If People Want Kids On Screens Less, We All Have To Learn To Tolerate Kid Behavior
You have to pick one.
If you are a parent, I don’t have to tell you that going to restaurants with a child under the age of 6 is a Catch-22. If you insist that they participate in the dining experience as an adult would — sitting still, no screens — they’re inevitably going to fail at least a little (because children are not adults) and you’re going to get dirty looks from fellow diners. If you placate them with a screen to keep them settled and quiet, you’re also going to get dirty looks from fellow diners. There’s no winning.
It seems to be something that’s also a source of irritation for new mom and TikTok creator Jordan Simone , who offers advice not to parents but to those who find themselves irritated by children’s apparent “addiction to screens”: “If you all want to see fewer iPad babies, you are going to have to increase your tolerance for childish nonsense outside in the world.”
“If you don’t want to see little kids, toddlers on their iPads at dinner then you’re going to have to accept the fact that, for a while, they’re going to be loud, obnoxious, even disruptive to what you at a separate table are up to,” she explains.
“And I know, y’all are going to be like ‘Kids should learn how to act in public before you take them out in public,’” she continues. “But kids can’t learn how to behave in public unless they’re in public getting those experiences. And that learning curve is going to be inconvenient and uncomfortable for you.”
Honestly, the fact that this is something that needs to be said is as baffling as it is infuriating. Like, imagine any other situation where you were expected to master a skill without having done it in the first place. “You shouldn’t drive a car until you learn how to drive a car!” “You shouldn’t play the violin until you know how to play violin!” What an absurd thing to say.
And before anyone hits me with a “Well actually...”: learning how to behave at your own dinner table is entirely different than being equipped to do it in public. It’s an entirely different situation with a thousand variables that can throw even a well-behaved child not used to it off their game. You want a kid to know how to handle it, you need to give them some grace.
There are reasons people give their kids iPads at a restaurant. Maybe they need a moment of peace so they can eat. Other parents hand them a device to head off the dirty looks they’ll get from other diners if their child kicks up.
“If every single time your baby cries or screams or laughs too loud somebody glares at you and says ‘You should have left your kid at home if they don’t know how to behave,’ you’re going to do everything in your power to get them to be quiet and sometimes that’s just handing them an electronic,” Simone continues. “And I’m not saying that’s a good thing: I’m just saying that’s the reality of the situation. ... We will continue to see more iPad babies as long as parents are shamed for letting their kids behave like regular kids in public.”
So the next time you’re out to dinner and you see an iPad kid and it annoys you, stop and ask yourself if you’re creating a situation where parents don’t feel like they need one.
