To be sick of competitive parents

[Discoconut]

I really don't understand the obsession and competitiveness over baby milestones. I am constantly hearing other parents make a huge deal of how soon they can get their babies to achieve milestones, but particularly walking. I hear so many parents boast about the age their child walked - or the age they are determined they will walk by. I attend a group where there's a few parents like this, but also another Mum who's little one has a minor developmental delay and it almost feels as if they are saying things pointedly. I get the feeling sometimes it makes her feel like shit.

I honestly couldn't give a monkeys how old my child is when he takes his first steps, or achieves any other milestones, as long as it's all looking good for him to get there in his own time. It's not like you win some grand fucking prize if your baby walks at 9 months old. I have no idea how old I was when I walked. So far, that hasn't had any impact on my life.

AIBU to think that parents who are obsessed with these things only care so they can brag about it? (excluding situations where there might be other challenges for the babies that might have impacted those milestones)

it can be irritating. Though there are relatively few real braggers around. Most are just sharing updates.

My son didn’t walk till 19 months. It didn’t bother me though as I could see he was progressing every day. He is now 20 and still as lazy as hell…

Bad news is this doesn't stop with babies and carries on with school at an even worse level.

Good news is that most of the people who do this don't know what they are talking about and it makes naff all difference.

Comparisons are odious. Focus of your kids, ignore!

It's worse at school.

Still, I prefer the parents who are openly proud and pushy / competitive. Rather than the parents who do that "casual" thing but then whom the teacher accidentally drops into conversation has emailed about "more advanced work", "chess club" "extra music tuition" and "extra sports clubs" and who you KNOW is sneaking through your kids book bags to check what level their reading book level is and / or questions your kid to the n-th degree about their progress at swimming squad.

Own it.

IGNORE is the only advice I can give you

It doesn’t even stop after school - some people are competitive about their adult children. And their grandchildren!

It was just the same when mine were babies and my youngest is 32 now.
It made matters worse when my sister in law had a baby three months before mine arrived, same sex to make it worse.
All I bloody heard was...
is John crawling yet? Jack is.
is John walking yet? Jack is.
Is John potty trained yet? Jack is.
is John using cutlery yet? Jack is.
When they were older....
did John pass all his exams? Jack did.
is John going to university? Jack is.
Which one? Oh Jack's going to ( insert a better class of uni in her head )
is John learning to drive yet? Jack is.
on and on it went.

God forbid mine achieved something before Jack, poor Jack. She's never forgiven him for not being the first to pass his driving test or produce the first grandchild.

Names changed.

Ha, but you forget it all later on. My top tip is to write down the first word/age of first walking etc somewhere safe for when they ask you and you have no idea.

I remember being my mates car and her mother grilling me directly - think I was about 12 about what I was doing at school.

I was in the same class as her daughter. Awful woman. She was giving me a lift home and I felt I had to be polite.

OMG do we have the same SIL? I got this all through the early years until I went low contact (for non petty horrible stuff) her kids are NT and I was always relaxed about my kids but I just had this feeling she wanted me to worry and fret about it.

i knew she was a competitive bitch when I mentioned how my developmentally delayed amazing asd child managed potty training in two weeks. I was really proud. She swiftly replied, hers did it in a day.

I wonder why men don't do this?

They drive you mad with it don't they.
Three months is a big gap developmentally in a baby, but in her head there may as well have just been three days between them.
Funnily enough, he had very little to do with his mum since he escaped to university, even less since he got married and had his own children.

Because men don't validate themselves via their children

Some women do and yes it's tedious

I have never looked at it as bragging. Babies are born with very limited skills so any little advancement is very noticable and most parents sort of celebrate when their kids learn something new. That in combination with maternity leave that is incredibly boring and uninteresting and most women forget about their own advancements during it makes these little things important.

I don't think it's bragging for the most part. My little one is very behind but my first did everything easily. I think it's more thoughtlessness for the people around you, and I may well have been guilty of it in the past.

I've never noticed this at all. Yes the mums I met would discuss these milestones but only because we were all on mat leave, it was our first babies and we had nothing else to talk about! It never felt competitive.

I walked at 9 months, at 30 years old I still haven't mastered it given how often I fall and trip.

Baby groups are the root of all evil, utterly mind numbing and pointless for the babies. I understand it for mums to get out and spend time with people in similar circumstances but then you have situations like this that are good for no one.

So true about the competitive football Dads!

Thing is… all babies develop at their own pace, and every baby has a strength (even if that is pulling their own socks of).
all have positives and negatives, and no baby is good at everything (because they can only focus on one thing… so if they are growing teeth they are not focussing on walking). You need to find your tribe. some might be Uber competitive, the majority less so (and will just chat about it…).
i quite happily admire my friends’ children’s milestones even if my kids have not achieved them yet.

I could never boast about early walking with my children - they were 15, 16 and 18 months respectively. However, it turned out that both myself and DH were 17 months as was my mother. It doesn’t mean a thing in the long run. As it happens, DD and myself were early talkers but as we are both adults now I think the accomplishment is probably fairly meaningless now. The helicopter/boastful mothers can be aggravating but a cheerful “that’s great/fantastic/what a wonderful achievement” is the best thing to say to these parents every time little Harry or little Olivia is the first to get a tooth/walk/talk/be toilet trained/be a free reader/get the 25 metre badge in swimming/get top marks in sats, music exams, ballet exams or the star athlete/get top grades at GCSES and A levels and go on to Oxbridge. You will probably be gritting your teeth so hard that you will be wearing away but when little Harry/little Olivia get a third in their degrees because they have finally freed themselves from the apron strings and had a whale of a time through university, you can commiserate while feeling slightly smug as your more ordinary children are steadily making their way through life. After primary school, or long before, you will probably lose touch with most of these mothers anyway and what seems so important at the time really is not.

There is a difference between the parents who are making chat and the competitive ones. At baby age I put it down to anxiety- the parents desperately trying to get their kid to wave before the others must be anxious, I mean they're all going to do it sooner or later (disabilities aside).

Once post baby age it's pretty easy to give these people a wide berth, unless you're unlucky enough to have one in your family. Anyone at the school gates over invested in what 'the best' secondary school is can be swerved, and after that you don't have to see any school parents if you don't want to

Babies are really boring, milestones are the only thing to say about them really, I remember getting really excited/worried over milestones. If I had a second I wouldn’t bother, it doesn’t really mean much theres such a wide range of normal. I was made to feel bad that DD hadn’t started walking by 1yr and that her first word was at about the same time. I would never take it personally now, at the time the isn’t she doing x yet really got under my skin.

My step mum was AWFUL for this with my little brother. It got even worse when he went to school. I remember him telling her what marks he got on a test and she would ask what the class average was every time. Poor kid couldn't have done a good job unless he was doing better than everyone else!

Just smile and enjoy your baby. Only way.

My kid was premature and massively late on all these things!

Sounds like you need to find 'your' people elsewhere.