To dislike the term PFB

[TheBloodCountessBathory]

My reasons being:

The PFB threads on here strike me as stealth boasting about what a good mother the poster is ie. "oh I read the works of Shakespeare to my one week old, wove her clothes by hand and only fed her organic veg that I grew in my own garden - ha ha aren't I silly!"

It makes me feel guilty - I had a lot going on during DD's first year so I didn't really have time to worry about the finer details, and I would have left her with the local postie had he offered, just to get a break. I would say I have a very relaxed parenting style but when I read those threads I feel like I SHOULD worry more about the little things (not confessing my lax mother mistakes on here, unless someone else goes first!!)

kungfupanda

My mother and late grandmother were clearly not of the PFB school of thinking. Apparently, when Granny went to visit her daughter in the maternity hospital, my mother showed her the purplish blotchy offering that was me and said "Oh heavens, Mum - she's not very beautiful, is she?"

To which Granny replied "No dear, she's not"

Of course, I have since made up for it and am now considered inoffensive-looking.

I think I can probably agree with the narrow definition of pfb as given by Maryz, which is that you are being silly in thinking your child more precious than any other, but both on here and in RL perfectly normal mums get accused of being silly/pfb because they are worried about a developmental issue/wondering how much salt to give (someone guaranteed to say 'mine were weaned on sausages at 4 weeks, stop being so bloody pfb')/concerned about feeding or whatever.

P.s. I don't think it is pfb to make baked beans, I think that sounds lovely. I can't personally be arsed to do it, but to do it is not pfb. But that is the sort of thing that gets dismissed on here as pfb all the time I think, which is why I hate the phrase. If you're a shit mum you get slated. But if you take what other mums consider to be too much care, well you can easily get grief for that too.

I remember feeling desperately sorry for all the other women on my maternity ward who had given birth to these ugly babies, and finding myself unable to say "your baby is beautiful too" in return after they'd politely admired my little beauty

kungfu and Talc

DS was born abroad in a country where a long, thin, deathly white transarent pale baby with strawberry blonde hair was a novalty.

Loads of people (nurses, patients, friends etc) kept saying how utterly gorgeous he was. All I kept thinking is 'really, I just think he looks like his Dad'.

duvetday - I agree; there is proper, honest-to-goodness, loony PFB-ness and there is parental concern or confusion over the plethora of conflicting advice foisted upon the modern mother.

The Baked Bean Issue (that WilsonFricket will now regret ever mentioning ) - it would only be PFB to bake your own if you felt that no manufactured baked bean is good enough for/would poison little cherub.

If you just baked your own because it's a nice thing to do and they taste great, then I think you're probably ok. Just.

In my defence, he did go through a stage at around 6 months old when random people would stop me and rave about what a beautiful baby he was. The photos bear out that he did have a good-looking phase around then.

And then I gave him a hideous pudding-bowl haircut and that was the end of that little ego-boost.....

Sob! I'm the eldest of two and it's me there are hardly any photos of!

i think my poor dd had the opposite of PFB, just been reading through the second link and lmao, although lots of PFB mums obsessed with steralising, my poor dd had stuff rinsed under a cold tap, then steralised i wonder how much good that actually did! lol at least she never gets tummy bugs

i use it to remind me about how i felt about dc1, the things i did etc to try and make more effort with dc3. so far i've overcompensated and he's the most spoilt and demanding of all of them.

I have an ishoooo!

I've arrived on MN. Next step, royalty.

(Ta for the support duvet but it was wholly, entirely PFB not a drop of sugar or salt will touch this baby's lips -ness. I also realise if anyone who knows me is on here I have just outed myself... )

wilson

Its OK PFBness when you can admit that's what it is and you learnt. If you were still packing and sending home made beans to him at Uni............

In RL I find the only thing worse than a mum with a bad case of PFB-itis is a mum with a bad case of the POB-itis (precious only born).

OP here - I realise the PFB threads are light hearted and posters are poking fun at themselves - but they still make me feel bad, I guess it's my issue!

I now realise I should have started a different thread to ask if anyone has the opposite of PFB syndrome - like, I borrowed a baby monitor but it looked complicated so I left it in the box, I never got round to installing a stair gate, I thought feet didn't really need sunblock so DD got tan lines round her sandal straps

I will admit though my ONE pfb-ness - DD was clearly the most beautiful baby ever born (and I still think that )

Blood - yes, the thread has gone off on a bit of a tangent hasn't it (albeit a funny one!!).

I'm sorry that these things make you feel bad about how you were when yours was a baby - but really, you aren't alone. There are a lot of Mums on here who have had really bad PMT, relationship breakdowns, other crisis the first year (or more) of their babies lives and either barely remember the first year or have regrets over how 'neglectful' or 'detached' they were.

There are also plenty who have brought their DC's up much as you describe but aren't feeling at all bad about it...

She's made it this far - you've done an OK job :) Don't worry about woud have/could have or should have.

see above about my steralising skills

TheBloodCountess - hmm, you could well be right about your DD; it certainly wasn't either of mine - they were as purplish and blotchy as I was as a baby.

Of course they're gorgeous now - I am shooing eligible princes, with slippers on cushions, away from the door on an almost daily basis.

OP there is a thread on here somewhere, maybe it's in classics? about the worst things you ever did to your baby. I am still dining out on the MNer who had a cat and was a bit PFB about cat and baby being in the same room - cat clearly had been her previous PFB... Anyway, she was BF-ing in bed one night, and somehow the baby rolled off and onto her legs. She woke up, felt the weight at her feet, assumed it was the pussy cat sneaking in to smother her baby so flicked her legs up to dislodge said cat and of course drop-kicked her baby across the room.

Feel better now?

(It wasn't me btw!)

oh wilson i actually just snorted with laughter, thats hilarious obviously not in a baby being hurt kind of way

Maryz and Wilson - there was this one fairly recently; was that the one you were thinking of?

Nope but there is a good one on there, I knew there was a reason for locking my cat flap when DS started to crawl... I just didn't know what it was... [hgrin]

that cat flap one was awesome my 2 have been dropped a couple of times by me can't think of many more atm tbh hmmmm...wanders off to ponder