To Think that Motherhood has become Horrifically Competitive

[scifinerd]

perhaps parenting has always been competitive but it seems with the plethora of How to bring up your child type books it has become ridiculously so this generation. I think too often mums aren't honest with each other for fear of looking like bad parents. I really wish there was more a sisterhood among mums and less sactimonious one-up-man-ship. We would all be so much happier and more confident. Instinctive parenting seems all but lost as a result.

LOL at cello-bus-smartarse-bloodbath

My biggest problem is that my dad compares the kids to some nostalgia-induced version of ME! Apparently I could read aged 1 (emmm- bollocks!) and walk at 8mths, and MY children are lovely...but not as bright as I was at their age- AAARGHHHH!! As he was away working in London for a lot of the time, I take his rememberings with a HUGE pinch of salt. How screwed up is it to be in competition with your younger self??

I really think this is all in your heads

I now feel guilty about polishing my children's shoes and sending them to piano lessons.

Just don't buy into it ...

dp mum claim he was weaned at 3mth,potty train at 12mth,chorister at 18mth no pressure then

Dh's mum's like that too Scottishmummy but we laugh it off because the reality was she was either drunk or not there! She is lovely though

I don't really have this problem (re. the op); I think I am just so disarmingly rubbish honest when people meet me that they can't be bothered to attempt a competition with me (they know they'd win ); they either want an honest friendship with me, or nothing to do with me. Separates the wheat from the chaff antway

lol competitive folk are so irksome.who cares really

Totally agree. Have been on an 11plus forum recently and OMG - its hideous out there!

stewiegriffithsmom, next time anyone spouts such unutterable garbabge at you, laugh patronisingly and direct her to badscience.net and its debunking of braingym...

I don't know anyone like that in RL - lots of it on MN though.

I should add: but on MN it's easily ignored.

I find a real difference between when I had my first 3 16 years ago and when I had dd who is now 4.
dd has severe cerebral palsy so we don't have to get involved this time either!

"DD2 who bum-shuffled at 8 mos and not crawl would not be able to attend uni because she would be so seriously cognitively delayed as her left and right brain wouldn't work properly"
lol talk about cognitively delayed
Oh and BTW I could read at 9 months, beat that if you dare
(rose tinted glasses...)

life is too short.... i just dump the boring competitive mums, can't be doing with them (she says with background anxiety that her dc aren't quite up to speed compared to jocasta and phineas...)

What is double kiss? I can't be competitive about it if I don't know what it is.

Wot Kathy said.

I'd like to say ditto Mi and Kathy

BUT

I think it CAN be competitive, depending where you live.

I even have a mothering stalker. If my dds do an activity, sure enough, the following term hers are doing it too. If they are reading x book, then hers will too. I try and ignore it as much as I can but it can get a trifle ridiculous. But then I know this person is VERY insecure about her own education and is therefore very ambitious for her extremely bright children. I just wonder why the hale and pace she has chosen ME to stalk as I am really quite scummy and chavvy for round here.And that is not some kind of weird inverse MN competitiveness, just in case it comes across as such...

I spend mucho time worrying my kids aren't doing as well as other MNers, and/or that my parenting isn't up to MN scratch.

In RL, well, I manage fine.

Do you live in London scifinerd? Round here it feels more like communal lamentations as to how one's dc is terribly young for their age / struggles with maths / is dyslexic / can't keep up with the others writing. In fact, I sometimes wonder how all of our children manage to be below average for the class . . .

They are out there scifinerd..genuine honest mums
Just few and far between these days

Couldn't agree with you more, I know a couple of hideously competitive mums, 'The teacher says that Luna is a genius and everyone loves her' type. Tbh it makes me LOL (literally), I can't help it and I have noticed that it's usually done by the type of people who are quite insecure and then of course, I feel quite sorry for them.

My own mother bypassed all of this flannel, when I was a child by never talking to people at the school gates. Problem solved.

Message withdrawn

ah!someone say gin.nice

dilemma please tell me you PYSL.

Surely you could have not kept a straight face thru any of that

There are bonkers people in life. Some of them have kids. This does not indicate that all people who have kdis are bonkers.

Though it may seem that way at bedtime.