Should I hold my tongue at my friends outrageous comments?

[lill72]

My close friend recently had a baby through a sperm donor. We live on opposite sides of the world now, but I saw her while she was pregnant earlier this year. She has always been highly critical of others children and has no patience for any children that do not behave perfectly.

I did not think she was going to have children as she has no partner but then she became pregnant though a sperm donor. Good for her. I was absolutely gobsmacked though when we were at a party with about ten kids and they were being quite noisy. She rolled her eyes at the noise and said 'I'm going to have a quiet child' to which I replied 'Good luck with that' I could not believe she would say this. All children have their moments. She has mad similarly outrageous comments to my friends, but seems to then change her tune when she actually goes through the process. Like saying it was silly how women felt tired when pregnant. Then it happened to her.

She now has a baby who is 3 months old. We spoke for the first time on skype yesterday. The first things she said were how calm and chilled her baby was and how she sleeps through the night and has done for ages. Ahhh the honeymoon period. I had to hold my tongue to not say - ahh things will probably change honey. They won't stay this calm forever.

Then she went onto to tell me her bible on parenting book - French children don't throw food. I thought this was for children, not babies, but he seems to be using this a the go to book for everything. I have looked at it, but not read it all. seems you need to take with a grain of salt. My friend though wholly agrees with every word - all about not attending to childrens whims immediately, making them fit into your lifestyle, telling them you find their skits boring and to go and do it in their room. Now some of the book may have some good ideas, but as I said taken with a grain of salt. Suddenly I was being told by my friend I must go and buy two copies immediately. As I have a 4 year old DD, I feel like I have a view on this book and possibly more experience than my mate with a baby. I don't really think many of the suggestions are realistic. But she seems to be the authority on children and perfectly behaved children. I think she has no grip on what is about to hit her.

I think she thinks her child will never throw a tantrum, behave badly or embarrass her in public. I just don't know whether to call her up on thee things or jut sit back quietly and wait til reality hits. I just find her views very annoying!

She won't believe you if you tell her, like the pregnancy fatigue - she will come to it on her own.

Yes, bite your tongue. But tell us so we can all cringe and eye roll together.

Yes, hold your tongue. It doesn't sound like she's ready to listen.

Just as her baby will change, so will she.

The really annoying thing is that people like this often have PFBs who go along with the parents' crazy ideas. The parents get more and more annoying as their theories are proved true.

The only thing that cures these people is having a second child, (who is bound to be a terror).

If your friend were making outrageous comments you should not hold your tongue however it appears to me that your friend simply has different ideas on how to raise a child and if you just agree to differ there should be no problem.

Just let her get on with it, you have no idea what her child is going to be like. No need to be so smug.

Bite your tongue for now and practice your "I told you so" face so you can use it on Skype when you can see her toddler tantrumming in the background next year :).

I would just sit back and enjoy the bottomless fountain of schadenfreude. All children have, during any period of time longer than 6 hours, an arsehole moment. Your friend simply hasn't had enough of them.

What clara said, my BF loves to spout off on how perfectly her PFB slots into her life. She was insufferable throughout pregnancy and lost a lot of friends from the outrageously judgemental things she would say. We've locked horns a few times when I'd finally had enough of her bitching about parents who 'do' certain things knowing full well I do them.

Frustratingly, her 18month old DS has been an angel child. However I have seen flashes of him pushing my friend's boundaries as he approaches the 'terrible twos' and her bewilderment is quite satisfying to see (yes I'm aware of how horrible that makes me sound but if you'd have heard the things she has said about me then you'd understand).

Just try to ignore her OP. Smile, nod and ignore as best as you can. Mutter vaguely 'oh that sounds interesting' and change the subject. It's the only way!

One sentence to store for future use:

Oh you poor thing. S/he turned out just like mine

Ha ha - I love some of these comments!

Eva - think you seemed to have missed the point. I can accept people have differing opinions, however my friend thinks all children should be 100% perfectly behaved all the time. Ie children should not be children.

Pishefdorf - that is about right - she was talking all about how the baby slots into her life. She has no partner but has round the clock help with her mum so sis very lucky and in some ways has it easier than a mother with a partner who has to go to work. Ahhhh - give it til the terrible twos hit and then she will change her tune.

Disgrace - yes agree. Sit back and enjoy....

She live son the other side of the world to you?

If you dislike her and she annoys you so much, why are you even in touch?

She is an old dear friend who I love - just annoyed by her very recent views on children! That is all

i have some sympathy for your friend I have no patience with badly behaved children either. luckily I was blessed with a very well behaved child. I tend to not stay very long around children that are noisy and boisterous it gives me a headache. I don't lecture other people on it though

I don't think I could resist saying 'remember when you said' whenever she said something happened to her she said wouldn't.

My baby is only going to eat organic, will never throw a tantrum, and will always behave perfectly in public.

I can aim high, maybe DD who is already a chill independent baby will continue to be a chill independent child.

Outrageous comments, really? So she sees things differently to you, why can't you just laugh it off?

Having lived in France where I worked with children, I can tell you that much of the tips in the book are fairly standard and they work. I didn't go back to working with children when I returned to the UK because I didn't want to work with badly behaved kids when I'd never had to put up with it before! Maybe things will change for her and she'll feel differently, but if you're a real friend you should maybe try to be a little less smug.

Yabvu - would you have thanked anyone for spelling out the horrors to you?

as it happens with the exception of the onset of separation anxiety my dd was and is a brilliant baby, she very rarely cried, wasn't ever sick other than when she had a particularly nasty virus, slept through at 8 weeks. and I certainly did not think kindly towards my mither who made it her goal to tell me it would all be doom amd gloom and that I was having it far too easy for it to last.

yes I know I am very lucky but dd has always been very chilled, with the exception of the current molar coming through bit even teething has phased her. separation anxiety for about 6 weeks was my only real nightmare when she wouldn't sleep at night unless cuddled but to be fair once some very helpful ladies on here reminded me to say bugger it to the housework and enjoy my baby that wasn't too bad either

What has her method of conception got to do with anything?

She sounds like a pain in the arse but I don't really understand why you felt the need to detail her personal circumstances.

My 3rd child was and still is an easy going person. She is now 11 and never had a paddy.
If she had been my first I would have landed on my feet.
My first two, well where to start!

She's a close friend and it took you 3 months to speak to each other?!
I don't see that she's said anything outrageous. I was hoping for far more interesting!
Leave to it. She'll find out.

Ha, you can tell by the tone of your posts that all of you with "good" kids secretly believe it's really down to your brilliant parenting, despite claiming you know you've been "lucky".

A friend of mine who's a father of three once said to me, when we were commiserating about our, er, challenging first borns: "I feel really sorry for people who have their good child first. It must come as a terrible shock to them when they have their second and realise that actually, it's not that they're naturally brilliant parents, they just got really lucky the first time around."

bookofruth what an absolutely vile thing to say.

I have no allusions as to my standard of parenting, I am fully aware that I just fell bloody lucky with dd's laid back nature and actually I find you comments incredibly insulting

I'm a bit amazed by this meme that French kids are so well behaved. When I was growing up (admittedly a few years ago now) French kids had a reputation as feral horrors. The Channel ferry was always overrun with French kids charging all over the place (and throwing food). When we had exchanges with our twinned school we were shocked by their behaviour in school and the complete lack of discipline by their teachers (and I did not grow up in a particularly genteel part of the UK). Has it all change in the last few years?