To be booooooooored to death of smug PFB comments on MN. It's shite, you know it is.

[welliemum]

It's an old story. Someone posts an OP in which you can see that they?re being quite protective or concerned about their child ? maybe a bit too much so.

Within minutes, someone will ask, ?Is this your first child??

Then the floodgates open for a deluge of posts along the lines of ?Oh, you are a silly little thing - when you have TWO children and are as fabulously wise and experienced as I am, you will See The Error Of Your Ways? [virtual pat on head].

I just don?t get this. It?s like jeering at a learner driver for driving slowly. Would you want an 18 year old with a sparkly new licence to be barrelling down the motorway at 90 mph?

We live in a society where most of us have very little contact with babies until we have our own. IMO it?s absolutely right that new, inexperienced parents should have safety margins the size of Australia until they?ve sorted out what is truly risky and what isn?t. In fact I?d go further and say that that?s the ONLY sensible way to parent if you?re new to the game.

Far rather rush around madly sterilising than put your tiny baby in hospital on a drip because you were too cool to wash a bottle.

As far as I can see, PFB comments have nothing to do with giving helpful advice to a new parent, and everything to do with massaging the ego of the PFB-commentator.

"But most PFB comments on MN are said nastily and vindicatively."

I disagree with this completely.

exactly soupdragon. That's just not true at all. It;s used a lot by people to describe their own behaviour.

I think there's PFB - the concept - which we all know and understand.

Then there's PFB - the undermining comment which is when people post things like "hah, she's only got one child, what the hell does she have to worry about...". This featured on the thread about being child-centric where lots of people said, effectively, "pah, she's only got one child, what the hell does she have to worry about".

As I have said on another thread, as a single parent, I could equally post:

"Hah - two parents in this family and they still can't cope! Hah! I deal with twice this amount of bother before breakfast and with my hands tied behind my back".

Irritating, isn't it?

I agree too, MsDemeanour. Most of us recall, cringingly, the appalling things we did in those first months. And actually quite a lot of new parents do do idiotic over-protective things.

Whether they go on to have subsequent children is a separate issue. We've all usually grown out of it by the end of the first year.

Oh come on, it is absolutely relevant if someone writes a feature slagging off other parents for thinking too much about their children to mention that the person saying this has just one healthy, non-disabled school age child AND a fricking full time nanny! Just as it would be relevant if, say, a woman was nagging other people about living an eco-life to mention they are married to a billionaire and have two socking great homes and acres of land to keep their geese! (not that I'm thinking of anyone in particular )

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Agree with MsDemeanor. PMSL at cutting the legs off a babygrow. My aunt looked after ds1 whilst we went to a wedding. DH asked her not to go into town as she would have to (shock horror) cross the road. PMSL. My aunt was very good (sniggered quietly to my mum and went into town anyway). DH still gets reminded about it occasionally today (as he should).

Agree with MsDemeanor. PMSL at cutting the legs off a babygrow. My aunt looked after ds1 whilst we went to a wedding. DH asked her not to go into town as she would have to (shock horror) cross the road. PMSL. My aunt was very good (sniggered quietly to my mum and went into town anyway). DH still gets reminded about it occasionally today (as he should).

I think sometimes it can't be relevant to ask whether its a first though. Eg biting/hitting threads where someone is calling an 18 month old a bully - if you have a 1 year old maybe 18 month olds seem enormous, if you have older children then it's easier to view the 1 year old and 18 month old as both being babies.

What about PFB-ish behaviour spotted in others? I reckon that's fair game. Myself.

JJ, when I was nine months old (and the PFB) we went by boat to India. My parents wrote to my dad's sister that I seemed to be enjoying it, but they did worry about the Big Boys who were crowding me a bit.

They enclosed a photo of me with said notorious thugs, who proved to be angelic toddlers...

but again that's not about there only being one child - it's about only have experience of a small relatively immobile non biting/hitting baby.

2 year olds seemed huge to me when I just had ds1. And dangerous. And when ds1 was 3 I would have kept him away from 9 year olds. But with ds3 I'm used to seeing him at the bottom of a pile of much older boys (he puts himself there and complains bitterly if I try and extract him). I think that's a combination of a) realising that kids aren't that fragile and b) just having a lot more experience of 9 year olds and seeing them as pretty young too.

PMLS mi- cross posted, but yes I've been there myself.

Ok, to check if I am going mad and have missed all this 'vindictive' PFB comments I did a quick search and this was the first mention of PFB that came up...

Woman posting about her six month old who seems to have a rash after eating...

"Can she now never have aubergine again? I really love it and she seemed to enjoy it too sad

Shes my PFB so I'm trying not to panic."

The OP was using it about herself! And all the responses were kind, reassuring and said, 'no, it's fine to worry - here's what I did'.

Actually I can't find any ridiculing use of the term aimed at posters at all. I keep finding people using it about themselves though. Like this 'My pfb (and only) is going to school in September. Every time I think about it I well up."

I think it's often relevant to ask if it's a first born. In any circumstances, if you think someone is making an odd suggestion/assumption/action you'd be perfectly reasonable to ask if it was their first time.
"I kept opening the oven door every minute to check on my sponge cake and now it's sunk in the middle!"
"Is this your first attempt at baking...?"

actually msdemeanour, I was pretty irritated by those comments.

I have one child and a full time nanny (because I work full time). I am also a single parent. It's irritating to be told you don't know how tough it can be because you "only" have one child.

Like I say, I'll perhaps start posting that no one else can complain because there are two parents to manage any family issue.

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Has anyone ever said that parents of only children can't complain??

I didn't have PFB with my daughter but with my PFN (precious first nephew). First time I babysat for him (pre DS) I put him in his cot in the bedroom then sat outside the door on the floor all night in case he miraculously climbed out of his cot (at 6 weeks) or something.

I think if you look at the childcentric thread, a lot of the criticism of the admittedly rather poor article, was because "what does she know, she only has one child".

But it the person's circumstances are relevant when they are complaining about other people!
Whe wasn't writing about how 'tough' her life was at all, but she was slating other people for daring to spend any time thinking about their children or adapting their lives to suit their kids, and people, including me, were merely stating that of course you have lots more time to think about other things and have less adapting to do if you are a writer with a full time nanny and only one older child, so don't slag other parents off whose circumstances may be different to yours.
Seems entirely reasonable to me, and nothing to do with largely self-mocking uses of PFB on this site.

OK, well just mentioning as someone in similar circs to her (though no ex husband to take up the weekend slack) I thought some of the comments were quite dismissive of her domestic set up (which is similar to mine).

Will just have to try posting my annoying comment about two parent households every now and again and see if people get the point.

Agree msd.

The implied critisism of non-pfb parents by pfb-ers tends to get up one's nose a little. 'Oh of course I'd never let me child do this/have that etc. And I always do this with him/her. And he always has the very best of everything'. Which is a luxury that parents of more than one child may not be able to afford or find time for. Regardless of whether they might like to or not.

I found having more than one child/having older children did change my views- but mainly it made me less smug/more accepting.

Sooooo I thought that ds1 was a fantastic eater because of the way he'd been weaned and the wonderful meals I put together in the kitchen. He reflected my culinary prowess. Right until the moment he gave up eating anything except 5 items of food for 4 year (no fruit no veg no meat no fish).

When I had ds1 and very laid back well behaved ds2 I thought that badly behaved, stroppy NT children were that way because their parents gave into them. Then ds3 was born with fists clenched ready to do battle.

And so on and so forth.

The main thing I've realised with 3 totally different children is that I have very little input into their basic responses, sure we smooth down their edges a bit, but ds2's excellent behaviour (which is always commented on) is bugger all to do with us. He was born that way.