I know there are parents who say that, when you have a child, you should incorporate them into your life rather than give up certain luxuries while your children are little or when you can’t get a sitter. But I have never been in the camp of taking babies to the movie theater, bringing them along to concerts, taking infants to see fireworks on the Fourth of July, or any other activity where a toddler or small child is bound to be miserable.
And when one mom brought her two young kids to the US Open, other parents on TikTok seemed to be in agreement that there are some places kids just don’t need to be.
I’m not saying that kids who love tennis shouldn’t be allowed at a professional tennis event like this. If your little Timmy or Sally happen to love tennis, then the US Open is likely money well spent.
But if you take them to flex in some way, or you just don’t want to miss the event yourself, you pay the price of extremely bored and restless kids, and where is the fun in that for anyone?
The US open probably isn’t the best place for little kids.
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The mom on TikTok shared a video of her kids in their seats at the US Open and wrote on the screen, “Imagine paying for the priciest match in US Open history and realize your money is drained down the toilet.” Her children seem bored and tired as they sit in their seats.
Granted, they are well-behaved, but other parents shared their thoughts about where not to take kids who might not appreciate the magnitude of the event.
One user commented, “That’s like watching grass grow to kids.” I mean, honestly, it kind of seems to feel that way for some adults too.
“Have you tried playing with them?” another, much snarkier user, wrote. “I hear if you interact with your kids instead of making them watch expensive things helps.”
Another person wrote that kids “aren’t soldiers” and that they will get bored if they are forced to sit in silence in the “blazing heat.”
Someone else advised the mom, “Normalize treating your children like children and not accessories.”
In a follow-up video, she posted that her kids are not only fans of tennis but that also they play tennis. However, she’s the one who pointed out that the US Open seats were wasted on her kids, so it’s a little unclear why she needed to clap back so hard. When someone pointed this out, she responded to them.
“It wasn’t a complaint, it’s an observation,” she wrote, of sharing the original video. “My 5-year-old could have stayed home and I didn’t have to take her but as they say, ‘all for one and one for all.’ At the end of the day I’m happy I took her.”
She also criticized other parents for using iPads with their kids as a form of entertainment. I don’t know what the middle ground here is, but it has got to be between being a wild iPad kid and being a bored stiff rich kid at the US Open.
