to throughly dislike parenting labels?

[TandB]

I suspect this whole craze for labelling our various parenting choices is a product of the internet forum age, as people find it easy to connect with others with similar opinions and interests, and they need quick and recognisable ways of describing certain practices when typing. But I do find this whole idea of parenting 'types' odd and irritating.

BLW. Babywearing. Cloth-nappying. Elimination communication. Co-sleeping. BFing. FFing. Unfooding. Unschooling. Unconditional parenting. Attachment parenting. CIO. CCing. The list goes on.

It's not so much the individual terms that bug me - if you are discussing something then you need to find a way of describing it. It is the way people try to create whole lifestyles or belief systems out of pretty simple parenting choices. I find this is particularly prevalent among people whose choices are different to the current mainstream. I use a sling full time and DS is in cloth nappies. When he was a baby we co-slept on and off and didn't have a routine as such. All of these things came about because they suited us as a family or because we believed that they were beneficial. They were individual choices, not part of some parenting ethos. But whenever I meet others who do any of these things they seem desperately keen to establish my natural parenting credentials. Do you 'do' unconditional parenting? Are you going to 'do' Steiner?

AIBU in finding this a bit illogical and artificial? Why does the method I choose to transport my child around, or the type of poo-catching device I employ make it any more likely that I will agree with a particular educational ethos or be evangelical about organic gardening? I don't get it. It just feels like someone has grouped together a random selection of things and set them up as the entry criteria for some sort of parenting club.

Oh you must try elimination communication with your next baby. Must I? Why? What if I don't want to? What if I don't see any benefit in it?
Oh you really should think about home-educating. Should I? Why? Because it is something you want to do?

Would I be unreasonable to scream 'because I bloody well don't want to' the next time someone raises an eyebrow and asks me why I don't do unconditional patenting? Or am I just hormonal and crabby?

rizzo I don't agree. You are being a parent not parenting. The act of raising a child is being a parent. Why turn it into a verb?

I have no idea how and when it ceases. I didn't do it myself really... Although it was a halfway house between co-sleeping and putting a cot by your bed - I had a bedside cot which has a side missing so it butts up to the bed and you can slide the baby over. Hopefull there's no "label" for that!

Agree grumple. I was a bit hormonal last week and got terribly upset by someone on a weaning thread referring to spoon feeding as 'shovelling slop'. I'd fed DS some lovely home made cottage pie that day but briefly felt rubbish. None of either of our families, who are old school routine and purée people, have ever made me feel bad about my individual choices for DS or even questioned them, even of they are radically different

EricNorthmansMistress:

WRT 'baby wearing' I think. Pointing out that 'baby wearing' is a convenient way to transport a child, or keep them out of harm's way while you work, not an ethos.

This.

All the gadgets or methods my household use, (from Tesco potato peelers (for potatoes, not something else), to style of pushchairs, to slings, to having a settee to sit on) are things we have because they seemed to meet our needs better than an alternative, taking everything (such as price) into account.

Not because I am a [insert here] or want the [insert here] Lifestyle.

I say that LO comes into bed with us for a cuddle, that I have/used a sling, that I used cloth nappies

as opposed to saying Im a" co-sleeping, baby-wearing cloth mum". Because IMO I'm not, all of the top sentance is true, but the quote implies something more, and I also have a cot and pram and do sleep training and think that slings and cloth nappies etc are useful to have around, but not infallible and always best!

People like to have a system label they can attach to their choices because it makes them feel less isolated.

I breast fed dd for years quite happily because I just kind of forgot to stop. But now I know I could have called myself an extended bfer and get a t shirt and badge and stuff. If I had not been so busy buying shoes and going out I could have become an activist.

What I do hate more is when one choice gets picked on and others then want to stereotype you. I didn't vaccinate dd and it is almost inevitable that any conversation about it decends into accusations of being anti-vacc and a big pharma conspiracy theorist. I am neither. I am very jealous of people who can get their kids vaccinated.

But people love short hand and stereotypes. Oh yes they do!

Yes grumplestilskin you're correct - I give cuddles, and discipline when necessary: I am not an Unconditional Affirmation Parent.

yanbu, irratates me as well. Its a way of judging parents and for some to feel in some way superior in their parenting choices.

But then again I would say that as I did Gina Ford, control crying, dummies and most shocking of all gave my baby - baby food .

Pagwatch Oh, they do.

I regularly make new "friends" who see me out and about, equipped with breastfed toddler/sling and come up and introduce themselves to me as a fello mind or something. They then talk to me about how they've just got their daughter homeopathically vaccinated against malaria for their forthcoming holiday to Outer Africa. And how they're fund-raising to stop pharmaceutical companies vaccinating African children, too.

Agree with Cogito - I don't like the use of 'parent' as a verb. I think 'parenting' became a verb at around the same time people started to worry about doing it right. If it's something you are then there's no anxiety as it's a given; if it's a verb, you can be 'getting it right' or 'getting it wrong' and it becomes something that needs researching, discussing and an ethos or series of labels.

I suspect the anxiety about whether we're 'parenting' right probably comes at least partly from living in a society where on the whole survival needs aren't at the forefront of people's minds. If your energy is focused on ensuring enough food, warmth and safety for you and your children then you're unlikely to be wondering whether the way you put them to bed is going to affect them adversely in later life; if the basics of survival are taken for granted there's just more mental space for tinkering with the details.

It's probably also got something to do with our culture's hyper-individualism, rejecting tradition in favour of discovering things for ourselves and doing it our way. Plenty of threads on here will testify to the fact that people don't simply want to raise their children the way their parents did it; indeed, it often seems as though people are horrified by the idea that we might have something to learn from our mothers or (perish the thought) even our MILs about raising babies. So instead we read books, strive to do it our own way, and to aid the process of distinguishing 'our' way of doing things from any hint of 'tradition' come up with buzzwords and labels that make it sound like we're doing something new and different.

PS I'm at 'elimination communication'. I suppose it's snappier than 'keeping an eye on your baby for signs that it's about to poo and holding it over a wipe-clean surface' but it still sounds like something from a management consultancy annual report

my fav was the woman who very defensively insisted to everyone around me that it was not possible to maintain exclusive BFing long term if you used dummies........ whilst watching me BF my 1 year old then give him back his dummy

she was very offended that I was so blatently justfeedingmychildandputtinghimdownforanap challenging the extended BF golden rules!

so true OTHW !

So many of the label-mums seem to think they're discovering something new/ancient that has been hidden by the masses by the man for centuries!

My mum had a sling and BF and gave me finger food, she wasn't unusual, not at all! we lived in a city and she had to use public transport, so had a sling like lots of others where we lived.

I think they approach the older generations in a very defensive mannor, when actually if they chilled they might find that they've been there and done that themselves and might actually have some tips!

hidden FROM the masses

"PS I'm grin at 'elimination communication'. I suppose it's snappier than 'keeping an eye on your baby for signs that it's about to poo and holding it over a wipe-clean surface' but it still sounds like something from a management consultancy annual report "

It's to make it sound... something. I hate the term.

But it's what everyone else uses, and "early-toilet training" has connotations of something very rigid and structured to other people, and triggers rants about Victorian caning of toddlers who couldn't perform on command.

Mumblingragdoll - I remember that thread. I seem to have been mildly pro-slingmeets on it. I may be changing my mind after the recent experience that was actually fairly contributory to me posting this thread!

I still maintain that people should be allowed to talk about any of their choices without others putting them down, and that there is nothing wrong with doing something non-mainstream - a lot of people do seem to react very negatively to any choices that are different to their own. But, I am now rather of the view that if someone makes it clear that one of your choices is not for them, continuing to push it down their throat is just rude and pointless. I don't mind someone holding forth about elimination communication and its benefits - if they find it useful and want to talk about it, fine by me - my eyes may glaze over a little but I am quite happy to listen and make polite noises. What I don't want is to be on the receiving end of a hard-sell of something that I simply don't buy into, particularly when it is not something that can realistically be proven to be beneficial or otherwise.

The other thing that drives me insane is when the person doing the hard sell has been doing whatever thing they are talking about for about 5 minutes. My recent experience involved someone with a considerably younger child telling me what I needed to do with my next child that was different to what I did with DS. DS is over 2 now - he has survived and I am reasonably content with where we are now and how we got here. There are a couple of things I might tweak a bit with this next baby (mainly to do with trying to give BFing a better chance than it got last time), but there is nothing that was disasterous first time round. So how is the first-time parent of a quite young baby better qualified to tell me whether my choices are right or wrong, than I am, 2 years down the line with a child who is so far showing no signs of turning into a psychopathic, food-hating, feral, clingy axe-murderer? I certainly don't think that someone with only a short experience of being a parent can have nothing to offer in terms of opinion and advice - we can always learn from others - but I don't think they can really think their opinion trumps mine.

DD1 was a FF hospital birth, DD2 was a homebirth who BF long enough to interest channel 4
Neither wore cloth nappies, did BLW and both have been known to drink fruit shoots, Greg's SRs and frequently eat at MacDonalld's. I refuse to shell out extra to buy organic food, think homeopathy is a con and the anti vaccination mob make be beyond furious! Thus not fitting the HB, extended BF strip type at all.

Oh, this thread was worth it, if only for the "unfooding" link.

We do unfooding at the weekends.

DH and I stay in bed and the children come downstairs and make breakfast forage in the garden for healthy nuts and berries. Normally they eat Cocopops or Frosties unsweetened natural yogurts.

I find that since they have learnt to make their own food choices we can have a long lie they are so much more in tune with their inner children.

Stereo type. Ipods

Parenting labels are shorthand for meeting new people and finding out if you are going to like them. For some anyway.

I don't understand people who only want to be in touch with people with the same ideals as themselves. We have friends who are on the strict side of parenting, and other really wooo friends. Much more interesting that sitting around discussing the best place to buy organic alfalfa.

I generally don't go to slingmeets or similar events. It's a nice idea, considering that you need to try slings out to see if they fit, and sending stuff back by mail order is a faff and a half, etc.

But after that, a sling is a superficial gadget. Sling use isn't much in common to have with someone else, and you can't just discuss slings. I imagine you can only discuss buckles for so long.

Whereas I think I could go to erm, say, erm, a knitting group and if we had nothing in common beyond knitting, then discuss different cast-offs for a project, and other knitters could suck their teeth thoughtfully at my holes.

Startail - maybe we could join Cory and Gordy's Eclectic Parenting club. We could start our own forum and maybe blog about it.

There could be signatures....

Kungfupannda - sort-of attached, cloth-bumming, baby-wearing, BLW-ing after a puree false start, BFing badly, frozen-food-loving, regularly-yelling, looking forward to not home-schooling, inconsistent-parenting WOHM to cloth-bummed, potty-training-resisting, dummy-loving, juice-swigging, frequently-whinging DS1, and feeling the fear about the impending arrival of likely-to-be-benignly-neglected DS2.

Anyone who "unfoods" has more money than me, and should therefore share their surplus with me, in a spirit of egalitarianism. Bank account details available by request.

Jessie - I have been to perhaps 4 or 5 slingmeets over the last couple of years. The first one was a walk, rather than a sit-down meet and the people were nice so I went back to a couple more. Again, nice people. Then there was one where I didn't know so many people and found a couple of them quite pushy. Then the recent one which was everything I moaned about in my first post.

The nice ones didn't just revolve round slings - people chatted about all sorts of things, just like any parent and child activity. Maybe I got lulled into a false sense of security....

I think those who do claim to be babywearers do so because of beliefs as against practicalities. Ie: that babies should be close to their parent as much as possible, the sling is just how they manage it.

I share that belief to an extent (I carried dd in a sling for the first few months because it felt natural, hadn't read about it...now it is just transport) but certainly don't label myself. However we co slept, I still bf, she wears cloth nappies, we blw her etc so others seem to love labelling us. However like the carrying, that's just how we ended up doing things.

As an aside, what is mainstream now? None of my friends do things exactly the same really.

I am, by nature, pessimistic. So, I've tried a couple of similar things twice.

Much smaller sample, but once burned, twice shy, and all that.

I seem to get so many people approaching me and treating me like an ambulatory Speakers' Corner, I don't dare risk put myself in the preachers' way out!

(I seem to have a sign on my head. Evangelical believers, pushy energy salespeople... Everyone targets me, and I don't seem to be able to say the things I'm really thinking.)