# Parent Dopers: What Advice Do You Have for non-Parents? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 22, 2013, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parent-dopers-what-advice-do-you-have-for-non-parents/671937 "2013-10-22T16:19:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![AnaMen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dfb087/32.png) [@AnaMen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AnaMen)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parent-dopers-what-advice-do-you-have-for-non-parents/671937/21 "2013-10-22T19:11:38Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > Well, you just have to deal with them for a little bit. They have to put up with that shit ALL THE TIME. No, WE have to deal with them BECAUSE their parents do put up with it. Repeating that your child should do something over and over just trains the child to ignore you and that there are no consequences to its actions. Teaching a child to behave in your own presence is hardly rocket science. ---
**Author:** ![AnaMen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dfb087/32.png) [@AnaMen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AnaMen)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parent-dopers-what-advice-do-you-have-for-non-parents/671937/22 "2013-10-22T19:24:40Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Nonsense. My wife and I had several meals with our first daughter where only one of us got to eat at a time, because the other one was walking the fussy kid outside so other diners wouldn’t be disturbed, and even more meals where we walked the fussy kid outside until the food came, because until she had food in her she couldn’t behave. And even more meals eaten at home because we reserved restaurant meals for rare treats or road food. And no meals (except date nights) at restaurants where dogs weren’t allowed, because that was our rule-of-thumb about whether a baby could even be risked in the place. > > These days we have two kids, and we don’t eat at restaurants that lack outside seating, plus we do the “walk the fussy kid away from the restaurant” thing as much as necessary. Diners don’t get to be disturbed by our kid, because we don’t let them be. > > Parents still set high expectations for their children. And your kids probably weren’t as well-behaved as the gentle mists of memory make them appear. Things weren’t better in your day, and today’s kids/parents/whippersnappers don’t need to get off your lawn. If you remove your offending kids great, but most people now just don’t. My child was very easygoing and I did not have to deal with any tantrums or screamy fits. She was expected to behave with manners, so she cheerfully complied. Of course today’s children don’t have to get off my lawn, as now they are never allowed out unescorted, so they’d never be there in the first place. They are now tucked “safely” inside their houses or at their supervised activities. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parent-dopers-what-advice-do-you-have-for-non-parents/671937/23 "2013-10-22T19:41:27Z")
> [@AnaMen](#): > > No, WE have to deal with them BECAUSE their parents do put up with it. Repeating that your child should do something over and over just trains the child to ignore you and that there are no consequences to its actions. Teaching a child to behave in your own presence is hardly rocket science. Keep in mind, toddlers aren’t rational little adults in small bodies; they can barely walk correctly, and only speak in 2 word sentences like Tarzan or something. That’s not to let cruddy parents off the hook, but sometimes the best kids throw fits, and the best parents can’t always get them out of the restaurant before they go nuclear. I’ve spent big pieces of many meals outside at restaurants, but we’ve also shut down plenty of tantrums before they got really going as well. I’m sure plenty of people would just bitch that the kid made any noise at all, or flung food even if the parents jumped all over the child right away. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parent-dopers-what-advice-do-you-have-for-non-parents/671937/24 "2013-10-22T19:44:42Z")
> [@AnaMen](#): > > Of course today’s children don’t have to get off my lawn, as now they are never allowed out unescorted, so they’d never be there in the first place. They are now tucked “safely” inside their houses or at their supervised activities. You definitely don’t live in my neighborhood! I see kids out running around all the time. ---
**Author:** ![AnaMen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dfb087/32.png) [@AnaMen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AnaMen)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parent-dopers-what-advice-do-you-have-for-non-parents/671937/25 "2013-10-22T19:49:56Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > You definitely don’t live in my neighborhood! I see kids out running around all the time. Good, most people I know won’t even let an eleven-year-old walk to the corner store alone and cluck about the “bad parents” who let their children ride the school bus. ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parent-dopers-what-advice-do-you-have-for-non-parents/671937/26 "2013-10-22T20:15:08Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > I’m not a parent, but MOL said something to me in a thread once that resonated with me. You think those parents over there have horrible kids? They scream, and yell, and kick everything? They are enormously energetic? > > Well, you just have to deal with them for a little bit. They have to put up with that shit ALL THE TIME. I said this? It’s getting harder to keep track of what I say these days. > [@Ulfreida](#): > > If you are watching some mom lugging a baby carrier with a sobbing baby in it, trying to empty her shopping cart while her toddler is grabbing gum off the bottom shelf next to the cashier and she snaps at her kid? Try saying, “hey, can I help you unload your groceries? You look like you could use another set of hands.” Do it with a sympathetic smile. If you have the chops, distract the toddler cheerfully. > > When someone’s kid is being unpleasant, do not ever criticize the parent in any way no matter how subtle you think you are being. We already feel bad, okay? Nobody wants their kid to make a scene, and we know it is seen as a reflection on us. I will try to be more patient. I say this a lot and am obviously not very good at it, but I do try. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parent-dopers-what-advice-do-you-have-for-non-parents/671937/27 "2013-10-22T20:21:30Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > I’m not a parent, but MOL said something to me in a thread once that resonated with me. You think those parents over there have horrible kids? They scream, and yell, and kick everything? They are enormously energetic? > > Well, you just have to deal with them for a little bit. They have to put up with that shit ALL THE TIME. Well, they’ve also had the kid’s whole life to break that spirit out of them, and they’ve dropped the ball. I only have a brief window in which to correct their parenting, so I have to be decisive. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parent-dopers-what-advice-do-you-have-for-non-parents/671937/28 "2013-10-22T22:44:45Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > That makes sense. But that’s not at the point where I intervene. When the conversation is still happening, I don’t get involved, only when the kid is already scrunching his eyes up to cry or is already crying and we make eye contact. Sometimes I’ll make a funny face, or just smile, or say something silly, like “Look at this sad face! What a sad face!” > > Sometimes I have been able to confuse the kids into stopping crying! The only way to train the kid that tantrums don’t get them what they want is to not give in to the tantrum. By distracting the kid it’s circumventing the training process. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parent-dopers-what-advice-do-you-have-for-non-parents/671937/29 "2013-10-22T22:45:48Z")
> [@MeanOldLady](#): > > I said this? It’s getting harder to keep track of what I say these days. You remember you owe me five dollars, right? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parent-dopers-what-advice-do-you-have-for-non-parents/671937/30 "2013-10-22T23:14:43Z")
My advice for non-parents: **You have _no idea_ what parenthood is like.** You may think you do, but you don’t. Unless you’ve been put in a situation where you’ve had extended round-the-clock responsibility for someone else’s children (in which case you count as a honorary parent), you really don’t understand the long grind that parenthood involves. You don’t understand the compromises and frustrations and sacrifices and disappointments that it entails. When our kids were smaller my wife and I used to talk about The Parent Zone. It’s the constant flicker of interaction and accommodation that’s in effect whenever kids are around. You can tell who the other parents are in the room because they’re in The Parent Zone with you. They’re paying attention to a whole bunch of little things that the non-parents aren’t. They’re paying attention because they’ve been conditioned to pay attention, because an unhappy baby makes damn sure you pay attention no matter what else you’d rather be doing. Sometimes I’d whisper to my wife “I see childless people” like I was the little kid in The Sixth Sense. People outside The Parent Zone had a sort of shimmery etherealness, like they were on a different plane of reality. I could remember what life was like outside The Parent Zone. And I could remember thinking that I had a pretty good idea of what life would be like once I had kids. I could remember making plans about the sort of father I wanted to be. Then my son was born and all that went out the window … . ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parent-dopers-what-advice-do-you-have-for-non-parents/671937/31 "2013-10-22T23:26:36Z")
A method that has circumvented many meltdowns for me is empathy. Yes, empathy. Not pandering, not propitiation or bribery. Very, very different, and many people who did not experience empathy as children (which includes me) have an enormously difficult time seeing that. Say a kid wants a candy bar, but it’s dinner time and his mom has no intention of letting him have one. She could lecture him about empty calories, she could pull out the “because I said so” line, she could slap him, she could hand him a candy bar with a sour face, or she could say, wow, a candy bar sounds really good to me too, there’s nothing like a candy bar sometimes, huh? I wish I could let you have one right now, but I can’t, because I want to be a good mom and help you eat right. So since you can’t have one right now, let’s decide a good time for when you can. Okay? This may not work with some overtired, hungry, stressed out kids, especially if they aren’t used to being treated with understanding. They may wail anyway. But I have seen miracles with empathy. You can’t use empathy as a manipulation tool, you have to really offer compassion – you can’t be attached to an outcome. Compassion isn’t a mushy sentimental thing, it’s a difficult practice which requires you to be vulnerable and strong at the same time. One of the things that is so wonderful about kids is that they see what is genuine and respond to it much more easily and simply than adults do. I find a lot of what adults do to children very painful to watch. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2013, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parent-dopers-what-advice-do-you-have-for-non-parents/671937/32 "2013-10-23T02:49:09Z")
Don’t say: “S/He’s like a little person!” You just look stupid for calling a little person “like a little person.” ## (Got that a lot with our 2yo.) Don’t have kids until you’re ready. And even then you’re not ready. * * * Sorry, but you really don’t know what being a parent is like just because you watched your sisters kid for 2 years. I played at playing the guitar for a period in my life, but at no time would I have ever told, say, Eric Clapton that I play the guitar. Like soul-crushing poverty, natural disasters, and sex, parenthood has to be experienced to be understood. * * * At one time in your life, _you were just like this_, a great, big, loud, demanding Id. So, chill. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2013, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parent-dopers-what-advice-do-you-have-for-non-parents/671937/33 "2013-10-23T02:58:51Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > I would try and resolve the problem by scaring the shit out of the kid. Presumably they already know their parents won’t slap them silly, but how about a strange adult with an enraged look on his face and maybe a clenched fist too? Well, you’re getting a lot of grief on this (a clinched fist? Really?), but I’ve pulled the “Dad” routine on some kids to great effect… get a stern look on your face, drop your voice an octave or two and start with "Young man! Do not… " Works very well, but it’s a power I use sparingly… and only for good, never for evil. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2013, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parent-dopers-what-advice-do-you-have-for-non-parents/671937/34 "2013-10-23T05:55:08Z")
> [@bump](#): > > … what advice we parent Dopers might give non-parent Dopers about kids / parents /etc…? Enjoy the fact that you have never made a mistake parenting. Because the minute you have kids your record starts to go downhill. ---
**Author:** ![Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sophistry_and_Illusion)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2013, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parent-dopers-what-advice-do-you-have-for-non-parents/671937/35 "2013-10-23T08:13:58Z")
> [@Sattua](#): > > Don’t have kids unless you’re absolutely sure you want them. Then, don’t have 'em before you’re 30. I third this. I wonder how many people have kids because that’s what you do–you get married and you have kids. But having kids is insane hard work, much of it mind-numbingly boring. And it goes on for YEARS. And of course you love them, but it’s still a tough row to hoe. (I love Daniel Gilbert’s work showing that although marriage is correlated with an increase in happiness, having kids is correlated with a decline in happiness, which becomes more pronounced during the teen years; couples’ happiness doesn’t recover until the kids leave home.) ---
**Author:** ![pullin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c57346/32.png) [@pullin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pullin)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2013, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parent-dopers-what-advice-do-you-have-for-non-parents/671937/36 "2013-10-23T09:53:45Z")
I’m long past this stage (mine are grown and gone), but I’d like to add one. If you saw my kids rampaging thru the displays at the checkout lane, I’m not a bad parent… I’ve just reached a tipping point. In a lot of stores, management purposefully arranges a lot of “kid bait” products in the checkout aisles. It’s cleverly aligned so stuff appealing to the very young is right at cart-seat height, and that appealing to toddlers/walkers is presented lower within their reach. This \*guarantees \*a battle of wills between exhausted parents and kids craving the various treats while we’re stuck in the checkout line (with no other options beyond leaving the store). I consider this a craven attempt to boost last-minute sales to my disadvantage. I decided I’d had enough of this and simply allowed my kids to ravage these displays. Most of the candy and toys would be played with, rummaged thru and left either on the floor or in total disarray. More than once I told store employees if they didn’t like it they could stop putting the damned candy right in front of the kids eyes at checkout. On a few occasions, a manager came over to grouse about it and each time I gave them a choice, pick it up after I’m gone, or I’ll leave now and you can return the grocery-cart full of goods to the shelves. You put it there, so my kids get to play with it. Sometimes there’s a reason we let them run wild. ---
**Author:** ![chela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chela/32/21582_2.png) [@chela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chela)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2013, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parent-dopers-what-advice-do-you-have-for-non-parents/671937/37 "2013-10-23T11:31:54Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > My advice for non-parents: > > **You have _no idea_ what parenthood is like.** You may think you do, but you don’t. > > Unless you’ve been put in a situation where you’ve had extended round-the-clock responsibility for someone else’s children (in which case you count as a honorary parent), you really don’t understand the long grind that parenthood involves. You don’t understand the compromises and frustrations and sacrifices and disappointments that it entails. > > When our kids were smaller my wife and I used to talk about The Parent Zone. It’s the constant flicker of interaction and accommodation that’s in effect whenever kids are around. You can tell who the other parents are in the room because they’re in The Parent Zone with you. They’re paying attention to a whole bunch of little things that the non-parents aren’t. They’re paying attention because they’ve been conditioned to pay attention, because an unhappy baby makes damn sure you pay attention no matter what else you’d rather be doing. > > Sometimes I’d whisper to my wife “I see childless people” like I was the little kid in The Sixth Sense. People outside The Parent Zone had a sort of shimmery etherealness, like they were on a different plane of reality. > > I could remember what life was like outside The Parent Zone. And I could remember thinking that I had a pretty good idea of what life would be like once I had kids. I could remember making plans about the sort of father I wanted to be. Then my son was born and all that went out the window … . The parent Zone is a great description of having that intuition, sixth sense spidey feeling, eyes in the back of your head, with multitasking, pre emptive, contingency ready skills to deal with young children. > [@Ulfreida](#): > > A method that has circumvented many meltdowns for me is empathy. Yes, empathy. Not pandering, not propitiation or bribery. Very, very different, and many people who did not experience empathy as children (which includes me) have an enormously difficult time seeing that. > > Say a kid wants a candy bar, but it’s dinner time and his mom has no intention of letting him have one. She could lecture him about empty calories, she could pull out the “because I said so” line, she could slap him, she could hand him a candy bar with a sour face, or she could say, wow, a candy bar sounds really good to me too, there’s nothing like a candy bar sometimes, huh? I wish I could let you have one right now, but I can’t, because I want to be a good mom and help you eat right. So since you can’t have one right now, let’s decide a good time for when you can. Okay? > > This may not work with some overtired, hungry, stressed out kids, especially if they aren’t used to being treated with understanding. They may wail anyway. But I have seen miracles with empathy. > > You can’t use empathy as a manipulation tool, you have to really offer compassion – you can’t be attached to an outcome. Compassion isn’t a mushy sentimental thing, it’s a difficult practice which requires you to be vulnerable and strong at the same time. One of the things that is so wonderful about kids is that they see what is genuine and respond to it much more easily and simply than adults do. > > I find a lot of what adults do to children very painful to watch. this is true too, a little empathy goes a long way, and sometimes a kid just wants to rant about life’s injustices, they don’t expect a quick fix, they just want to be heard, and they don’t neccessarily want your opinion about it either (teenagers oyvey) ---
**Author:** ![Sparky812](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Sparky812](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sparky812)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2013, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parent-dopers-what-advice-do-you-have-for-non-parents/671937/38 "2013-10-23T11:57:18Z")
> [@AnaMen](#): > > I’m a parent, but my child is an adult. I snuck her in right before being an insane hypervigilant helicopter became the gold standard of parenting. > My advice to non-parents is this: today’s children rule the roost. While a non-parent may see a tot squealing and flinging food at the Olive Garden as a disturbance that should be quieted or removed, a parent only sees other people’s children this way. They believe that the fact that their child is disturbing others is not a call to action on their part and that they are entitled to be anywhere “family-friendly” they please with the angry mini-tyrant, as if no one under twelve can ever keep themselves under control and behave themselves in a manner that is not disruptive to others. Anyone that does not “understand” that their child simply must kick things, scream, cry, and carry on at the expense of others is a jerk, not their precious princeling and certainly not them. > When I was a child back in the dark ages, parents had all sorts of remedies for these behaviors. None of them involved appealing to the child’s sense of reason and decency, because back then, it was nearly universally recognized that we are not born with such things. > Once someone has been enslaved by a child, the person you used to know is gone, replaced by someone who thinks even a stranger scowling at their screaming brat is in the wrong. If they didn’t want to pick half-chewed fries out of their hair, what were they doing at Chili’s anyway? Bullshit, while this may be true in your limited experience, it is is no way an accurate depiction of all parents everywhere. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2013, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parent-dopers-what-advice-do-you-have-for-non-parents/671937/39 "2013-10-23T12:29:56Z")
Get a dog, or tropical fish instead. Parakeets are nice. Just no cats. ---
**Author:** ![AnaMen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dfb087/32.png) [@AnaMen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AnaMen)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2013, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parent-dopers-what-advice-do-you-have-for-non-parents/671937/40 "2013-10-23T12:43:51Z")
> [@Sparky812](#): > > Bullshit, while this may be true in your limited experience, it is is no way an accurate depiction of all parents everywhere. Of course it’s not all parents everywhere. What is? I am referring to the United States, for the most part, though I’ve seen it happening in other countries as well. What used to be fringe behavior has become normal. There are still plenty of people outside the norm, as hopefully there always will be. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parent-dopers-what-advice-do-you-have-for-non-parents/671937.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parent-dopers-what-advice-do-you-have-for-non-parents/671937.md?page=3)