'Hell yeah I'm judging you': Kidfree man slams mum on phone 'ignoring' child

While some told him, "You will never understand the struggle until you have kids," others argued, "You don't need to be a parent to empathise with a child." 

A childfree man has dared to take a stand against phone-using mums. 

More specifically, phone-wielding mums who ignore their kids at the park... then yell at them for wanting their attention.

It's a hot-button topic, so as expected, commenters from all sides of the etiquette debate had a field day weighing in.

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What happened after the boy said 'Mum, look at me'...

Taking to his TikTok account, influencer Mario Mirante posted his rant about a recent incident he witnessed at a local park between a mum and her son. 

The now-viral clip is over five minutes long, but here's the gist.

Mirante was walking through the park on his way home from the gym one Saturday morning and saw a child playing on the equipment while his mum sat on a nearby bench scrolling her phone. 

"The kid is just playing quietly, not being annoying. I don't hear a peep from him. It's like a minute of me walking past - the mum the entire time is on her phone, staring right down at her screen and doesn't look up one time," he said.

"I walk right by and she doesn't even notice me, even though it's a public park," he explains, insinuating the danger of not watching your kids in public.

Then, the boy called out to his mum to watch him do something. She yelled, "One second!" but didn't look up from her screen.

Apparently, her high-pitched voice sounded "like a velociraptor."

Image: IStock/TikTok

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"Hell yeah I am judging someone off that"

"It stopped me in my tracks," Mirante recalled. "The kid looks up, terrified, you could see the whites in his eyes, like 'What did I do wrong?'.

Mirante then says he already made a video about this (it's since been deleted) and "hundreds" of people came for him, saying things like "Mama needed a break" and "You just don't understand because you don't have kids" and "You don't know how exhausting it is to be a parent" etc.

But he says he still stands by his opinion and adds, "Hell yeah, I am judging someone off that."

"The kid wasn't doing anything wrong. So you probably shouldn't scream at them," he continues while getting increasingly passionate. "Might have some traumatic effects in the future. And if you have the energy to scream at your kids, you probably have the energy to look up. But you couldn't give them the time of day. "

"Are you THAT attached to your phones? Really?! Ironically, it's all you mums who are defending this mum who are commenting on my video (from your phone)."

His final argument is that these kids with parents like this will grow up and want "little to do with them because you treated him like he was annoying his whole childhood and screamed at him for no reason."

He then reveals that he has a personal stake in the matter, despite not having kids. "What do I know though? I don't know. I am an adult who had a childhood. And I have a parent that I don't talk to anymore, so..."

"You don't have to be a parent to empathise with children's experiences"

Impassioned supporters of Mirante took to the comments in praise of him. 

They pointed out that no matter what the parent was going through at the time, a child doesn't deserve to be yelled at like that. 

"Parenting is hard, but you're at the park with your kids. They're excited to be there with you and want to make memories with you," one shared.

Another wrote, "We need to cherish the time we have with our kids. We will never get it back. Time is a thief."

And a third added, "That feeling of 'but what did I do wrong?' will stay with that child for a long time. It can be very damaging."

Then this commenter made the point that you don't have to be a parent to have an opinion on parenting: "People love to say 'You don’t have kids', as if I have to be a parent to empathise with children’s experiences."

"If you become a dad one day, your child will be so lucky to have you," another claimed.

People told him context is important

On the other side of the fence, others continued with the same line of arguments from his first video, telling Mirante that context is important.

"You don't know if that was the 100th 'look at me' for the day, or maybe she has told him just before you walked by that she will be with him in a minute and she was drafting an important email," one said.

Another wrote, "I thought the same way as you," and added, "But then I became a parent. Until you become a parent, you do not understand the struggle."

And someone else sarcastically quipped, "Amazed by all the perfect parents that commented on this video. Teach us your ways!"

Where do you stand? Tell us in the comments on Facebook.

Originally published as 'Hell yeah I'm judging you': Kidfree man slams mum on phone 'ignoring' child