On Friday, Houston mom Juliana Farris Mazurkewicz posted a Facebook photo of a sign from her child's daycare center that warned parents to get off their phones and pay attention to their kids. Since then, the photo has gone viral with over a million shares. But should we really be shaming parents for being on their phones around their children?
"You are picking up your child! GET OFF YOUR PHONE!!!" the sign reads. "Are you happy to see your child?? We have seen children trying to hand their work they completed and the parent is on the phone... It is appalling. Get off your phone!!"
“I think [the message] definitely resonates with people,” Mazurkewicz told Fox News. “And it’s not just at the day care, it’s anywhere.”
While it is rude to be on your phone when anyone is trying to talk to you, let alone a child, you also have to wonder if it's just as rude to judge parents and yell at them in all caps and underlines. Not to mention, the parents paying to send their children to a daycare center are probably also juggling jobs and hectic schedules.
"Some parents could be on the phone with their landlords for repairs or rent, with a potential boss for an interview that just so happened to call at that moment," one Facebook user commented on the photo. "We shouldn't be so quick to judge, shame and point the finger."
"Sorry, I’d remove my child from that school," another user wrote. "They are right, of course, but that sign is not how you talk to another person, especially one paying your salary. I’m sure it’s true to be heard by many parents, but these are the people I would have entrusted to help teach my kids respect and they were just as disrespectful with that sign as the parents were with the phone. Two wrongs don’t make a right."
Are there parents scrolling through their Twitter feeds while their kids are trying to get their attention? Probably. But posting a condescending sign isn't going to change that. In an ideal world, we would all be able to give our children and everyone else around us our undivided attention, but that isn't always the case. Either way, we shouldn't be shaming parents and making them feel bad for not being able to live up to certain standards. We're all doing our best, and there are worse things than having to fire off a last minute email while picking up your kid.