When in the company of families in public, I often get the impression that parents react differently to being addressed by their children than to being addressed by their partners or other adults:
Adult1: Firstname?
Adult2: Yes?
Adult1: (voices question, request, etc)
but:
Child: Mommy?
Parent: -
Child Mommy?
Parent: -
Child: Mommy?
Parent: -
Child: MOMMY!
Parent: Yes?
Child: (voices question, request, “look-what-I-can-do”, etc)
What’s the take of parents to this?
I can think of
- this is not in fact a valid observation.
- parents need to tune out their children, to some extent, absent a true emergency, to keep their sanity
- parents do this in order to condition their children to not automatically expect immediate attention the moment they want it.