We were sitting by the window in the café in IKEA, he enjoying meatballs, me enjoying some salmon; we were chatting about this and that when I noticed a couple sitting the next but one table to us with their grandchild.
The couple was in their fifties or sixties I would guess and the little girl was about three, maybe a little younger. They were all smartly and neatly dressed, the woman well-made-up with turquoise nail-polish and an ankle length floral dress in blue and yellow with a white belt. She had well-groomed blond shoulder-length hair, expensive jewellery, and she was eating her lunch slowly with a fork. Her husband who was wearing immaculately ironed shirt and shorts, was also well-groomed and looked tanned, fit and healthy. He too was eating, enjoying his meatballs I think. The pretty little girl had a bowl of chips and a dish of ketchup, but she didn’t seem very interested in them; she was more interested in a tablet that she was looking at – yes,a child that age, having lunch with her grandparents, watching some sort of cartoon I would guess, on a tablet.
Neither adult spoke to her – or to each other actually, but the man was watching her and smiling and nodding as she enjoyed whatever it was; occasionally he would pull a funny face at her. The woman gazed out of the window, and didn’t look once at the child as far as I noticed, seemingly utterly indifferent. The meal was eaten in silence, there was no interaction with the child at all who was engrossed in watching the tablet.
They finished their meals and the man did speak to the little girl, and his wife said a couple of things to him. He went to get something, a napkin maybe, and now the woman looked at the little girl… oh no she didn’t, she looked at the bowl of chips and began to help herself.
I shouldn’t judge, I don’t know the situation, but it just seemed sad that the three people were isolated from each other, even as they sat together eating. On the table behind them was another family, just ordinary people, three women, maybe a mum and two daughters, and four young children. They all sat eating their food nicely, chatting, laughing, commenting to each other, looking at each other, smiling at each other…
Lois Elsden 
Perhaps they’d had the child dumped on them by the parents at short notice and the woman had had other plans for the day, but a tablet for one so young! What’s that going to do for her language development?
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It was the utter silence that surrounded them… And yes, I wonder about the child’s language!
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That is so sad, it does make you want to build a story around it to ‘explain’ the situation! Children of that age naturally interact, it’s so much part of their development and the grandparents are depriving her and themselves of the joy of that interaction.
It’s bad enough when kids are ‘parked’ in front of the television endlessly to keep them quiet, but now that screens are portable, the end of the wedge is getting thinner all the time.
Sorry if that sounds pompous/judgemental, not intended, but such isolation in a very public place speaks volumes.
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Absolutely, Liz! She was just parked! The man made some attempts, but she was just looking at the screen the whole time!
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I guess the Teddy Bear or doll that kids her age used to drag about has been replaced by a tablet and I think the adults were planning something else for there day and had there grand daughter dumped on them.
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They all seemed happy enough, but I thought it was sad to see… I still have my teddy!
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Me to. We’ve been through a lot together and he’s always been there for me.
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