Well it never did you any harm!!!

[Wigglesworth]

Does the age old argument of "well it never did you any harm" that parents seem to use if you dare to disagree with their advice (use the term loosley more like force their opinion on you) piss anybody else off? My Mum uses this as her argument whenever she tries to offer me "advice" about DS. If I say to her "we don't fancy doing it that way cos of ABC" she always replies with this statement. I keep reminding her she raised us nearly 30 years ago and some advice has changed since then and that I am not her and I may (god forbid) do things a little differently. Maybe I am having a bad day, it just winds me up.

I don't explain why I do or don't do anything. Especially not to my Mum.

I've perfected a casual shrug and say 'Well, we all have to find our own way.' (usually in response to being told to leave DS to have a good scream) or 'We'll see, I suppose.' (usually in response to my Mum's obsession that he needs juice or tea.)

Somethimes I get great advice and I appreciate it a lot; so I try not to be confontational about the guff.

Is Food Standards Agency advice to avoid under-cooked meat while pregnant. Think it's something to do with babies being potentially permanently damaged by food poisoning bugs that don't affect pregnant women/other adults all that badly.

Is probably ultra cautious, but, you know...

Lord- almost the first thing I ate after finding out for sure I was pregnant was a delicious rare steak at cafe rouge. I figure I've been eating the things for the last 35 years though, so must be resistant to most things by now.

Mmmm, steak...

I missed rare steak, pate and king prawns (last one the most) dreadfully whilst pregnant with DS. No point having steak unless it is still virtually mooing, LOL. When I was expecting DS myself, DH and our friends went to a really nice restaurant where they served Lancashire style steak, it was rare fillet steak topped with pate and black pudding. My DH and his friend ordered it whilst I had to make do with a shitty lamb casserole, gutted!

I can't decide if it's really sad that, after brie, the thing I am looking forward to most is some good old-fashioned 70s style prawn cocktail...and obviously anything with peanuts in, but I gather that's off the cards while BFing...M&S belgian choc coated peanuts mmm mmmmmm

Have probably been over-compensating for lack of runny-yolked eggs with creme eggs, mind.

I thought they retracted the anti-peanut advice. Oh, sorry no they just downgraded it. Tis up to you whether you think you want to eat them or not and are high risk.

Personally I'm all for the peanut butter this PG! Asthma or no.

You can get pasteurised brie and camembert from Tesco - the brand is 'President' - go for your life!

I'm pregnant with DS2 and I still have the odd runny egg. I am craving pate tho'. The first thing I'm going to do when this one's born is have pate on toast....mmmm.....

'imagine if in 20 yrs time your dd turned to you and said "we do it different now and its better"

id be upset'

I hope I won't be making the way my children raise their children all about me, FFS.

"what you weaned me at 7mth,fed me organic veg,wouldn't give me a fag,no beer" Stupid mum

that's what awaits me in 2Oyrs.so relax cut her bit of slack

My mum has got slightly better. I do say to her "It's amazing that the Dses have reached the ages of 11 and 9 if I'm so useless".
her thing though is subtley blaimign me for Ds1 attitude and Ds2 "neediness" her words not mine. like whn I was a CM, it was my fault becaue I was working form home with other childrena and my two were "neglected". Now I am WOHM mum (12 hours a week, finished by 12.30) it's my fault becaue I go out to work.

Went off on one a bit there din't I?

Quite odd really that people's parents are like this - my mum and MIL are both reasonable people and if they ask me something, I tell them what the current guidelines are. They tell me what they did at the time, but they can easily accept that you should follow the current guidelines. If my children have children in the future, I don't expect them to do everything I did. I would just expect them to do what the guidelines of that day say.

My dad, however, does say things like "it never did you any harm". He is a bit of a toxic parent anyway so I jsut ignore him. Usually with reference to me being neurotic about insisting my 2yo and my baby are in car seats that are properly fitted!

really at the heart of it is unwittingly new guidelines and do/don't can feel like a criticism to our mums who often did very different thing (which they believed to be right)

The standard answer is;

Well it must have had some bearing as it seems I do nothing the way you did things

life is too short to bother about such stuff.enjoy your mum and baby

Sometimes turning it around so that you throw the question back at her can help - as in 'so what advice did YOUR mum and MIL give you - and what had changed between the time they had children and your children?'

Sometimes they remember that they 'obviously' followed the current best practice guidelines and things had changed from when they were babies. Then they realise that things might have continued to change once they had stopped having babies. Pointing out the gradual change in advice that has brought down the numbers of cot deaths significantly is always a good one to stick in here, as is the fact that things are changing all the time, even over the last two or three years and there is different advice (have found with a 3yr gap between ds1 and ds2).

If they say they did exactly what their mum/mil said to do, you can then try exploring the 'don't you think that things have changed since grandparents had children...?!?' approach.

It is also worth asking them if they followed best practice at the time (unlikely they will say that they didn't!), where they found out about it from and why they don't want you to do exactly the same thing... it also manages to change the focus slightly so that, although the details of what you are doing might be a bit (a lot ) different, you are using the same approach they did - ie finding out current best practice...

And if not, don't let it wind you up, turn it into a game and see how quickly you can get her to say the phrase/how many times/about what/shout 'bingo' everytime she says it/etc. And promise yourself rewards depending on how/when etc and how right you are about your guesses are as to what her responses are. So if you thought she was going to say it within the first hour of her seeing you and she does, you get a bottle of wine/box of chocs/nice book/whatever reward you fancy. But if you think it is going to be the first hour and it is the second hour then you get a glass of wine/bar of choc/magazine/smaller reward... hope that makes sense!

good luck!