Reply to Sooo am I just the best parent ever or are the others complete duds?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This is partly a cultural problem. Current American culture is pretty child unfriendly. People don't like to interact with a stranger's kid, and expect kids to be quiet and mostly out of sight (just look at responses in this thread). They expect their flights to be quiet and everyone to be self entertained, as opposed to chatting up strangers like yesteryears. We had a recent flight where not a single person or flight attendant even smiled at my young kids. [b]In this environment, screen time is really a must for parents because no one wants to feel your kid's existence. [/b]

In other cultures, it could be different. I don't expect strangers to gush over my kids but when we are on flights or places with a lot of Asians (esp older Asian), for example, the adults love to try to interact with my kids. It is just a more child friendly and centered culture, and my kids can pass some time interacting with these adults. I was once on a flight when my son was 5 months old and he basically played peekaboo with an elderly foreign couple for the entire 2 hour flight. It was great for us parents.

American parenting is just exhausting, lonely, full of judgement.[/quote]

OP here. You are probably right. The prevailing attitude seems to be that children must immediately be put on a screen so they will sit down/shut up and let adults pacify themselves with their own screens. This adult dependency/ addiction is such a terrible example to set - people are claiming they only do it on planes, but I doubt it.

We take long flights to visit family in Europe and Asia annually, during which time we do a mix of screens and non-screen entertainment like cards, travel-size board games, reading, chatting. We are usually in the business class semi-private cubicles so we are not really disturbing anyone, but I wouldn’t see a problem with doing this in economy either when the lights are on. It’s what my parents and siblings and I did when we were young on long-haul international flights.

And a 3 hour domestic flight is not so stressful that you immediately need to stick your kid and yourself on a screen. There’s so many interesting things to observe, even for kids who have been on flights before. The take-off procedure, flight attendants serving drinks and snacks, landing procedure. Heck, I’ve been on hundreds of flights and still enjoy observing and chatting these things. I strongly feel that kids (and adults) who are stuck on screens miss out on observing the world. But maybe they are too sophisticated and jaded to really care.[/quote]

I love that the OP only sticks her head out of the sand when one of the 100s of posts agree with her stance.  I am not an American, but I will say the OP "my way is the only way" is so typical of Americans that it's almost laughable.  My kid has "observed" the flight procedure about 75+ times by the time she was in elementary and no interest in watching that.  However, she spends time on her iPad doing duolingo working on learning her 4th language.  I would say - in a comparative situation between my kid and yours - awe of a how to put on a seatbelt seems very low.[/quote]

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