PSA: Let’s Stop Judging Parents for Being on the Phone at the Park

A TikTok rant shaming a mom for being on the phone has gone viral—and we couldn't disagree more.

Fact checked by Sarah Scott

A TikTok shaming a mom who was on the phone while her child played at the park has angered leagues of default parents like me because, well, need I say more? OK, I will, since it truly touched a nerve that anyone would think they know enough about another person’s past, present, or future to have an opinion on a snapshot of their life.

The debate kicked off when a guy, who’s wearing a superhero villain shirt incidentally (but I digress), took to TikTok and launched into a story about judging a mom who was on her phone at a playground. Was she working? Was she dealing with a family emergency? Was she just de-stressing and looking at Facebook? We don’t know. But apparently, the egregious crime of not explaining to everyone within earshot exactly why she was engaged in her screen was enough to set this man off.

In a TikTok that creator @itsmeabbye stitched together, we see the original video of the phone police, er, some random dude, in which he explains what he witnessed at the park. First, he claims the mom “didn’t look up one time” from her phone and alleges that she purposefully ignored her child’s repeated requests to “watch” him. Then, he relates how the ghastly individual had the gall to ask her child to “wait one second.”

If you weren’t already horrified by the situation, the man goes on to report that her “screams” stopped him in his tracks. He also dutifully shares that the kid was “terrified” by his mom’s reaction, which feels like, oh, a slight exaggeration because this probably wasn’t the first time his mom dared to not be perfect around her kid, and lose her patience for a hot second. That she may have been overstimulated or overloaded at this moment doesn’t make her a bad person, incidentally, just human.

Oh, and the best part is that this guy opines the kid wasn’t doing anything wrong since he knows the whole situation and everything going on, the dynamic of their relationship, the child’s personality, and the mom’s parenting style, and is fully up to speed on her entire journey raising this boy from birth, complete with every misstep and victory along the way.

This is where the mom-TikToker who stitched the videos together jumps in to say what we’re all thinking, which is that shaming a “default parent” you know absolutely nothing about is not exactly “wise.”

Indeed, this person may not know “what it’s like to be constantly needed all day every day.” And in the moment in time he happened to stumble across, this mom’s name may have been said 462 times already that day. And, maybe the mom watched the son’s stunt 612 times before this guy even walked past the park! Or, maybe she’s not an engaged parent. This could be what was going on—which still wouldn’t justify some random guy shaming the mom online.

Commenters to the stitched-together TikTok blasted the mom shamer, making some really good points, like how kids sometimes need to learn that they have to wait two seconds. And, if the kid had been doing the same thing for three straight days, the mom could have been taking a mental break so as not to completely and utterly lose her mind. Not that I’ve ever been in that situation.

Meanwhile, other folks were on hand to applaud the mom for even taking her kiddo to do something fun. Right. Did we forget that sometimes mobilizing to the park is a huge task in and of itself? And that likely this mom is already a good parent for trying to give her son a fun day?

But not everyone was on the mom’s side, as plenty of commenters whose parenting status is unknown, condemned caregivers being on their phones at a park over safety concerns. OK, but most people reacting to the post underscored how this guy has no idea what that mom was going through that day—or why she was on her phone. Was she making an important appointment? Filing a restraining order against the TikTok guy? We’ll never know.

One other excellent point that was brought up was how sexist this accusatory video also came off as. Would a TikTok like this be made about a dad at the park? At the end of the day, the whole mom-shaming thing is just gross and I’m left with one thought: I hope this man never comes to the park where I take my kids because even if I’m not on my phone, I’m pretty sure someone like this would find fault in another aspect of my parenting.

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