. But, I go out to eat ALL THE TIME. Always once, often twice, sometimes 3 times a day. You know what? If there are screaming kids, I don’t notice them, ever. Like I can’t remember a time in the last 20 years where I noticed and was subsequently annoyed by a screaming child. Maybe it’s my superpower. Maybe I should have studies done on me with hopefully minimal dissection so the can come up with a miracle drug.
I think the fact that I had babies makes me hyper aware of babies crying in places of business. It’s the Mom thing. If I’m walking through a store and I hear a kid say Mama or Mom I naturally look toward the voice. If I hear distressed crying baby I begin to get anxious. I want to help the distressed infant. A laughing child, being goodnatured and happy is ok with me. But, I do notice.
Interesting how those minding their own business and minimizing the annoyance for others are supposed to be ‘empathetic’ for those that can’t quite seem to be able to do the same simple actions. Any yet we are the narcissists for not calling attention to ourselves! heh.
Exactly. Being called a possible narcissist by people I respect on my favorite Message Board did, I admit, particularly hurt my feelings, much more than the screaming did. I truly don’t know what I could’ve done differently to alleviate this situation other than not posting this thread to let others know how I felt.
Letting someone know how I feel is always a bad idea in my world.
I wouldn’t take it too seriously. It happens to all of us, yanno?
I do have to ask though, what did you expect to happen?
It’s almost a trope around here that the boards skew older. How you could not know that many of us are parents or at least guess that, I don’t know. Finally, have you never realized what a pack of circling sharks we all are? You jumped in “flailing and bleeding” like an injured sea lion.
Don’t be so disingenuous. Narcissism is an attitude that may or may not be expressed outwardly. But what would you call it when you go out into the world and expect everyone to comport themselves according to your mood? Kid was enjoying her ice cream, dad wasn’t stuffing socks in her mouth to keep the silent stranger happy. But in case you are genuinely bemused, yes: minimizing unintentional annoyance begins with a look inward before you go imposing your will on the nondestructive behaviors of others.