Good parents = kids not 100% glued to phones/tablets, social around friends and family, not throwing tantrums at 8-16 yrs old.
Bad parents = kids always throwing tantrums, kids basically always getting their way because they've learned parents will always give in, parents and kids 100% ignoring each other.
One set of friends - I go to visit, I play with their kids - we go out to dinner, we interact with both adults and kids
Another set of friends - I go to visit, they sent their kids to their room - we go out to dinner, they give the kids tablets and they're entirely ignored for the whole time.
Even if you compare to other parents, you are judging the reference-parents.
If you have data over time you can draw conclusions on things you want to try as a parent.
Everything you're observing is even more likely to occur if you don't see them that often. Your friends probably want to spend more time focusing on you. The kids are not that familiar with you and are less likely to engage with you. Which also makes the parents more likely to want to distract them with something else.
Whether or not you're bringing children with you matters too. It sounds like you don't because you're focusing on child-adult interactions. If someone has kids the kids run around and be kids with their loudness, and child-adult interactions are going to be much more likely. If you're not bringing kids in tow my kids are much more likely to just go off and do their own thing.
Much of what you're pointing out can also be down to individual child temperment. Which changes as children age. By your standards many parents turn into a bad parent once their kids become a teenager.
That is not to say that your observations are 100% wrong. But just that there's so many variables, most of which I didn't even mention here, makes trying to analyze your statement make my head spin.
Not to lean too much on anecdotes, but I have a friend who has extremely well behaved kids. He has said a couple times that he feels like he has placed too many adult responsibilities on his kids. Is he a good parent? Based upon outside observation, he seems good. But he seems to be questioning some of his own choices. Maybe that alone makes him a good parent? I don't know, who am I to judge?
Honestly the only certainty is that unless you have been 100 percent responsible for a very young child for more a few days, you have no idea what you are talking about. I don't mean that directed at you. Just my own generalisation based own experience and the opinion of every other parent I know.
Life as a parent is completely different than life before.
I saw a woman completely lose her shit in a museum with her kid. Before I became a parent I would have judged. But when it happened I just thought "poor woman, I know how it feels, just giving it her all and she's got nothing left to give right now, how many times have I felt like that, how many times have I failed to live up to my own ideals as a parent".
I'm beyond fortunate that she's fully into being a mother, calm, patient but knows where the boundaries are. And that's reflected into our kid. He's so incredibly easy to parent, it's insane.
I look at his friends - all good kids. Boisterous, outgoing, a bit wild and uncontrollable, but fundamentally good kids. They fight with their siblings, and they're learning how to navigate the world.
And then I go shopping. We live in lower socio-econimic area, and it's genuinely just saddening to see what goes on. The number of parents that are actively, in public, swearing out their kids and just having the kids stand there quietly shrinking away is heartbreaking.
I don't know what's going on in the parent's lives, and I know being a parent is immensely difficut, and none of us are equipped from the outset to really become one... but yelling at your kid for being a f*ck in the middle of a shopping center? I fail to see how any of that is OK because of 'circumstances'. At some point you have to grow up and be an adult. You put this kid here. You need to take responsibility. It doesn't mean it's easy, but if you can't self reflect enough to know that's not OK, then you're a big part of the reason the kid is how they are.
But sometimes there are legit behavioral issues that are extremely challenging, and are not the parent's fault. Sometimes what looks like a "tantrum" on the outside can actually be autistic overwhelm and meltdown, which can happen with even the best parents. Not to mention stuff like Intermittent Explosive Disorder.
All this to say...if you see a kid in public throwing a "tantrum", you still shouldn't judge the parents without knowing the full picture.
The first is an actual problem stemming from bad parenting and as a society we should indeed shame parents who raise spoiled kids who expect everything to be given to them.
Judging random people on the street isn't wise. Judge your friends and loved ones instead! :D
Parenting children is impossible, therefore all parenting lies on a spectrum from terrible to catastrophic, and it’s hard to know how you did until they grow up (if ever) because there’s a lot of sensitivity and subtle emotional stuff, especially at very young ages, which are the most important and the ones you remember the least. I’m certain there are screen-free parents who are worse for their kids than a good chunk of tablet-hander-outers
> Then I learned it’s easier not to judge at all.
A skill we should all cultivate, IMO. Life is happier when you do not waste it constantly judging.
My son has been actively involved with meal planning since he as a a year and a half old. "What type of bread today? What type of fruit in your yogurt tomorrow?"
I won't judge kid's behavior, so long as they are acting like kids. Sometimes that means they act out, that is normal.
But, damnit, let them live in the real world and not just try to distract them with shiny things all the time.
I remember going to restaurants in the 90s and early 2000s and kids would be running around playing with each other between tables. That is kids being kids, and it is perfectly acceptable (heck desirable!)
I've decided it's safer to just never judge, that parent you see pushing the toddler around in the cart might indeed be a terrible parent, or they might be going through grief and at their breaking point.
Agreed, I should have clarified that I'm speaking more about friends and family, people's whose situation can be spoken to directly.
I have friends with neurotypical kids who still hand the kids tablets at restaurants instead of actually teaching the kid how to take turns in a conversation, or how to actually go through a menu and order!
Like I get it, it is tiring, but we all signed for the work when we chose to have kids. (At least in my social circle where kids are very well planned for in advance).
On the other hand, no one has ever called the police on me for handing the kid a tablet and melting their brain inside.
When I was a kid either of those people would be practically thrown in a loony bin for saying anything, let alone taken serious by the authorities. Now the CPS investigates almost every accusation and is legally barred from even telling you who made it, so these anonymous shitstains can exercise their cowardice behind a curtain as much as they like with no risk to themselves but every risk to you.
It's difficult to let them live in the real world not because some evil guy with a white van is waiting to offer "free candy" but that the evil person in a white van is actually the Karen who sees a kid on the street or the park as an inconvenience for her or an unacceptable risk and they can be the coward they are and make an anonymous complaint and cause weeks of harassments by CPS with the cell phone they have next to them at the ready wherever they might see a child.
And this is why I pay an arm and a leg to live in Seattle.
Kids here are running around outside playing soccer in the streets with parents watching guard for cars at the ends of the block.
Mixed race is not even noteworthy here.
Kids walk to/from school (up to a mile) all the time. Huge groups of kids walk together every day.
You think that this is what kids are like. They sit there, they walk a little, they giggle on the playground, they look cute as all get out, etc.
Then you have kids and you know.
You know.
Those kids sitting there in the booth sipping on their milk quietly while mom and dad happily eat their lunch? Those are the top 5% most calm kids out there. The other 95% of kids are with their adults screaming and throwing fits and covered in who knows what.
Life lied to you. It did it directly to your face, unashamed. The bias is real.
It sounds like you always wanted kids. I don't say this to criticize - it's great that those who want to start families do so - but I don't think your experience is universal.
Plenty of truly bad parents shrug responsibility off by making the "technically correct" claim that all kids throw tantrums, therefore they're not a bad parent. They then proceed to provide an unstable environment to raise their kids and the tantrums don't end until well into adulthood.