What is up with the parents hanging at the bus stop?

[Anonymous]

Maybe because some people feels it is a nice thing to see their kids off to school? Maybe some kids miss their parents while away at school for 9 hours a day and like a good-bye hug? Get over yourself and just do your own thing...go to the bus stop or stay home. No one cares, truly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are they all there? We just moved from PA and my kids take the bus to school. We live in a SFH neighborhood with no busy streets and multiple bus stops. I did a dry run of the stops to see which stop was the closest to us. Two are almost equal and both about 10 houses away. One off a corner, one the long way up our street. I walked my kids up the first day and was surprised that there were more parents at the stop than children. I mean like married couples with one kid. All just waiting for the bus. This was last week. Is this a thing in Maryland that parents have to sit at the bus stops with their kids? My kids are 3rd and 5th and this was their third year walking to the bus stop alone and this stop is even closer than our old homes. Will people judge me if I just send the kids? I mean they seem nice, but it is nonsense chatter and gossip and I work from home and the morning is my busiest. The kids don't want me walking them because they feel like they're babies and want to make friends. But literally every kid at the stop has 1-2 parents. Even the bus patrol kid who is an only child. She takes him in her car and then drives back home. Same for the afternoon. I am honestly flustered. This is really bizarre, isn't it?

Yes, in VA too, OP. And the waving as if the kids are going off to war! And the standing IN the middle of the street, blocking an entire lane of cars getting to and from work, 1/2 hour AFTER the bus has already picked up! WT actual F?

[Anonymous]

I'd rather have the hoard of standing parents at the bus stop vs. the hoard of minivans that congregate on rainy, cold, or snowy days.

Why ONE parent can't be designated the "holding" van instead of each kid needing their own van is beyond me (and then rotate it). The other morning when we had our first frost and it was in the 30s, 10 minivans were lined at the bus stop on each side, totally illegally parked as well, and made it so difficult to make a right or left out of our neighborhood.

[Anonymous]

Yes, it is bizarre. Also, these kids aren't learning basic things like how to walk down the street by themselves. Just another example of parents putting their own experience of being a parent above the needs of their children.

[Anonymous]

I walk my kids to the bus stop as do all the other parents at our stop. I like seeing my kids off in the morning and yes I enjoyed chatting with the other parents too. It might be either school culture or the general culture of the neighborhood to do so because every bus riding child I know has a parent who walks them and stays with them at the bus stop.

[Anonymous]

My kids don’t go to a public school that provides bus transportation but when I was little my mom did stay at the bus stop with me and so did all the other parents. I think they didn’t want us messing around at the stop and this was back a few years after when the Jaycee Dugard kidnapping happened so my mom said they were nervous to let us walk by ourselves. For some reason though, none of the parents waited in the afternoon though, unless their kid was in K, we’d all just run home.

[Anonymous]

The bus stop is how we met all of our neighbors when we moved. And how our dog got in some doggy socialization too before we left him home for the day. It was also a valuable source of information about school (after the kids all left), and even the locus of some neighborhood organizing on. My kid switched schools now and we all miss the bus stop!

[Anonymous]

I walk my kids in the morning but not the afternoon- 3rd and 5th grades. I like the morning walk, seeing them off, and chatting with the neighbors a bit.

Also some bus stops are closer to homes/safer walks than others. I can’t see ours from our house, and we live on a windy street with a blind corner, and without sidewalks (mountain area in AZ) and seeing wildlife is not unusual especially in the morning (rattlesnakes, bobcats, coyotes, javelina- have seen all of these multiple times on our morning walk to the bus stop). I didn’t let them walk home from the bus stop alone until last year when my youngest was in 2nd.

[Anonymous]

I would know far fewer people in my neighborhood if I didn't walk DCs to the bus stop in the morning. I'm not sure what deep and meaningful conversations OP is expecting at the bus stop. If you want to be a part of a community, then you should make small talk with your neighbors, which is probably going to be 'nonsense chatter and gossip.'

[Anonymous]

What's wrong with people wanting to spend 10 minutes chatting with their neighbor? In our neighborhood, it is totally a social thing. My kid goes to before care, but the few times that I've walked her to the bus stop, the parents have been standing around drinking coffee and chatting. I don't understand why you would be flustered by this? Just because people here do things differently than you did in your old city, doesn't mean there's anything wrong with it.

Your loss, really.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
You are flustered because you are not used to more involved parenting and feel you might be judged for continuing your perfectly legitimate parenting.

Don't criticize these parents for having the free time and desire to socialize. I am the only adult to stick around at the bus stop, and am the one who calls the bus depot when the bus is running late, so that I can reassure kids who start getting anxious.

I doubt you'll get judged, but it would be diplomatic to introduce yourself, or at least smile warmly and greet the adults. If you say you just moved here, they will welcome you. If you say your mornings are really busy, and that you will be sending your kids alone in the future, they will understand.

These types of little social issues can always be solved by COMMUNICATION.

Helicopter parents abound here OP. Example A.

Welcome from one PA person to another!

So true! I am from Connecticut and we sent our kids out to the the bus stop in the snow. See ya!! Here, all the parents actually drive their precious kids to the bus stop. Yes, they turn their car on, heat it up, drive up the street and idle their toxic fumes at the bus stop in front of the handful of actual walkers until the bus comes, and then turns their car back around and go home! Precious only has to be in the cold for 4.3 seconds that way.

OP, they actually close schools here if there are flurries or if it is too cold. Yes, just cold weather! It is insane. A whole new world of suffocating parents.
Find some transplant families like yourself. They are much more laid back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
You are flustered because you are not used to more involved parenting and feel you might be judged for continuing your perfectly legitimate parenting.

Don't criticize these parents for having the free time and desire to socialize. I am the only adult to stick around at the bus stop, and am the one who calls the bus depot when the bus is running late, so that I can reassure kids who start getting anxious.

I doubt you'll get judged, but it would be diplomatic to introduce yourself, or at least smile warmly and greet the adults. If you say you just moved here, they will welcome you. If you say your mornings are really busy, and that you will be sending your kids alone in the future, they will understand.

These types of little social issues can always be solved by COMMUNICATION.

Helicopter parents abound here OP. Example A.

Welcome from one PA person to another!

So true! I am from Connecticut and we sent our kids out to the the bus stop in the snow. See ya!! Here, all the parents actually drive their precious kids to the bus stop. Yes, they turn their car on, heat it up, drive up the street and idle their toxic fumes at the bus stop in front of the handful of actual walkers until the bus comes, and then turns their car back around and go home! Precious only has to be in the cold for 4.3 seconds that way.

OP, they actually close schools here if there are flurries or if it is too cold. Yes, just cold weather! It is insane. A whole new world of suffocating parents.
Find some transplant families like yourself. They are much more laid back.

Everyone is a transplant here, PP. Hate to break it to you, but you are not unique.

[Anonymous]

Agree it's a social thing. And, well, it's fun to send off or greet our kids! And to the poster who suggested these parents are helicopter parents whose kids won't learn to walk down the sidewalk by themselves...I don't think it necessarily follows that parents who walk their kids to the bus stop never give them freedom, etc. At least, that's not how it happens in our neighborhood (kids running around all the time unsupervised all the time - we feel ok with it because we know our neighbors!).

[Anonymous]

My kid doesn't ride the bus, but she walks with a few friends, and yes, we tend to socialize for a few minutes before starting the day. I work from home too.

I can't imagine being "flustered" by people socializing. I also can't imagine being so flustered by this that you feel the need to attempt to shame parents who want to see their kids off to school on a public message board.

I would be looking inward for the problem, OP. It's not that you don't take your kids to the bus stop that's the problem here. It's certainly not that others do. It's that you are a judgmental jerk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'd rather have the hoard of standing parents at the bus stop vs. the hoard of minivans that congregate on rainy, cold, or snowy days.

Why ONE parent can't be designated the "holding" van instead of each kid needing their own van is beyond me (and then rotate it). The other morning when we had our first frost and it was in the 30s, 10 minivans were lined at the bus stop on each side, totally illegally parked as well, and made it so difficult to make a right or left out of our neighborhood.

+1

Clue. Less.