Daycare Centre Posts Preachy Passive Aggressive Lecture to Busy Parents

{OPINION}

The new school year has begun, and with it has come the news that one childcare centre has decided to tackle the World’s Biggest Problem with one passive aggressive sign.

What is the World’s Biggest Problem?

Parents using their phones.

Apparently, some parents — enough of them to warrant a preachy printed out sign — are talking on their phones while picking up their children from daycare.

The post is going viral, with loads of people jumping on the “I am right because it’s a popular opinion” bandwagon but personally, I’m not having it.

Perhaps they are checking on their other children, making sure they aren’t dead in a ditch somewhere. Perhaps they are phoning ahead for some takeaway. Perhaps they are on a business related call.

It doesn’t matter why they are on the phone, it is none of the daycare centre’s damn business!

And there’s a fifty percent chance that the parent on the phone at pick up time didn’t even make the call. Someone else could have rung them. I’m all for giving people the benefit of the doubt, especially when something has to take precedence over their own children. That’s a decision no parent makes lightly.

Parents don’t drop their kids into childcare so they can spend the day lazing about, ordering cocktails by the pool before wandering in to collect the kids while chatting to their mates. If a child is in childcare — which is expensive, let’s be clear — it is because the parent requires someone to look after them and ensure their needs are met while the parent is busy at work.

The parent is already time (and now cash) poor, how is it the daycare’s place to ensure they feel like shit about it too?

The older generation’s whinge about people using technology all the time really shits me. People have been coming up with ways to avoid having to interact with others since the dawn of time.

Do they also bitch about reading books? Newspapers? Doing crosswords? Watching telly? Listening to the radio? Knitting? How many other time-wasting people-avoiding hobbies are there in the world? How is using your phone to text your sister or to give your nanna a call any different?

It’s not.

So what if you want to sit down with a glass of wine and Cookie Jam at the end of the day while your partner is busy watching My Kitchen Rules or whatever. Would it make these sorts of people happier if we read a book and ignored them instead?

FFS, this daycare centre sees the parents for less than ten minutes a day. Their job is to look after the children while their parents are at work, NOT lecture the parents about their phone use. I can see that it might be annoying for the staff to not be acknowledged personally by the parent at pick up time, but that’s no reason to pen a narky sign for all and sundry.

I’m sure the parent(s) in question will spend some quality time with their child once they are out of the busy hubbub of the daycare centre and back in the comfort of their own cars and homes.

How dare they presume that a parent on their phone is uninterested in seeing their child!

That busy mummy taking a call is likely focussed on raising strong independent humans who know that the world doesn’t revolve around them every damned minute of the day. And she will admire their fine paintings as soon as she catches her fucking breath and has a minute.

Images: Facebook and Giphy