To detest the term "Precious First Born" AKA "PFB" bandied about on MN with such a negative connotation

[susiecutiebananas]

Firstly as it implies that only your first baby is precious and all subsequent ones are dragged up... without the book

Secondly, that is used so negatively far too often and used against people who are actually, just concerned about their child, or about their parenting decisions- regardless of their place in the sibling queue. It simply is not relevant.

Lastly, the way that it is used so patronizingly. With the implication that just because you have only one child ( so far...) that you have no common sense or experience with regard to bringing up children.

OK, I know it is also used in an endearing way too. I just desperately dislike it. It really annoys me.

erm... that was all really!

Oh no I am not offended!

Gotcha, so it is shock that people can be so pfb and uptight? yes?

Well thing is I think most people are mostly chilled with random bizarre occasionally PFB tenseness (resulting in unnecessary trips to a&e or over cautious clothing etc)

But I guess they are those who are never neurotic about anything and those who are always neurotic about everything.

I like the inbetweeners, they can recognise rare insanity in themselves but are mostly sane.

I stand by PFB being a worthwhile acronym to mean overly uptight parenting.

But the complete chilled folk are deffo my next fave since I am now so relaxed I may well fall asleep whilst in charge of dcs

PFB 'syndrome', in my case, was most definitely fueled by severe PND. Severe anxiety was definitely going to make me completely barking. Looking back I can laugh at the loony stuff I did but at the time it wasn't funny AT ALL. I remember feeling was very hurt when my sister told me time and time again that I was neurotic ... I knew I was and I would have given my right arm to be relaxed.
I had a fab mum too OB ... but I still couldn't trust my PFB to her (very excellent) care without writing out instructions. It was like I was abducted by aliens for about 14 months
It was such a relief to be relaxed and chilled when DD was born (No PND = No Precious Child Syndrome ... in my case anyway)

I get surprised when a few mums don't seem to be able to make any decisions for themselves, even trivial ones. I wonder how we got to that position? Lack of extended family support or local community, perhaps?

I'm a firm believer in, "you can't put an old head on young shoulders". Take some advice if it sits well with you, but not for every little detail.

I'm a mum of five, but I still have my PFB. They don't stop going through rites of passage just because they aren't little. We have just started 'the sixth form years', and that is a whole new thing with new parental etiquette to acquire, and get wrong.

I've done the writing out instructions thing for my parents (and I remember a very funny post on MN were someone had written out a LOOOONG list). But I think the PFB thing was illustrated in detail when I dropped dd (my 2nd child) off at nursery for the first time (she used to go once a week). They had asked me to give them some guidelines about her routine, and I produced a piece of paper that said something like;
"If she cries, try bottle of EBM, don't worry if she won't drink it, she doesn't like bottles, morning afternoon nap."

But there on the wall was one of the other baby's 'instructions'. This was a while ago, but it was something like...

"Hello, my name is Louise, but I like to be called Lulu. I am a little princess. In the morning I love to have a little cuddle, and then a bottle of milk. Mummy says I have to have 3oz but sometimes I am naughty and don't want that much - please make sure I have enough otherwise I get REALLY grumpy. After lunch I get ever so tired so I need to have a little sleep - a girl needs her beauty sleep after all.....etc etc......."

It finshed;

"I know we are going to be good friends, and that you will find me just as beautiful and special as my mummy does."

I'm not joking. Obviously I've made up a bit, but it was exactly this effect. (And the 'princess' bit and 'beautiful' bit is absolutely what was there - it is imprinted on my brain!) Goodness knows what the nursery thought of it! I'm sure the mum thought it was 'cute', and it did obviously contain the instructions required, but I'm prepared to lay bets that with all subsequent children she produced something more along the lines of;

Morning - bottle - 3oz milk
After lunch - nap

lol at all TSs examples on this thread, esp jigsaw! I said to my dad "please don't give him chocolate, he isn't allowed it" when ds was about 2.

I am not at all offended by reference to pfbs btw, I think we all do it to an extent and looking back it is funny.

Hmmmm, its not acutally these sweet and fuzzy moments I am talking about really... those can be discussed on Slurs thread!!

I'm talking about the negative connotations that really do arise from it's use on MN. It os often assumed that one child = no sense.
Yes there will be plenty of times when you ask for help or advice. And Yes, I agree, MN is fantastic for it. ALso, there were a few times when DD was tiny, that I would have loved some to just tell me that what she was doing/needed was normal.

That said, I'm afraid, i have read it, being used in a such a derogatory way here. SO patronizing. So "1st baby hey, you just wait til you have 2 - sneer sneer patronize roll eyes " etc....

That is what I have issue with. Really, it's not the moment of vulnerability that we all show a parents, regardless of how many DCs we have. THere will always be moment when illness is of concern, where behaviour is extremely challenging and you simply don't know what to do, again, regardless of how many you have.Chip monkeys ds3 for eg

Time and time again, it is used in this way. Perhaps I should start making a virtual scrapbook of the uses, so yo can see my point...

god, can you imagine, if i did do that.

imo you are right and wrong.
If the term PFB is used to take the piss out of someone who has a real concern then that is wrong.
but when they are just having a PFB moment then I don't see the harm.
omg I have had so many really daft PFB and PSB moments it is untrue.
I also think people with only children can have PFB moments just the same. to me thay are just the things you look back at later and lol at doing them.

"would hope that all our children are precious, regardless of number. "

If you worry about that then you have completely misunderstood what PFB means.

DS2 is equally as precious to me as DS1. However, I realised he wouldn't break and crumble into dust if I took him out in a dirty sleepsuit, a dirty nappy and having had no breakfast, he'd survive just as well if I sorted him out when I arrived at our destination.

the fact is that if you've had no experience of babies before having your own you are far less precious about subsequent children than you were about your first. It's not down to common sense it's simply down to experience, just like everything else in this world.

Personally, I've not come across the term PFB used in a patronising or derogatory way.

erm, no i've not actually Soupy.
I realise, there is a very nice way in which is it referred. In a kind, soflty amused, fuzzy warm, reminiscent way. Of course I completely understand what it is supposed to mean.

Like I keep saying, it's the negative way it is used. Perhaps you've not read the whole thread- I wouldn't blame you, it's not particularly interesting, especially my input. Ok, what i'm trying to say is I think I clarified further in, what irks me about it.

I think that there area fair few who don't understand it, and mis use it. perhaps this is simply the problem... Ill educated multips!

< very much joking >

It's just common sense though isn't it?

When I had just had ds1 a delightful much older lady from our town said to me "Life would be a lot easier if all babies were second children, not first". I knew exactly what she meant, and as a parent of quads herself she knew what she was talking about.

Being aware of this made me from time to time get a grip of myself sometimes when I was in danger of being neurotic about something or other.

I dont think that it takes a second born for a parent to recognise when they are treating a child as PFB, I only have one but I do recognise PFB behaviour in others, and in my past self, with hindsight.

Of course they are all precious but when I look back it is funny. I hadn't a clue with the first! With my PFB I would alter my plans if he was asleep, with 2nd and 3rd they just had to fit in with the family. I think I was a much better mother once I got over the PFB bit. I think it gets negative connotations on here because people read books and have the theories and are testing them out. Once you have several different personalities you realise that a lot of the theory is garbage! I was my mother's PFB and am very cautious because she didn't want me to get hurt! She was far more laid back with my brothers.

I am more pfb with dd2. DD1 was a GF baby and low maintainance Unfortunately dd2 is not a GF baby because any amount of crying/cerfuffle in the night wakes dd1 [grrrr]. Therefore dd2 is PFBd for an easy life! However, I bf dd2 but if I want a night out its bottle or starve so in other ways not PFB iyswim.

I think it depends how used to children and babies as to how PFB you are. I don't class having structured sleeps in cot, for example, as being PFB. If I could have with dd2 early on, I would. I am also thankfull that I did use the GF method with dd1 because if she slept as badly as dd2 it would be hell, because of GF she is brilliant.

I was far stricter on dd1, mellowed with time.

I'm beginning to think there must be something wrong with me. Or that I am actually a bad mother.- seriously. I have been wracking my brain for any examples of this PFB behaviour. I truly cannot come up with one example.

Does this mean that I've been too laid back and blaze about bringing up DD that i've actually neglected her? I'm beginning to feel bad actually. SUrely, she's deserved a mum who's been like that with her, as much as all of yours...

Am with squeaky here - PFB just started 6th form. I'm going to be SO much cooler looking round unis than I was looking around schools! God, the page I wrote to the nursery teacher about DD1, I'm cringing now thinking about it 12 years later!

And I agree the word 'precious' doesn't mean the NSCs are less precious. In the same way 'neglected' doesn't really mean neglected, more like 'normally brought up'

I also remember a few years ago a friend who had only one child, said that if her child died it would be more devastating for her than if it happened to me because I would still have two others

I think EVERYONE goes through the PFB phase. I don't think it's meant condescendingly, more as a way of laughing some of the early excesses we all exhibit with our first children, and feel embarrassed about later. It's akin to the things we all say before we have our first about how they will be brought up- we all have preconceived ideas about what it will be like, and we all mature/ evolve out of them.

I think its a pretty harmless expression on the whole, and if it helps anyone to take it a little more easy and stop worrying so much, it has a use. So yes, I do think YABabitU, and you also will laugh later about the hideously overprotective things you do with the first.

I think benign neglect is much healthier! I felt that was what my BFB needed but it was difficult when he was my only. He was 8 before he got a sibling and I think it was much better for him, especially when he got a second sibling. He was also the old grandchild on both sides and he really was a PFB to everyone!
I expect I would have been annoyed by the label but looking back I merited it!

Sorry only not old!!

Agree, everyone goes through the PFB stage, it is used fondly, I think.

I rather hope that all babies are "precious" be it first born or fifth or sixth

I had a PSB as well. as dd has cp it was all new again
the rules that applied to my PFB didn't apply to my PSB

being precious is not the same as being loved and cared for. Babies can be the latter 2 without being precious iyswim. Precious indicates being treated like china and being smothered IMHO.