The Unspoken Social Contract of Parenting in Public
Being a parent means constantly adjusting your expectations. We all learn this lesson, usually within the first few weeks of bringing a newborn home. But just when you think you've got a handle on the fluid, unpredictable nature of parenting, a toddler enters the scene, ready to dismantle any semblance of predictability you might have optimistically built.
Earlier today, my husband and I decided to tempt fate. Our daughter, overtired and finally asleep in the car after a fun-filled morning at a play cafe, presented a golden, albeit fleeting, window of opportunity. We decided on an all-you-can-eat sushi dinner. Our plan: she'd stay asleep for most of the meal, then wake up hungry and happily munch on some edamame and gyoza with us.
Oh, how quickly reality reminded us who was truly in charge.
The moment we were seated, she jolted awake and unleashed a guttural, bloodcurdling scream that echoed through the restaurant. Overtired, overstimulated, and decidedly not happy, she was inconsolable. As I wrestled with the delicate dance of soothing a howling toddler while simultaneously feeling the weight of every eye in the room, I noticed her. The woman at the table next to us. Her glares were so potent, it was clear their function was escape – her blatant attempt to get her environment to change, to stop the noise she clearly found aversive. Each pointed look felt like a direct query: "How dare you disturb my peaceful dinner with your uncontained child?"
Frankly, it made me even more overstimulated. As a BCBA, I know the importance of co-regulation, but in that moment, all I wanted to do was yell back. My husband, bless his calm demeanor, offered our own escape route: "Do you just want to pay for what we've started and leave?" But the thought of giving in, of reinforcing that woman's judgmental glares, fueled a stubborn defiance within me. I refused to let her win.
Eventually, through sheer perseverance (and perhaps a bit of toddler exhaustion), we managed to calm her down. She fell asleep again in my arms, and my husband and I quietly finished our meal. It wasn't the relaxing, romantic sushi dinner we’d envisioned, but then again, what ever goes exactly as planned with a toddler in tow?
This whole experience brought to mind a post I'd seen recently, highlighting a glaring double standard in how society views parents. On one hand, you have the "experts" (often childless or with grown children who conveniently forget the realities of toddlerhood) who vehemently shame parents for handing their kids an iPad in public. They decry screen time and the perceived lack of engagement. Yet, these very same people are often the ones who offer the most scathing looks when a toddler has a perfectly developmentally appropriate tantrum in the grocery store or, as in my case, struggles to regulate in a restaurant.
It begs the question: If we, as a society, cannot normalize and tolerate developmentally appropriate toddler behavior – the meltdowns, the endless energy, the less-than-perfect restaurant visits – then what choice are we leaving parents? If the only acceptable public appearance for a toddler is one where they are silently compliant and perfectly still, then are we not, in effect, functionally reinforcing the use of screens?
Children are not miniature adults. Their brains are still developing, their executive functioning skills are nascent, and their ability to regulate emotions is a work in progress. Expecting a two-year-old to sit quietly for an hour in a restaurant, or to calmly accept not getting that candy bar in the checkout aisle, is simply unrealistic. These behaviors aren't signs of "bad parenting"; they are normal, often unavoidable manifestations of a child learning about their world and their place in it.
So, next time you see a parent struggling with a wiggly, vocal, or even screaming toddler in public, instead of casting a judgmental glance, try offering a nod of solidarity, a kind smile, or even just ignoring it. Because if we truly want to see fewer screens and more engaged children in public spaces, we need to create a society that tolerates and understands the messy, beautiful, and sometimes very loud journey of childhood. We need to shift the very motivating operations that drive parents to resort to screens. We need to move from a culture where avoiding judgment and intolerance is such a powerful driver for parental behavior, towards one where empathy and understanding are the prevailing conditions. Otherwise, the iPad will continue to be a parent's most reliable positive reinforcer in a world that demands unrealistic behavioral compliance from its smallest citizens.
