Too hate the “never did me any harm” brigade

[lastqueenofscotland]

You know the type
“I drank through all my 72784 pregnancies and all my children are fine.”
“I never vaccinated my kids and they are healthy”
“My Nan smoked 749298492838 a day and had the lungs of an 18 year old.”

Personal anecdotes do not outweigh often decades and decades of research. There are always outliers.
And if people want to engage in risky behaviour that could potentially harm their unborn child or increases their chances of developing diseases, crack on. But don’t try and justify it by arguing with the science

It's only until 4 weeks you're supposed to take them out of the car seat after 30 mins. After that it's 2 hours. I don't think most people are doing 4 hour journeys with tiny newborns, are they?

I'm not following why it's assumed that rear facing must be uncomfortable for children - in my experience it isn't, unless the child happens to be one of a small minority who get car sick and find it worse when travelling backwards, in which case I totally understand forward facing (but would still want to delay it as long as possible). Or possibly if you're using one of the older style seats which rear face up to about age 2 and then go forwards, with one very laid back recline setting and next to no leg room - modern seats aren't like this, and seem to be very comfortable judging by the children I've known to have used them.

Yes I am frequently baffled by some comments I've seen on FB and the like - about how modern cars are so flimsy and old cars were made of steel (and new cars aren't??) and they believe that this is why we now need seatbelts and car seats when we didn't before - OK, so crumple zones often look extremely dramatic, but have you seen the difference betwee the crumple zone (which has done all the work of absorbing the worst of the impact) and the main shell of the car, where the driver and passengers sit? It often looks absolutely perfect and the occupants walk away with scratches, whereas in the past a crash at low speeds could and did kill people.

Also the stats for how many people die in car accidents year on year gets smaller and smaller - it's brilliant. I have no idea why people seem to think that just because they personally have never died in a car accident, that nobody ever did in the past.

@gnushoes, I think people didn't speak about depression in the past because it was seen as a moral failing and like criminality, etc, it was also seen as a genetic/inherited fault, so it was shameful for the whole family. Much like DV, and child abuse, which was kept behind doors.

Doctors didn't hold back on old-style antidepressants for women who just needed to end their marriages. There was a lot more self-medication about and parental alcoholism, which led to child neglect, was ignored. The threat of electric shock treatment and being put in an institution, or beaten, kept women in line. Life was more survival-based and Maslow's hierarchy of needs came into play.

Watching the remembrance day marching, it was pointed out that the word 'shellshock' was banned because it was seen as a disease that they didn't want to spread. Suicide was seen as a better alternative than being institutionalised, among those they didn't shoot of course.

So, again, the older generation would have to be hard of thinking, or rather still brainwashed to not question their culture, to see that nothing has changed.

I'm suffering with my lungs. My GP tells me that it's common for people of my generation, in my area, in their 50's, with no other risk factors because of the passive smoking we grew up with. My GPs/Parents etc have all passed away and did so still in denial because we were healthy as children.

I was told by someone once that I was too young to be depressed,. I was 25, had gone through a horrible pregnancy that involved a blood clot, 5 days in hospital on a blood thinning drip, then ended up back there because I was passing huge blood clots. I was diagnosed with pnd by my doc after wandering down a lane towards a bridge thinking that I would be better off jumping off it.

Do people these days not recommend eating peanut butter while pregnant, I seem to remember that was a thing?

I think most people would agree with these things but for me, I used a cot bumper and put teddies in the cot for both of my boys - this was in 2004 and 2007. There was definitely nothing doing the rounds then about not using them, everyone I know had a cot bumper and matchung grobag!

I hate this with breastfeeding. I wasn't breastfed. My mum got breast cancer and died. There is a link there that people ignore, amongst many many other factors. But for my mum, early periods and not breastfeeding massively contributed to her risk of hormone-receptive breast cancer.

Also, yes, I may have been bottle fed/early weaned/smacked. I love(d) my parents dearly. But I still have IBS, stomach issues, self-esteem issues too..

Yes it was definitely advised to avoid peanuts while pregnant just before I had DS1 in 2008 - I have a feeling they changed the advice and said no, eat loads of peanuts in pregnancy - but then don't give the baby peanuts until they are one.

By DS2 (2018) nobody mentioned anything at all about the safety or recommendation for eating peanuts or not and I didn't think about it. But newer studies had come out saying it was a good idea to introduce peanut ASAP and that babies in Israel who are commonly fed peanut coated baby food puffs have a really low incidence of peanut allergy, so I (very gingerly) gave DS2 some before he was 6 months old.

The peanut guidelines seem to have done a complete reverse. It was no peanuts in pregnancy and now it's recommended to have them to expose baby to them. I also gave peanut butter from 6 months as part of weaning under HV advice. I know parents of older children were horrified at this. The guidelines aren't always right.

Also the stats for how many people die in car accidents year on year gets smaller and smaller Not any more. It's been pretty well static since 2012.

In your 30s, all the new advice seems to be an improvement in knowledge and understanding. By the time you're 60, a lot of stuff has gone in cycles - as Bertie mentioned, peanut advice looks like doing a U-turn. It's easy to dismiss everything as a fashion rather than a genuine greater understanding of the science.

A lot of women genuinely didn't realise they were miscarrying especially in the early stages of pregnancy.

They did know. They just dealt with it as there was no help and they were told get on with it as it happened so often. It’s the same as when babies died - they just carried on (and I suspect suffered in silence - heartbreaking)

I agree that they knew and they will have known they were pregnant too, particularly if it wasn't their first pregnancy. In my second pregnancy I knew I was pregnant before I took a test based on how I was feeling then missing my period confirmed it so I did a test. From my third pregnancy onwards I had HG so knew roughly 3-4 days before my period was even due as that's when the constant vomiting began.

I've had miscarriages in early pregnancy and late pregnancy, none of them were anything like a heavy period and there were marked differences that identified them as miscarriages.

Venger that's your experience. Lots of Women aren't aware they are pregnant until much nearer 8 weeks (without testing). Irregular and untracked cycles meant early miscarriages were regularly missed. I had an early one, it was just like a period. Everyone's experiences are different.

As I am in my 50s I probably count as "the older generation" as far as some posters are concerned.
I think one of the issues is that as guidance changes you can be left with the feeling that you haven't done the best for your child. That is wholly illogical of course, as you can't act on knowledge that you don't have - or possibly nobody has - you can only do your best with the information and resources that you have available to you at the time. But we are not entirely logical beings, we are emotional, and the knowledge that you may have harmed your child or that you didn't do the very best for them can be hard to process. So it leaves some people feeling very defensive, particularly if the "younger generation" take a condescending attitude, which does sometimes happen. I will encourage my children to follow the most up to date guidance when they have children of their own, but I imagine that some of that will seem strange, wrong and might make me feel uncomfortable. We will probably all feel that way. There is very little absolute truth, knowledge and guidance will always change. We can only try our best.
I do have to bite my lip though when my FIL tells me that he doesn't believe in asthma as nobody had an inhaler in his class at school. The fact that neither the drugs nor the delivery systems had been developed then might have something to do with that, but it isn't worth arguing with him.

Agree op

I'm sure parents 50 years ago were judging previous generations in the same way we do now and how our kids will judge our generation. And we'll respond with 'Well it never did my kids any harm'.

SIL and BIL love doing this to us, our DD is 1 and their eldest is 20 so a big gap, but they ignored loads of governmental guidelines for the time anyway. Anything i mention we're doing i get 'oh, we never did that with DN and he's turned out fine!'

Last time i just responded 'oh, do you think so?'. Shut them up. For a few minutes.

Not unreasonable at all …

Just like Brexiteers who state that we managed before we were in the EU so we'll manage again ...

Boilingstormyseas Agree. Wonder what will be thought, in 50 years time, of all the 'right' ways to do things now.

I think that the world and society we are bringing children into is not a good one. So we try to compensate by thinking that if we do do all the right things and don't do all the wrong ones, then it will be alright. But while there may be improvements in scientific knowledge that help pregnant women and new parents, issues like the increase in air pollution and road traffic, the widespread availability of violent imagery on screens etc etc, the high cost of housing and the need for two incomes to ensure that housing is paid for - mean that having children is in some ways more isolating and hazardous than it used to be. Which has a negative impact not only on the parents, but also on the children....

So there's a sense that, although I was quite 'badly' parented in the 1960s, there's also a sense in which I simultaneously believe there are ways in which I had a 'better' - freer, more healthy - childhood' than someone who was brought up 50 years later.

In part because you survived it though marianne

I think assessment of risk is a difficult area. I am glad that I had the opportunity to play out. At one point we lived on the edge of a building site which wasn't fenced off and playing in the partly built houses was brilliant. (I do feel that children do not benefit from intense supervision in small houses and need more active unsupervised outdoor play.)

I think it’s because we don’t have as many children. We can’t afford to take risks.

Because if you have more than one child they are expendable?

Drives me insane

And this: keeps making comments like ‘Well I never had any help’ and ‘I coped

I’ve had this from Dsis (has one, primary aged child) and DM (had Dsis and me almost 5 years apart) on separate occasions. I took great joy in reminding them that their DH/DP wasn’t in the military and here there and everywhere, and neither did they have 3 DCs under the age of 5

Granna here who had her adult children in the 80,s. Well 3 in the 80s and 1 in 1996. Even from 1989 with my 3rd one until the 4th in 96 so much was changing.

The parenting today is very different from then. Meaning the practical and emotional. Alot of older parents cringe about it now and are defensive and come out with these statements.

Its different generations. I think that most parents cringe when they think back to bringing there own up. So much change in the last 30 plus years

Yes there was children abused then as there is today. However the average parent went with what they knew and advice.

No it didnt kill the majority or do any major harm however I look back and think "gmm" at times when I could have been more patient and so on. I am far more patient today. It's far easier being a Granna. I do Granna sitting duties weekly as my eldest and his wife both work so I am hands on

Mine roll their eyes when I say "how do you want your sandwiches cut, do you want star shapes" and the like to my grandchildren. I didnt have time for that with 3 under 4 all 2 years apart.

Yes things were done differently then. My late Mom was bought up in a a very ideal home with nannies, private school etc. She was never smacked in a generation when that was believed in. She was born in 1925.

Fast forward to 1961 and mom read all the parenting books going including Dr Spock who was the one who advocated the smack.

Fast forward again: in his late life he had changed his mind on that advice.

Times change. Plenty I wish I had done differently as every parent will say and you all will when you become grandparents too.

Enjoy! They grow so fast. My eldest is the same age as when I was running around after a 10, 8 and 6 year old.

Eek! I remember saying similar to you when I had mine

YANBU - I have colleagues, young colleagues who do this with what I'd call physical abuse. They tell horrific stories, and follow it with never did me any harm. Doesn't mean it's right.