Weirdest things you've seen other parents do as they bring up or care for their DC?

[FortunesFave]

Here are mine.

I was in a public toilet in the cubicle and heard a woman come in with a small boy.

They went into a cubicle together and I heard her ask him repeatedly "Do you want to dirt!?"

She meant poo!

"Do you want to dirt???

Omg.

Second is SIL. When her DS was little...around 2 or so, she'd put chips for him INTO A BOWL OF COLD WATER so they'd cool faster.

Dump the cooked chips into a bowl of water. Leave them there for a bit and then drop the soggy pile onto a plate for the poor child.

WHY? What are yours?

Robinson's squash is okay occasionally.

I could never ever in my life be able to suck snot out of my dcs nose. The actual thought of it is knocking me bandy!!

Yes, then what? 🤣 Was there no magic?

I have loved reading all these as it just shows how much we are all winging motherhood 😂....we all do things differently as a means to get through the day and do the best we can with what we have. Just because something looks "weird" doesn't mean it's wrong ( unless child is at risk obviously) xxx

@MrsWorriedMother

Not weird as such but felt sorry for the child.

Was in M&S yesterday and there was a mum with a buggy and a five(ish) year old daughter. The daughter was asking if she can go on the moving stairs to the next floor but mum said no as she had the buggy they had to use the lift. That was fair enough.

Our paths crossed a few times in the store and each time the mum was way over the top saying she must hold her hand as the floor is slippy and she will fall. It wasn't wet and slippy. She was saying this in a very jittery anxious manner.

Then she was saying don't go too close to the clothes rails cos they will collapse on her. Again in a very panicky jittery way.

She was generally way over the top and highly anxious and this was being projected onto the little girl.

Sounds like Aunt Josephine. Terrified of doorknobs, gas cookers, and realtors.

I regularly drop-kick my DC which probably looks really weird to anyone watching.

I don't know how or why it became a thing but its game where they'll ask me to drop-kick them or if they little ones' legs are tired they'll ask to be drop-kicked home. Basically I pick up child from behind, under the arms and held away from me, I give them a "kick" in the bottom (no force at all behind it), swing them forwards and back onto their feet, and then they go pelting along the street, arms windmilling, going "arrrrrrrrgggg", as if they've just been blasted along at great speed and force.

A pair of brothers started tagging along with me and my daughter at soft play once. When I asked them if they wanted to go and shoot the guns (air powered things which fired foam balls), there was a sudden intake of breath. It turned out the word ‘gun’ was forbidden for them, like a swear word. And they obviously hadn’t had it explained that for other people it was a perfectly ordinary thing to say.

I could probably fill an entire thread on my own tbh of things I did which was insane when I was a first time mum.

For example, I used to warm tomatoes and cucumbers before giving them to ds so he didn't feel the cold on his teeth.

I also used to spend ALL my time with him, like I wouldn't clean or anything if he was awake.

Then I got pregnant with dc2 and exhaustion won and I became a wee bit more normal.

I often ponder what the fuck people are thinking motivations are behind some of the more outlandish and self-sacrificing parenting choices.

I know a woman who allows her three year old free access to feed from her overnight and absolutely will not sleep under a cover in case he can’t get access to her boobs. They both sleep on a mattress on the floor in the spare room and she hasn’t slept under a cover since he was born. She also won’t wear a pyjama top. She freely admits she’s freezing cold. This kid feeds around five to ten times a night, and is practically nocturnal. He melts down constantly and has never learnt to link a sleep cycle and is tormented when he’s dropped at nursery in the mornings. I think she should might wean as she gets fuck all sleep, neither does he and she has fucked up so many times at work because of it. Lives literally depend on her. It’s so worrying.

I’m plenty sure people judge me because I am relaxed bordering on the lackadaisical.

@Newmumatlast

The squash comments all really concern me. My child won't drink just water. Yes I started with just water but my partner drinks lots of squash all day and she was taking some from him. I'm not happy about it but it happened and now she refuses water. Entirely. Even really really weak squash. I have tried to make it better with higher juice content rather than crap squash and no aspartame but I actually feel really crap about it and sad that I'll look like an awful mum when out but I actually think I am a good mum. My child has quite a few issues around food and is really particular but so is my husband who has additional needs so I am conscious she may have either picked that up from him or it may be that I need to watch for additional needs. I am trying to get her into nursery in the hope peer pressure with other kids will help. Any advice I'm willing to take but don't think that people are always doing things they're happy about and arent having a real struggle behind closed doors.

I used to refuse water, I turned out fine. As a matter of fact, I still hate hard water (including that in my parents' area) but drink it where it's better.

@Bluskyenonstop

Few mums in my child’s school holds their Y6 kids hands when walking to school / from school. There is nothing wrong with any of those kids and it’s all on the pavement.

Guess what? The kids who have disabilities, anxiety or SEN and might need their hands held do’t have anything ‘wrong’ with them either. What a nasty spiteful post.

@MsLizard

I've heard some call a wet and shitty nappy a meal deal.

I call it a code brown 😂

A friend of mine has fairest of children (ginger hair, freckles). She used to be obsessed with putting factor 100 every 5 minutes. Post covid we saw them. Summer, kinda hot/sunny, thought I should put some sun cream on my less fair but blonde kids so offered to put it on hers too. She said 'ok, but I never bother putting it on their face'!?

I once witnessed someone who would prechew her toddler’s food for her. We were out at a carvery and she would chew stuff like the meat first.

@BorisKilledMyHusband 🤢

A woman who fed her children raw spaghetti. She also thought blackcurrants were poisonous.

A relative of mine would shake her children out of the window after meals, to get rid of crumbs. It was a ground floor window, but still...

I give them a "kick" in the bottom (no force at all behind it), swing them forwards and back onto their feet, and then they go pelting along the street, arms windmilling, going "arrrrrrrrgggg", as if they've just been blasted along at great speed and force

Really laughing at this🤣🤣🤣I can just see the image of them running 🤣🤣

A relative of mine would shake her children out of the window after meals, to get rid of crumbs. It was a ground floor window, but still...

Now I'm howling 🤣

I worked in a preschool for a time and one mum just refused to take her toddler away from something/somewhere they shouldn't be and would Instead stand there for ages just asking the child to move.

If the child wouldn't walk in the school doors that morning she wouldn't take their hand or lift them in she would stand in the way of the door (sometimes for 20+ minutes) getting in peoples way whilst waiting for lovely 2.5 year old Francesca to make the right decision and go of her own free will.

I know another who didn't want the baby to see/watch a screen, before they turned one.
I understand that!

But I was holding the baby who was sitting on my lap (about 10 months at the time) and I picked up my phone to find a photo someone had just asked for and the mum of baby dove across the person sitting next to me to put her hand over the baby's eyes and shout 'no screens' ... got the fright of my life, I almost dropped the child off my lap.

Utterly baffled at the idea that there is anything weird about holding hands with a 10 year old, or that the only reason to hold a child's hand is to prevent them from running onto the road. I think it's a bit sad to think that someone wouldn't see that you might hold their hand out of affection, or just because they want to!

I once walked past a woman, who had a baby around 9 or 10 months old in a pushchair.
As I passed by, she said to the child, in a really angry tone "Why don't you stop waving your fucking arms around!"

This made me laugh. Ok so I've no way of knowing the context and perhaps she was a horrible mean mother but it sounds exactly like the things I'd mumble to my DC when I was severely sleep deprived. I'd hold it together all day being a happy clappy mummy dearest and eventually after dealing with the 100th tantrum of the day something would die inside of me and I'd find the most ridiculous thing intensely irritating. It was always a straw that broke the camels back scenario and came from having two DC 14 months apart, with a less than useless workaholic husband and not getting a single nights sleep for close to 3 years. I knew I was being completely unreasonable but It was either a quick vent or throw them out the window 🤷‍♀️

EmeraldShamrock
Suck a snot from her newborn child's nostril.
I bought her a sucker for baby 2, she preferred her own method.

This is very common practice in a lot of African countries. It is also very effective and God forbid we in the UK can actually learn something from another culture.

There is a reason people don't do this in countries where there is cheap equipment available to perform the same task in a sanitary way.

@Bluskyenonstop

Few mums in my child’s school holds their Y6 kids hands when walking to school / from school. There is nothing wrong with any of those kids and it’s all on the pavement.

That's weird? I sometimes hold my daughters hand who is on year 6 on the way to school and we cross no roads. It's just an affectionate thing we do. Sometimes we hold hands, sometimes we don't. There will come a time when she won't want to hold my hand at all so I'm grateful we still do this.

@ElizaDarcysDeeds

Some of these posts are verging on racist. Early toilet training and using different words for going to the toilet are cultural differences.

Huh?

People should be allowed to criticise another culture - or indeed their own - when they believe that its practices/ traditions/ ideologogy is illogical or harmful or simply nonsensical. Why should people accept something just because lots of other people think it is ok? Many cultures of the past and present are brutal and violate human rights.

Criticism of ideas/ traditions is not racist. Someone's race is about their genetic heritage which may have little or nothing to do with their cultural frame of reference, that totally depends on where they happened to grow up and with whom, not their genetic makeup. You are conflating two totally different concepts here. I don't understand your comment.