Do you know families that really do this every day? Because honestly, I'm dubious that many parents would be so out of touch that consistently. I can imagine some folks resorting to this sort of thing periodically, no question: I think that every family with kids makes some compromises that they'd prefer not to. But by the same token, every family with kids also has some positive things that they're unwilling to compromise on at all.
Maybe that parent you saw putting a big kid in a stroller is in a rush because they're committed to getting errands done in time to be home for the daily family dinner together that they hold sacred. Maybe they just stayed a little too long at a nature center standing back and letting their kid take risks and learn independence. Or yeah, maybe their errands are often hurried like that because they're a single dad or mom working long hours and there just aren't enough hours in the day to keep the household running. (And maybe some of the parents you see being beautifully patient and encouraging with their kids while running errands are burned out by the time they get home and just plop the kid down in front of a TV with dinner on a tray until bedtime... and hey, sometimes that's the sort of thing you need to do.)
Point is: Parents put up with constant judgemental attitudes from people around them, no matter what choices they make. So if you see someone with a kid who's not doing things the way you would have, try to make your default assumption "I'll bet there's a decent reason they made that choice" rather than "What an awful person." [Caveat: I'm less willing to extend that tolerance to people actively hurting their kids, physically or emotionally. But those situations are very, very rare, thank goodness.]
Yeah, my 'Sheesh' is more for what today's modern market forces make us do to survive as families. I'm not saying those parents are 'awful', actions like that among many others aren't their 'fault', more just a cause-effect effect of the fast paced city reality.
> Maybe that parent you saw putting a big kid in a stroller is in a rush
Failing to recognize special circumstances , such as parent is in a rush (and other examples OP mentioned), and over-generalizing to form a character judgement is textbook Fundamental attribution error.
Maybe that parent you saw putting a big kid in a stroller is in a rush because they're committed to getting errands done in time to be home for the daily family dinner together that they hold sacred. Maybe they just stayed a little too long at a nature center standing back and letting their kid take risks and learn independence. Or yeah, maybe their errands are often hurried like that because they're a single dad or mom working long hours and there just aren't enough hours in the day to keep the household running. (And maybe some of the parents you see being beautifully patient and encouraging with their kids while running errands are burned out by the time they get home and just plop the kid down in front of a TV with dinner on a tray until bedtime... and hey, sometimes that's the sort of thing you need to do.)
Point is: Parents put up with constant judgemental attitudes from people around them, no matter what choices they make. So if you see someone with a kid who's not doing things the way you would have, try to make your default assumption "I'll bet there's a decent reason they made that choice" rather than "What an awful person." [Caveat: I'm less willing to extend that tolerance to people actively hurting their kids, physically or emotionally. But those situations are very, very rare, thank goodness.]