Aunt asks if she was wrong to tell her sister she’s ‘ruining her child’s life’ with an iPad

Reddit is never short on family drama, and today is no exception. Buckle up for this tale, submitted by an aunt who needs opinions from strangers about whether she’s in the wrong for telling her sister that she’s “ruining her child’s life” with an iPad.

“My sister (36F) and her husband have a 10-year-old kid (who for the purposes of this post is called “Jimothy”) who me and my husband sometimes babysit on the weekends and on some days I take him to school. As of about a year ago, we started to notice that Jimothy was beginning to develop an American accent. We are Australian. Small kids have phases, and so I didn’t want to make it ‘a thing,'” she writes.

First of all, great fake name. Second, we’re cautiously optimistic so far. Remember all the headlines about American kids picking up English accents from Peppa Pig and Australian accents from Bluey? This happens, and it’s generally not a big deal and something they grow out of.

But OP continues, “Over the next few months, the accent got thicker and Jimothy became more irritable. Me and my husband brought this up with my sister, who said that Jimothy wasn’t very grumpy when with her. He then started losing interest in almost all activities that he used to enjoy. Again, this was a concern for me. Every weekend it got worse. He would complain of being bored but when we offered an exhaustive list of all the things we could do with him, he said no to every single one.”

She says that when the school year started, teachers asked Jimothy how long he’d been in America, because his accent had become so pronounced. And then, things really came to a head at his birthday party.

“His family was invited, including me, and so were all his friends. This was the moment that made me realise to some extent what was going on,” she writes. “He was on an iPad, scrolling some kind of short-form content that I did not recognise. His friends wanted to play with him, and he just did not notice they were there. People were giving him presents, and he acted like he was inconvenienced for having to turn the iPad off. Never before had any of my nieces or nephews reacted like this upon me giving them money and delicious treats.”

She continues. “I told my sister that something was going on, and that Jimothy is obviously not in a good way. She seemed very offended that I was ‘questioning her parenting choices’ as she put it, and she decided that me and my husband babysitting Jimothy had to stop.”

After not seeing Jimothy for a while, things got worse, OP says.

“The next time I saw Jimothy was very recently, at my niece’s birthday party (different parents). Jimothy was completely glued to the iPad. He was noticeably skinnier, which I suspect was because he was forgetting to eat in favour of iPad time. And when anyone went over to talk to him, he would almost instinctively push the screen towards his body so nobody could see.”

She continues, “I had to talk to my sister and her husband. I told them what I thought, that a year ago Jimothy was an energetic child who got along really well with everyone, and now he’s reclusive and it’s obvious from just looking at him that he’s skipping meals. My sister denied any changes in Jimothy’s behaviour, but her husband did admit that I was right to some extent, and Jimothy’s friends had stopped trying to hang out with him because he said no 100% of the time. I told my sister she was wrecking Jimothy’s life by continuing to let this iPad stuff happen. She started shouting at me, and I walked out of the party.”

So is she wrong for what she told her sister? The people of Reddit largely say no.

“I feel you, the blight of the ipad is endemic across huge swathes of the world. The ipad raises kids, and im betting he was watching youtube shorts,” one of the top voted comments says. “I have noticed similar behaviour in kids who watch excessive ipad, such as irritability, short attention span, changes in personality. Im sure there are studies to be done on this, but parenting can be a hard task, and getting 10 minutes peace and quiet can be impossible without the aid of an ipad. Rock/hard place, but it does seem like your sister has gone too far with the ipad op. Good on you for calling her out.”

Other commenters bring up more serious concerns.

“My niece spends too much time watching youtube shorts, but isn’t displaying signs of brainrot. This is not normal for ipad exposure. Given a choice between presents, friends, and youtube shorts, she’ll choose people and presents every time. She loves spending quality time with adults and kids, loves 1×1 attention, loves playing with her cousin. Makes messes like a normal kid. And she also watches youtube shorts,” one person writes. “The Ipad is not causing this. The Ipad is escapism. Something else is going on. Maybe he’s being abused, neglected, sexually abused… I don’t know. But an Ipad alone does not cause what you describe.”

Another added, “People don’t realize that children are completely capable of being addicted to things. I read a news article not that long ago about a 9 year old who was skipping sleep, meals, bathroom to play more fortnite. Parents tried to take the console away and shed just take it back when they were asleep. This kid has an addiction. Full stop.”

OP hasn’t updated this story, but hopefully it has a happy ending for this family.