One dad has come out swinging on social media labelling parents 'lazy' if they don't spend time with their kids.
The dad's rant on Reddit came after he went to the park with his three-year-old and saw other parents there glued to their phones instead of interacting with their kids.
While the dad-of-one noted that he didn’t mind entertaining the children alongside his own for a short period of time, he is aware that his son now “recognizes that these older, bigger strangers are taking his dad away from OUR one-on-one guy's time, and he'll start to get jealous and bashfully try to take me back”.
"Phone parents suck! ‘Mommy (or daddy!) Look at me!’ ‘Oh wow!’ (Without ever looking up) I wanna march over there and fling that phone into the trees,” one like-minded person wrote.
Read this dad's full account below, or read the uncensored version here.
It's not my F****ING job to babysit/play with your kid(s) while hanging out with mine. Put down the phone. Get in the pool. Run around the park. Be reactive and imaginative. I'm tired from work too, but my kid, your kid, THEY DESERVE BETTER.
I'm a dad to an almost 3 year old who is full of life, energy and imagination, like most toddlers. After work, I take him to the gym where we play in the pool for an hour before he goes to the kids center, and my wife and I go do yoga before dinner. If it's not a yoga day for my wife, we go to the park and playground before dinner.
Now, I'm not exactly father of the year, but I try my best. I exaggerate my facial expressions whenever he shows me something, I acknowledge all the mundane little things as if they were Nobel- Priize-winning discoveries that will help mankind, and every once in a while, I'll let him win when we're having water fights or wrestle matches.
Almost all of the time, a random kid (or seven) will want to participate with whatever I'm doing with my kid. They'll run around and away from me hoping to be brought into the action.. or they'll splash me with water and cut me off from chasing after my kid, or generally be hopefully invasive and disruptive so they can have fun too.
I get it. They're kids. And the first fifty times or so, I obliged because my little guy wasn't mature enough to discern what was going on, but now that he's almost 3, he recognizes that these older, bigger strangers are taking his dad away from OUR one-on-one guy's time, and he'll start to get jealous and bashfully try to take me back (this is actually the most heartbreaking and cutest thing though, lol).
I look around and these kids' parents just look off onto their phones, or just sit there doing anything BUT playing with their kids because I'm practically leading an entire damn summer camp by myself, and the energy and group of kids tends to snowball...
After about 15 minutes of 5-7 kids all trying to hog my energy, I'll just abruptly say goodbye, pick up my kid and just leave.
PLAY WITH YOUR KIDS IF YOU BROUGHT THEM OUT AND STOP TAKING THE LAZY/EAZY WAY OUT. WE'RE ALL TIRED.
