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?

Controversial Agree - I saw that 'unfooding' post and thought 'Fucking hell, are they seriously suggesting that preparing a sodding great buffet spread for each mealtime so their little spoiled shits angels can 'make their own food choices' is somehow a green option???

OK, mostly off-topic but I just found an article on that Green Parenting blog for making breastmilk into ice lollies, butter and most importantly SOAP

I'm now imagining the look on the face of Mrs Green Parenting's MIL on Christmas Day as she opens a recycled-paper package tied with hemp to find that her thoughtful, eco-conscious DIL has gifted her a home-made bar of breasmilk soap.

I'm not clicking. I'm not.

Why can't they donate spare milk to a Special Care milk bank? Is that not ostentatious enough?

Donate? Are you serious? Soaps have a hidden carbon cost, you know, as they can be flown hundreds if not thousands of miles before you buy them. It's all about keeping your soap miles down, and offering conscious Christmas gifts that remind us of our family bonds and my cracked nipples.

Let them have shower gel? [missing the point emoticon]

Did you see the pretentious, long-winded comment about how someone came to realise that turning down others' "processed food" hurt their feelings?

I fully expect to see a rash of AIBUs after Christmas from people who are devastated and hurt that their evil MILs were so rude about the beautiful home-made gifts they went to so much effort and boob pain to create for them, and how they are considering cutting off all contact as they are setting a bad example to the DC with their wasteful consumer purchases of Imperial Leather.

I met someone (from netmums, of all places) who was obsessively into AP and its corresponding labels. Man, those judgipants were hoiked high against any non-BF, cosleeping, slingwearing parent. She kept asking where DD was born, just so she could smugly say 'well, I had a HB of course - I'd never put my child through a hospital birth' (or vaccinations, it later transpired).
So wish I'd had a fruitshoot with me :D

Keen advocate of convenient parenting. DD has a sling and a pushchair, she eats baby food and handcrafted delicacies ... whatever's most convenient.

Thanks for thread, OP. PMSL and off to journey into the green parenting blog comments before DD wakes up (from a nap in her own bed).

Breastbutter.

Seriously, has anyone ever made that?

I hadn't heard of most of these lables and am totally at 'ufooding' - the label doesn't even make sense! If I gave DS free reign he's eat chocolate buttons for every meal...although I suppose a Green Parent might not have introduced their toddler to Cadburys in the first place...

Anyway, the only label that did (and still does) irritate me is BLW. It's giving your child finger food and letting them join in with family meals, ffs, it's hardly rocket science! How on earth that woman managed to write a WHOLE BOOK about it is totally beyond me (and I have the book, which is even more annoying, as I wrongly presumed there must me more to it!)

I have been told by strident BLW mums that spoon feeding my DS was 'a bit like force feeding him'. They seemed blind to the fact that DS was practically leaping out of his highchair in his eagerness to devour the pureed carrot off the spoon!

Well, I wouldn't put my carpets through a homebirth! I'm too environmentally conscious to risk having to replace them.

I think I've got the moral high ground, there!

Imagine the faces as you hand round the canapes: 'Oh yes, I make my own butter. I just carried on milking myself after DD self-weaned. It saves a fortune and is so healthy and delicious, don't you think?'

*uNfooding, he'd, be!

Need to start proof reading before posting!

No, no, no Jessie - don't you realise how bad for your children carpets are - all those fumes, dust mites, heavy metals carried in on your shoes. Not to mention the environmental impact of hoovering them. What you need is hand carved wooden floors.

I'm going to do unfooding at christmas. Shove it all on the table (with breastbutter in the middle, of course), and let ILs, DH, baby, cats all at it.

I think you are right about the building of lifestyles around parenting choices.

I also find it distressing that parents feel the need to judge one another for their choices, and look for ways to prove that other parents aren't doing it properly.

So my DCs would feed themselves bits and pieces and I would sometimes spoon feed them something especially messy. As I result I have been severely jumped on by BLWers for not doing it right and causing my DCs some unidentifed harm. The DCs are happy, I'm happy - just what is your problem FFS??

I don't think i'm a hippy, but most of the parenting methods I would (will, hopefully, if all goes to plan!) subscribe to seem to fulfil that criterion.

I want a home birth with just gas and air and Tens, i want to use cloth nappies, i want to "co-sleep" (within safety parameters of course!), i want to BF, i want to feed on demand, i want to cuddle instead of leaving to cry, i want to carry it in a sling, I want my child to learn to feed itself without purees, i want to Bf in public, and until at least 2 years old, I want my child to be vegetarian until old enough to choose for itself (DH eats dead things), i don't believe in private healthcare, i want to choose a school based on distance from my house, i don't want to tell my children off (oh, but I so will! ), I don't want them to succumb to the pressures of the 11+ (bloody Kent tests), i don't want them to wear bloody pink and frilly if a girl, nor be subjected to any gender stereotyping.

But that doesn't mean I want to be labelled with a parenting label either.

so YANBU. you do what fits your family, and your own personal ethics.

I hate all these "labels". I don't want to belong to any parenting cliques. I just want to be me and meet other like minded people, but not too similar because that would be boring.

No YANBU, OP. I think there is a lot of style over substance parenting. Little Johnny will get yelled at if he dares gets mud on his fair trade, recycled playsuit, but at least he eats his organic broccoli every day, etc. Kids need boundaries, to be happy, to be reasonably stimulated and to feel secure. The rest is parental ego at work.

I also think that we are the generation that has to to an extent abandoned our parents' methods (rightly or wrongly), either because we are forced to (eg, geographical distance, older mothers with aged or no parents); or, in a post therapy culture, we want to, because we have more self awareness about how wrong some of the parenting "wisdom" of previous generations has been. The internet and baby gurus have replaced passed down wisdom for many of us (I'll include myself there, I didn't get a great example from my parents, or any support from them now I'm a parent myself, so I have to use books and try to trust my intuition).

Unfortunately, to make money, such gurus have to sell a "product" or "gimmick" that's different from everything else, and that's how, imo, a lot of these parental systems come about. Whilst they may have developed initially out of good intentions and good sense, once the moneymen (corporations and ad men) got their hands on them, they became something else. And like any other product, they rely on unconfident disciples to spread the word to sell more. No different from making you so insecure about your wrinkles that you'll spend £50 on some cream.

If you have made the investment in the books etc and followed a rigid method....well, there's no going back, is there, with a child! It would take a big person to say, "I've ruined my child's first few years by following unconditional parenting"(or whatever). Better to believe everyone else is wrong.

[BTW, OP, YABU to blame your post on hormones. It's one of my pet hates. You never get men posting and adding at the end "or is it just my raging testosterone and small penis talking". Anyway, not meaning to go down tangents....]

Oh buggrit, I'd forgotten the evils of carpets...

breast milk soap is a new one, my local lot are fans of breast milk custard!

I totally agree and have long felt this way.

Some of the labels are just complete wankery, too.
Baby led weaning? Letting the kid eat what it wants off your plate, you mean?
Elimination Communication? Otherwise known as 'not using nappies like they do in most of the bloody world'.
Total and utter poncery.

My real bugbear is the 'attachment parenting' label. Years ago, after having my first baby, I joined another parenting forum. I contributed a fair bit to the attachment parenting threads because I met some quite nice, like minded people there. However, i was soon sniffed out and 'oited' as not being a 'real' attachment parent, because I formula fed my baby and didn't use a sling. t was - quite seriously - like a sort of witch hunt. 'How coul you pretend to be into attachment parenting when you use a buggy'

Fookin nutjobbers, thy were, and whenever I hear 'attachment parenting' mentioned it makes me want to crack ope the SMA and open a copy of Gina Ford (only joking, but you know what I mean...)

"[BTW, OP, YABU to blame your post on hormones. It's one of my pet hates. You never get men posting and adding at the end "or is it just my raging testosterone and small penis talking". Anyway, not meaning to go down tangents....]"

If men were carrying around an entire person in their uterus while dealing with the constant need to wee and third trimester rage then I bet they would....

Ahhhhhh Baby on Bladder

Poo catching device :o

Are you coming to the meetup this year?

[pees on caramel's rose-tinted glasses and shoves them back on her face]

He's not just hanging out on my bladder - he is having a bloody party down there. And quite possibly trying to tunnel his way out nearly 3 months early judging by the twanging of my pelvic floor.

Trills - I think so. I will make a final decision this week as we have complicated work/life/commuting arrangements going on in November!