Heather Christena Schmidt

COME ON YOU GUYS.

I was on Facebook yesterday, and I saw an article shared by Parents magazine, both in the newsfeed and the stories (so you know this is – like – a real clickbait one for them). It read:

“Day Care’s Note to Parents to ‘Get off Your Phone’ Goes Viral.”

In my head, I immediately thought the follow up sentence: “Sanctimonious parents everywhere rejoice.”

Now, in spite of the fact that the article was originally posted on Parents, and then picked up by its syndicates, back in January of 2017 – over two years ago, making it not exactly “news” – it seems that the sanctimonious parents of the Internet were just waiting on bated breath for something like this to enrage and empower them all over again.

Which they did. Comment after comment, and share after share among my personal Facebook “friends” list, proved exactly what I said about you fucking people years ago: ya’ll are overly critical assholes lacking the most basic of understanding and compassion.

Honestly! When are you people going to learn?!

This all started years ago, when some bullshit open letter went viral, titled something along the lines of “Dear Mom at the Park on her iPhone” (I will not do it justice by searching it out now for the exact title, again). It was a long, judgment-laden diddy about how the mom at the park on her iPhone was ignoring the most precious stages of childhood. That the mom’s daughter wanted nothing but for Mommy to watch her go down the slide, or to push her on the swing, and this mother, this terrible being, was sitting on her phone instead. Horror! Shame! Shock! “Why even have kids if you…?!:”

[Long, audible groan]

This note to parents at the daycare pick up is just more of the same. Your precious little gems are waiting, big eyed and excited, for you to pick them up from childcare, like puppies. And you have the nerve to be looking at your phone, instead of their precious and adoring faces?! Well this is clearly the way you manage literally every other minute of interaction with your kids. “It is appalling.”

Okay, Debra. Would you like to know what I think is appalling?

I think judging a book by its cover is incredibly appalling.

Judging a parent by a 2 minute interaction with them is worse.

I think that assuming a parent’s career or job, that pays for that expensive daycare whose drop off and pick up hours are probably completely unreasonable as compared to a world that no longer has the basic 9-5 day job, is appalling.

I think that assuming a parent can just leave work in 2019 to conform to those daycare hours, assuming that those parents don’t have remaining calls or emails to attend to that allow them to maintain that job and pay those daycare costs is appalling.

I mean, the note even makes that claim: “when work is completed.” Again, Debra: get the fuck off your high horse. This isn’t 1950. Very few employees anywhere will tell you that when they leave the office, the work is done.

I think it is appalling to be so ignorant so as to assume all parents stare at their phones instead of their kids for an insidious or irrelevant reason. There are a ton of reasons why a parent may choose to look at their phone over their kid(s).

Maybe they have social anxiety and are trying to not spread it to their kids with nervous and socially awkward behavior.

Maybe they recently lost a loved one, and are trying to hold it together in the face of their children.

Maybe their phone is down literally every other minute of every day, and that is actually the only time they take a break.

Fuck if I know why a parent chooses a cellphone over greeting their child at the daycare, or watching little Susie go down the slide at the public park for the 5,985th time this week…I just think it’s appalling to tell other people that they are wrong for not running their parenting show the way that they want to.

I get it: technology addiction is a real problem. I’m pretty certain my husband is addicted to his technology. He spends upwards of 8-12 hours on weekend days sitting on his cellphone. I know there are a lot of parents out there just staring at social media or mindless articles about Kylie Jenner’s latest perfume line. I get it.

But that isn’t to say that everyone looking at their phones isn’t working their own shit out in their own way. Mom at the park could also be Mom sitting in on a conference call. At least she got the kid to the park, even if she had to work while sitting there – right? Parent at the daycare pick up is always on his phone, but couldn’t he feasibly also have some similarly justifiable reason to be on his phone?

And I’m a Stay At Home Mom. If anyone should be enraged by parent at the daycare on their cellphone, it’s me – right?

I don’t know, it just really annoys me that really stupid, divisive, and judgmental things make the rounds on the Internet and daily conversation; when other, amazing and cool things go largely unnoticed. Artwork, poetry, amazing essays, all ignored for the latest viral post going further viral by way of an article announcing its status as such.

In the comments section of that Parent’s article, someone said “it’s a refreshing reminder,” and I think I agree, though probably not in the way the commenter meant. The article may be two years old, but it is a reminder that we still live in a time in which everyone is ready and waiting to criticize others for the way they live their lives, including and especially how they parent.

Honestly.