to wonder what has happened to the task of being a parent in the last 7 years

[OrmRenewed]

that has made it such a minefield of terrors?

Because either it has changed beyond recognition since my youngest was born, the world has become much more dangerous, or I was always a very careless (and lucky) parent.

I didn't worry much about ponds, dogs, medecine, choking on lego or grapes, gps breaking the rules, food, strangers touching my baby ....I don't mean I didn't think about the risks, I did but generally considered it not worth much angst.

Is my assumption that the world is really a good and positive place, not one full of danger, out-of-date?

Thank fuck I am done with it now

ds is 8
I'm sure I have forgotten the ANGST of the early years

Its all a hazy blur

Must admit to larfing at the pfb threads whilst realising I was FAR FAR worse.

I have three under 5 and I am the same as you..so I think it tends to reflect more on the parents outlook on life, iykwim? I think that common sense goes a long way but especially in the last few ears, people are lsoing that common sense due to media paranoia/beat-ups and an increasing feeling of judgement by other parents. It seems people are less able to rely on their own gut feelings and instincts and are increasingly needing to check/reaffirm themselves over the tiniest of things. People should read more and form their own standards and be comfortable with them. (not to say that I am not guilty of asking stupid worry questions occaisionally! But generally I am meh fuck what they think I am doing what is right for me and my child type, I have researched and reached my own conclusions)

gawd, someone does one of these threads every few months...

were you on MN 7 years ago? guaranteed people were asking same or similar questions. by definition, people who are anxious about parenting stuff come here to ask questions... those people who aren't bothered just join in with the chat.

I'm inclined to blame the meeja. Are there really far more horror stories in the news now or does it just seem that way?

Gah typos! And to a certain extent I also agree with words in that I was probably the same with my first. third child just gets hauled around after the other two!!

DD is only 6 months old but I have to say that my experience of strangers+baby has been remarkably positive.
I'm pretty laissez faire even though DD is PFB. I dropped her down the stairs the other day and this morning she fell out of bed....

I wasn't here 7yrs ago but I was here 5 years ago and IMO there are more angst-ridden posts than there were.

Parents suffer from information overload. Total nightmare, and you are very lucky to be done with it now!

people didn't worry about drowning, dogs, choking or strangers five years ago?

Well I don't like to mention specific threads but there have been some recently that blew my mind! It wouldn't have occurred to me to worry about the things mentioned.

i saw you on one of them, expressing surprise, and i sympathised with the OP's pov. and i am lax beyond belief...

Well that answers my question then! It's just me

Was that the food heating one btw?

i agree to a certain extend - the media do concentrate on the worst aspects of society they never want to report on what's going right in the world.

also talk boards like this one make people more neurotic

sea - I suspect it is MN that is colouring my view on this. Most of the rl parents I know are quite chilled.

The media is quite responsible for scares too - every other day there seems to be another article telling us that TV melts childrens' brains or milk turns children into vampires

I think the internet is a cause of some of it. My DS is 11 months old and especially in the early months when anything slightly unusual happened, I'd be straight onto Google typing 'Is this normal?'. Very useful and reassuring for some things, but it also opened up a whole new world of 'child dies in freak accident' horror stories to worry about. Things that would never have occurred to me to worry about before. Back before the internet, I suppose you only really heard of the personal experiences of those around you and the newspaper reports at the time.

YANBU I think it's a combination of 24 hour news-gathering, increasingly strait-jacketed 'rules' on health and safety and internet-fuelled scare stories on things that 10 or 20 years ago, might have affected a few people instead of a few thousand.

The 24 hour news gathering means that stories about children being missing or harmed are in your face all day, every day for a week at a time. The strait-jacket rules about everything from taking photos of school plays, playing conkers, CRB checks etc., make the world seem much more risky than it actually is. And the internet is the best place to take a silly rumour and blow it up into a fully-fledged scare-campaign.

Lob on top of that the never-ending procession of dumb & contradictory 'studies' and books on how to be a perfect parent and what you've got is a perfect recipe for mass hysteria. It's a miracle more of us don't succumb!

Also orm this site has probably GROWN a lot since yr DCs were little and more posters means more neurotics?

I've got 3 under 6 and are the same as you OP. It baffles me the angst some people seem to have over the tiniest things, I don't know how they have the energy for it, for one thing!

aye, but i used to think the same about people i worked with, you know, blessed are the listmakers and all that stuff. the world needs freakazoid panickers as much as it needs lazy buggers, nothing would get done without them.

Agree with Orm, Mn colours your judgement.
I have met literally one or two PFB, helicopters or my dh isn't allowed camping/on a stag.
one of two in RL.
But in Mn there are 1000's of them.
And you start to worry that htis is what RL people are really like.
but they're not that bad really. Mn is worse

agree with ppea. more numbers. the neurosis. everyone has been abused. no one has any confidence.

99% of posters seem to fit this description.

did you see the one the other day ? same old, same old. photographing at the splashpool. when you point out the neurosis,the person claims they are fine, and this does not affect their children.

I wonder if, because bringing up children is such an important thing, we can't accept that it can be anything but hard