To wonder why parents judge each other's parenting standards so much?

[malificent7]

Out of all the things i was not expecting whilst pregnant, the judgement from other parents was one thing i had no idea about.
These are the things i have been judged on so far:
Being a single mum.
Breast feeding for too long.
Not enjoying breast feeding.
Being too soft on dd.
Being too hard on dd.
Going to work. Not working.
Dd fell through a stair gate ( this got gossiped about although she charged at high speed before i could stop her.)
My choice of school.
I have comments such ass " ive noticed you do xyz"
Dd gets an allowance of a small amount from her dad each month. Apparently this is too much ( it isn't and she gets clothes from this.)
Dds choice of bands must be down to me,

( i am no mega fan of Lil Mix!)
I could go on and on.
Why dont other parents keep their noses out and opinions to themselves?
And im a firm beleiver that dd is her own person and despite my best efforts, if she dosnt like eating fish or whatever ....that is not down to me!!

Some people are nosy and opinionated. Some of them have children. It doesn't change their personality. They're just gobshites and always will be so don't expect a higher standard from someone just because they have a child.

What's the saying? Opinions are like arseholes. Everybody's got one and they're often full of shit.

Something like that 😁

Insecurity. It’s difficult to feel happy and secure in our decisions in this world. Others making different ones can be tricky to cope with and we often respond by trying to take them down. An unfortunate facet of human nature.

Being judged for being a single mum is about our patriarchal society not being able to deal with the fact that women manage to raise children perfectly competently by themselves.

This is very annoying about motherhood. Judged all the time by everyone. It's shit.

I was also going to say insecurity. If you make parenting choice X and someone else makes an opposite choice, it can feel like they are saying your choice is "wrong" so they feel they have to get a defensive about it -and the way this sometimes happens is that they criticise your choice.

of course, sometimes it might not be judgement. I'd, for example, ask another parent why they chose school A rather than school B, and I wouldn't be judging them, I'd be genuinely interested to understand their reasons.

You need to chose better company. I have had 3 dc and have never experienced an judgement from another parent.

Tbh I think its more like people judge mums...much less effort is needed to be called a "good dad"

My mother was the most judgemental person when it came to other people's parenting when I was growing up. She was also very conscious of being a younger mother so I think it came from trying to reassure herself that she was doing better than women who'd had children at the acceptable age. I honestly just feel sorry for people who are so insecure in their own choices - and possibly spend less time with them...

Insecure about their own parenting choices. If they were happy and content with their own way of doing things they wouldn't give other parents a second thought.

I agree with PP and also think that some people just want to validate their own way of doing things by criticising the opposite way.

Because unfortunately judging is a symptom of the human condition

I think you've been unfortunate in your circle. I haven't the remotest interest in anyone else's parenting decisions.

I'm sure it's insecurity and looking for their own parenting approaches to be validated. Happy people don't trash other people!

Ugh parents judging others has been one of my biggest bugbears which bringing up my children.

Most of my friends are fine, I'd like to think my parenting style has little to judge really - I'm fairly relaxed without being too relaxed etc. I had one friend who's son was the same age as my youngest, I also have one 5 years older. She judged EVERYTHING we did with DS1 "I won't be allowing my DS to do that blah blah " . She had an opinion on everything. However she was also a major hypocrite, who by the time her DS became the same age as my DS1 had been he was being allowed to do far more! She's just one of those people who believed that if she didn't want her children doing it, it was wrong for other children to do it. I'm only talking about being allowed to play occasionally on a game console, being allowed to choose something off the adult menu ( he was 11!), so hardly high parenting crimes.. 🤷🏼‍♀️

The NCT lot are particularly bad for it and don't get me started on the pta!

I think insecurity as well.

Personally, parenting has made me much less judgy, I was quicker to judge people before, but now I'm doing it I can see how difficult it all is. I now start from an assumption that everyone wants the best for their children, but what with parents being different, and children being different, we do it differently. I love looking at how people do it differently but it's to get ideas and shamelessly copy, not to judge.

I'm sure it's insecurity and looking for their own parenting approaches to be validated. Happy people don't trash other people

This. I don't agree that there is such a thing as "parenting" anyway. We ARE parents, we don't parent.

The idea of making "parenting" a thing is to make insecure parents preen themselves when their kids do something right. Whereas a lot of kids just have the personality types to do things right or well and it's nothing to do with their parents except genes (I know, nature/nurture debate - much too big for this thread!)

It annoys me when people slag off parents as if kids have no agency of their own.

Insecurity and faliure to recognise the infinite variations in parent-child relationships and external circumstances.

The spectrum of good patenting is very broad.

They are insecure in their own abilities or they are unaware that there are various way available and you just need to find which way works best for you.

Because they’re projecting their own insecurities onto others.

Exactly @LlamaofDrama

A lot of people are over invested in the whole parenting thing. I don’t even care if my own six year old will eat fish /whatever. Why would I give a shit how other people raise their children so long as the children aren’t suffering any abuse?

Often I think it’s because they feel unsure about their own choices or feel attacked by those who do it differently or don’t value the same things.

Breastfeeding is a classic for the above.

But otherwise people just love to judge as they can feel better about themselves. And women are always held to much much higher standards than men.

I think many people are anxious about their own parenting, so are constantly looking for affirmation in other parents who aren't doing things the way they would iyswim

Becoming a mum is almost like a new career for a lot of women.

You do seem to have a LOT of judging aimed at you. But then, I can't help wondering if that's because you're a single mum? I have definitely noticed at our school that the single mums do not get treated the same...