Competitive parenting

[Lime19]

Aibu to think competitive parenting is getting out of hand. It really gets to me and takes the enjoyment out of parenting. Makes me feel very at the whole experience. I have a son and am expecting twins in the new year.

So far I've had the following:

-odd comments when I'm saying I'm having twins "well I'm having a third baby too" before a congratulations is barely said, as if it's a competition about the quantity of kids. I'm not sure anyone would pick twins, it's got so many added risks and to be honest I'm petrified of giving birth early and the prospect of a lengthy stay in nicu.

-how much your baby weighed... "well my baby weighed 10lb and put on a 1lb a week" etc as if it's some sort of achievement. It's really not, it's just genetics surely?!

Then of course there's the standard competition over the following:

-how quickly you got pregnant
-how terrible your birth was "I needed 400 stitches and pushed for 50 hours"
-breastfeeding
-milestones
-childcare vs stay at home
-even weaning "well my baby started feeding himself at 4 months, baby led weaning of course not purée"

It's the one bit of parenting that I can't stand! It only serves to make people feel shit. So I had an average sized baby, that walked late and was fed purée, does that make me less successful as a parent?

It doesn’t get much better the older the children get!

Oh don't say that

It gets a million times worse when they start school in my experience; ability groups, reading levels, pen licences, sports teams, etc etc. Bloody ridiculous and I always try to find the funny side!

God it sounds awful but I think trying to find funny side is probably way forward!

One of the many reasons I avoid having too many mummy friends.

12-piece jigsaw versus 24-piece, which colour reading book, what colour swimming hat, Mary or Joseph vs 3rd shepherd from the left in the nativity play, budding dancer with the Royal Ballet vs skipping about in the village hall for half an hour every week - the list is endless

I really haven't come across this tbh, obviously people talk about this but is it competition or just chat?

Another who's never experienced this

One of my old NCT crew turned up to a meet up with her kids in ‘screen free and happy’ t shirts. Mine was wearing a Bing top. 😂

It has ever been thus. My first child is now 30 and it was the same when she was a baby and all through school and university.
If I hadn't ditched my awful 'friend', it would probably still be happening.
Don't be friends with ANYONE like this, they will suck all of the joy from parenting from you!

Even worse than the competitiveness, is that competitive misery:

"My baby hasn't slept for more than 45 minutes since he was born"

"Well my baby hasn't slept for more than 40
minutes and doesn't even nap"

"Oh you're pregnant, you'll never have a cup of hot coffee/shower before noon/ have a meal out again... EVER".

I got hooked in once. INvivited to a playdate with my 2 year old. Other mother then put her tiny genius through his paces of counting, singing in french and recognising some words in a book.
We applauded and left.

You can't avoid it, whether you are friends with them or not. School twitter sites are the worst....parents tweeting constantly how amazing their kids are at X, y, z, and the school retweeting it. It's called overpraising.

Nope, I think it’s a lot less competitive than when I was a child, but then, my dc hasn’t started school yet, so time will tell! My mum / dad acquaintances are pretty lovely and non-competitive so far.

Oh also I’m not on social media at all. Maybe that helps.

I think this is much more prevalent in some areas than others. SE commuter belt- rife. God knows what it is like actually in London.

Rural Dorset- if you tried this kind of thing people would look at you like you'd grown two heads even amongst the parents at expensive Prep.

My observation is that this type of parenting does NOT produce nice children.

A couple mums stopped talking to me when dd was chosen as the lead in the Christmas play they all get a line fgs, it's a reception play Not the west end

Cuppasarah.....did you boast about it on Twitter or Facebook?

When discussing children's futures my mum said my brother was going to uni to do engineering. The response was "Oh I'm so sorry!" My mum was chuffed -much better in her book than my philosophy degree! Not sure what other mum's son ended up doing...

I try to avoid any competitive parenting but have found myself mentioning things DS does (counting in Italian!!!) and then worrying it sounds competitive so then quickly adding in something about his strops or love of "making a mess" as a favourite game.

I don't think the problem is mentioning how cute you find your DS counting in Italian.

The problem is when you start saying 'Yah, you know it's just so HARD knowing which language classes to keep up because, you know, he's just so gifted at languages, but we can't keep them ALL up dahling- he has County under 4s hockey twice a week too you know...'

I'm spectacularly dense in mossy social situations so perhaps this goes on at baby group without me noticing but mostly we just sit around cooing over each others' adorable babies/toddlers and moaning about the weather etc.

I find that sort of boastful person is usually unsure in themselves and must compare with others in order to feel good/worthy. Quite sad, really.

@lowdoor

I live in a commuter town in the Home Counties! I think people don’t bother being competitive with me tbh. Too easy for them to win!

My favourite is competitive potty training.

Whilst following a 2 year old round with a potty-

“Oh yes I know he’s ready, refuses nappies and insists on the potty. So many people have told me he’s too young but he only has 3 or 4 accidents a day, he got one in the potty all by himself last week”

Meanwhile kid has peed all over the floor so she starts loudly praising him for being “so close” this time.

Best one i have heard was the woman who put in a complaint about a lovely pcso who discretely suggested that letting her kid piss all over the pavement in a busy street wasn’t the most social of behaviours.

Haha you have to hear disabled child top trumps!! I swear I've heard parents debating autistic traits in their child like whose child is the most autistic makes me laugh that even in the sen world its competitive

I knew being a mother would be hard
Sleepless nights blah blah
But what I wasn't prepared for was the sheer competitiveness of it

I've pretty much cut contact with the 'mummy' group of friends I made when pregnant, because the babies were all born within a month of each other the competition of who was walking, talking, potty trained was just too much
The straw that broke the camels back was someone literally battling me with who had the fastest labour, I don't give a shit how long you were pushing for???

It's shit, and unavoidable in my opinion