To feel anxiety-ridden by Joe Wick's new speech on parental anxiety?

[AllesAusLiebe]

Anyone else seen it on Instagram?

I only heard about this guy on here a few months ago and started listening to him, which I now regret!

Basically, he's created a 'helpful' video to respond to messages he's received from anxious parents in response to his numerous posts documenting his jetset lifestyle.

He claims that anxiety holds many people back from travelling with kids and eating out with kids and through that, you're missing out on 'making precious memories' (cringe). He claims that eating out with his young kids is great fun and they're not phased by sleeping in noisy bars(what?!) and restaurants because he and his wife have never enforced a routine and have been gleefully relaxed on their magical parenting journey.

He references being anxious about choking, jetlag and overseas diseases (all of which I'm guilty of) and dismisses these fears, too. They're actually very real fears, in my opinion. (Particularly having seen numerous people on my flight last week wearing face protection . . . !)

I only watched the damn video because I am an anxious parent with a son who has been tough going from day one and I thought it might help me chill a little. Instead, I'm feeling really conflicted. Part of me is pissed that this tool has made me feel lousy for not embracing some of the opportunities with my son that were available but part of me thinks it was a genuine attempt to help and I'm being too sensitive.

I'll try and link it if I can, if anyone is interested.

I used to go to fancy restaurants and on exotic holidays pre children but no way would I waste my money taking babies places like that now. Much better to spend money on those things when the children are older and can remember it. It doesn’t make me anxious or unadventurous, it makes me sensible (in my opinion).

His daughter isn’t 2 until July. I also remember him going on about how other people are scared of labour but his wife prepared really well and had a hypnobirth - again, I’m pleased for her, but lucky that it worked out. Birth, like your baby’s temperament, is something you can only control so much, it’s not because she is better than other women.

I think his recipes and workouts are pretty good so fair play for that but beyond that I think he has been very lucky in lots of respects but seems to think this is due to him being amazing rather than acknowledging his luck.

Ack, he's a sanctimonious knob. Of course kids are no problem without any routine when you don't have to get them up at a certain time to get them dressed, fed, down five flights of stairs, in a buggy, to a childminder and then dash for the vague hope of getting standing room on a bus, praying that the traffic actually starts moving or your boss isn't sitting there scowling as you dash in the front door two minutes late again.

Especially if you're the bloke who has thoughtfully instructed the mother how she has to hand over responsibility on IG at least for how she feeds the children she gave birth to.

Reminds me of ex number 1. Informed me that I was responsible for DD screaming the house down 24/7. My negative vibes, apparently, along with my callous abandoning her in her Moses basket to actually have a shit without her screaming in the toilet with me at 5 weeks. Not the allergies she actually had.

This man is a prat. He's announcing he's having loads of kids and isn't that fussed if wife wants them. He knows no more than me and you as we make our way through the parenting challenges.

Why link to something that has caused you anxiety?

Make your own decisions. Don't look to someone famous to tell you how to live your life. It is all bollocks. He is making money out of people's insecurities. Think about it.

Come on they must have help raising their kids. I doubt they're there all the time doing the mundane

Firstly never believe anything a celeb writes. It’s all PR driven and he’s based his image on positivity. In terms of his points

1. restaurants- eating out with children can be enjoyable so if you’re not then you maybe are missing out a bit. Where I disagree with him is timings. It’s fun for us because I pick times that will work for them and cap it at 1h30-2h so they don’t get fractious. I’d rather go at 6 and let them sleep in their beds than keep them up until 10 or expect them to sleep in a noisy bar.

2. choking. I loved blw but was still concerned about choking and still am with my eldest. I

3. travelling. Again can be fun but personally I wouldn’t have taken a 10 week old to Mexico before vaccinations were complete.

So for me, he’s not necessarily wrong that you can do things but he’s been selfish in showing how relaxed he is because some of the things he’s shown are good for him but not necessarily as good for the children.

He’s obviously a good personal trainer - I like his workouts on YouTube - but why he feels the need to tell everyone how to parent is beyond me

On the video, yes it is twatty - I actually don’t think he means it to be, I just don’t think he’s very self aware. I’m not disputing he and Rosie are good parents in their way but bragging his daughter will sleep in loud bars or clubs... well to me that isn’t child focussed. I also think he is quite dismissive of people’s concerns and anxiety and seems to suggest you can choose not to be anxious.
For the first few months of my daughter’s life I “went with the flow” as he puts it and it didn’t work. She didn’t sleep, she didn’t feed well, she wasn’t happy. I introduced a routine (not overly Gina ford strict but a routine nonetheless) and it really worked for her. Part of this was teaching her to sleep in her crib alone by making her associate it with sleep. Now she’s about to turn two and won’t sleep anywhere except her cot, which does mean we can’t put her to sleep in loud bars in her pram (!) but is better than before when she wouldn’t sleep anywhere for longer than 30 minutes! That’s what worked for us and it isn’t because we weren’t as “relaxed” as him.

Good for him and his family doing what works for them but he is extremely naive about the reality for other families.

Yeah it’s pretty easy to be chilled out when you have money to throw at problems and have quite a lot of luck - I.e. wife has straightforward labour, easy baby, even down to his fitness approach not discussing counting calories because he individually has never had to worry about that when the vast majority of people who want to lose fat need to consciously create a calorie deficit.

His new baby has been a bit trickier than his first, we’ll see how that goes.

I have no idea who he is (not in the UK) but bwhahahahahahahahahaha! What an absolute TOSSER. Really OP, you can absolutely ignore this 100% without feeling guilty.

I have a couple of nutritionist friends and one registered dietician friend who strongly disagree with his weight loss / healthy eating advice, and can back up their disagreement with pretty robust evidence.
I figure, if he's not even giving out good advice in his apparent area of expertise, his advice in other areas is likely to be complete bollocks also 🤷🏼‍♀️

He probably has a nanny...

We’d all chill with a nanny 😂

He's not the sharpest knife in the drawer is he? He always struck me as a bit dim, low IQ, too much energy, like he'd been tube fed a diet of lucozade and findus crispy pancakes for the whole of his childhood!

Most of his early meals consisted of frying some courgette or kale and adding a packet of uncle bens two minute rice.

@doolally1

Nothing to do with my parenting proven by the arrival of dd2 who is wild, unpredictable & feral

Are you me? Felt so smug with my fantastic parenting with DC1, then DC2 came along and boy did we know about it

You are unreasonable to allow an untrained “expert” and mediocre PTI to make you feel anxious. His whole platform is built on questionable nutrition advice.

I follow a friend of DH's on Instagram who, following a peaceful 8-hour flight with their son, wrote a long post about how they'd made it work and offering advice / to answer any questions about travels with children posted in comments. Their son was eight weeks old at the time.

Some people just aren't very self-aware.

Our old ndn had a drs that made them feel like parenting naturals, very biddable child. They were quite proud of themselves.

Their dd arrived and basically taught them they knew nothing. Very high needs Velcro baby. They soon started to look frazzled.

@JonnyPocketRocket I did his 90 day plan way back when before he got massive. It was ok, but aspects were a bit of a con in my opinion. I don’t know what it’s like now but you had to fill in pages of personal info eg how often you drink water, take a crap Etc so you got “personalised” macros which were different by about a gram. I’m not a nutritionist so maybe that insane level of precision really makes a difference but it seemed dodgy to me.

But so many families said they all signed up with totally different answers and got the same macros. A friend was in a 90 day plan group on FB and one of the people there had emailed her coach to say the plan wasn’t working and the coach accidentally forwarded to her the message saying “feed her the spiel about x, y and z”.

As I say above I do like his lean in 15 recipes but I thought his 90 day plan was ridiculous. It may have improved since he got rich and has probably invested in it to be fair.

I like Joe but he suddenly thinks he is the Oracle on parenting. He needs to get back in his lane.

This.

I don’t pay attention to any celeb ‘advice’ on parenting. They’re not playing by the same rules as the rest of us. Why would I listen?

Ignore the celeb bollocks. People have always parented in different ways, but social media has turned it into an ever-present, curated, virtue-signalling competition.

I definitely wouldn't listen to him op. He's not some kind of parenting guru. Find your own way.

He seems like he means well but honestly I think he is out of touch with most parents. His kids are both really young (under 2), he is rich, neither he or his wife have proper 9-5 jobs which necessitate nursery runs or strict schedules, he has a lot of family support (his mum or his brothers often babysit). I'd take his 'parenting guru' thing with a pinch of salt.

He probably has a nanny behind the scenes like most influencers.

You wouldn’t go down a random street, knock on a stranger’s door and ask for their advice on parenting - why take this man’s advice? Plus, you have no idea how his children are going to feel about their experiences when they are older.

I think this brigs up a really important point that we need to stress to our kids as they get older....

ALL THIS IS FAKE,

Pretty much everything you see on insta, facebook, etc etc is manufactured or lies particularly from influencers .... they show an impossible lifestyle and it's unfortunately going on for years. Even pre internet, the impossibly thin models etc...