parenting pet peeves...

[bubbleymummy]

I know I'm going to get flamed for this but I just don't care - I have to vent somewhere after a weekend of smiling and nodding and keeping my mouth shut!

Here is a list of 'parenting' traits that I absolutely hate!

Giving babies sugar - dessert/pudding/biscuits/cake - they do not need it - they are not missing anything and they are the reason that your child is already overweight!

Shovelling food into tiny babies, scooping it up and shoving it back in when the baby's tongue pushes it out while discussing the baby's excema, constipation, tummy upsets etc

Giving toddlers fizzy drinks such as Coke and letting them run madly around before screaming at them and complaining about how badly behaved they are.

Giving children calpol because it's been a 'long day' or because they have a slight sniffle or even a hint of a temperature or just because 'they like the taste'!.

controlled crying / cry it out - I hate this at any stage but I DESPISE it in children under 6 months. I don't care if your child has been sleeping through since 5 weeks - it is bloody cruel!

and breathe....

Ok feel free to flame me or alternatively add your own pet peeves!

Disclaimer : I by no means consider myself to be a perfect parent and I could fill several threads with my own parenting flaws.

I love this thread- here are my pet hates.

1. Little girls dressed in black, shiny, tight clothes, shoes they can't run in (keep on) and general dressing as a teenager. (I am talking 4/5/6 year olds here)

2.Ear piercings on babies.

1. Kids menus in restaurants that only consist of fries, fishfingers, burgers and sausages- why oh why??

1. Children trying to talk with a dummy in- take it off them for goodness sake!!!

1. Mothers who sleep with their toddler, while disgruntled husband sleeps in separate bedroom- and then say you are so lucky your DC is a good sleeper, my child would just get up and come in bed with us anyway- well bloody teach them not to!

Parents who ask you a question so that they can boast about their own child eg

How did Mabel do at her ballet exam?
Oh, well done. Eloise got a highly commended. Apparently one more mark and she'd have go an honour.

Grrrrr.

My hates are, breastfeeding activists and people who judge others about their own feeding choice that has no significance's to their life at all!

People who dont use appropriate disciplinary measures, or even people who dont comply chastisement law!

Bottles with sugary drinks in.

Dummies in toddlers or older out and about!

smoking when holding/around children! (the 1st is actually against the law, as your making the child breathe toxic fumes)!

Er, echt, people don't smack their children because they're smaller than them, or surely they'd go about smacking tiny old ladies and people with dwarfism.

Parents who feed their children utter crap and then are surprised they become overweight.
Somebody I know has done this; she has never had a healthy relationship with food herself, but her dd is now age 5 but wears age 9-10 clothes and is clearly overweight not just 'puppy fat'.
When some of us mums would meet up in the park we'd bring picnic food. For her then 2-3yo dd she brought chocolate spread sandwiches and bags of crisps.

Smoking when around children or worse, when pregnant

people who are really nasty to their children in public and talk to them like they are dirt I saw a woman doing this to her little girl in a supermarket, her D was only about 2 and toddling about grabbing things, the woman shouted at her and said she had 'a really horrible attitude' she's a BABY FFS!! Poor little dot.

Militant breastfeeding types

The "we don't tolerate fussy eaters here" brigade and force their dcs to eat things they blatantly don't like, anykind of smuggery re eating in fact.

Boasting about little Jocasta being potty trained, err no potty training isn't plopping them on the potty every half hour "just in case" it's when they ask to go and rarely have accidents!

Co-sleeping and bf through the night past the age of 18monhts (ish), allowing your child to monopolise your bed generally.

Bed is for you and your partner to sleep and have sex in.

Parents who force their alternative lifestyles on their dcs by cocooning them in a bubble from the outseide world by keeping them at home forever and not sending them to school and home educating them. Fair enought if you've got a good reason to home educate but many of the reasons I've heard of in rl are b*ocks and to do with the parent more than the child.

Parents who let their little hooligand terrorise other childern at soft play whlist they bury their heads in a paper and a cappucino to have a "break".

It's OK to point out and complain about the bad choices of other parents, but not OK if they do the same to you.

Okay - people assuming that just because you breastfed for a long time and enjoyed it you are militant and strange - just to redress the balance

People who use anecdote instead of evidence - for example, "of course it's okay to give your child solids at 4 months - I did it, all my children are fine" - as a way of persuading other mothers to go against recommended advice.

Controlled crying /crying it out.

People who feel the need to comment on how you do things even if it works for you and you haven't asked their advice.

Pretty much agree with Dorisbonkers actually.

The only parenting trait I despise is other parents trying to push their ideas on me. Don't get me wrong, I most definitely roll my eyes when confronted with a lot of the things named on this thread, but as long as you're not outright harming your child I don't really care. But if you try to tell me how to parent my son, I'm likely to get...sensitive.

Oh, and my SIL telling me that she could sign her DD up to go to gymnastics/tumbling class with my DS, (they're both 2 and a half) but that BIL "definitely wouldn't allow (my 4 y.o. nephew) to go, it's too girly." It's preschoolers crawling through tunnels and doing somersalts FGS, not a sex change operation!

Oh god yes, gender nazism on little ones. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.

Everything minx just said.

Parents who practically encourage a fear of dogs in their DCs. I can understand if the child has had bad experiences, and teaching a child NOT to run up to strange dogs is a great thing, but encouraging the fear is doing no-one any favours. I have recently acquired a big (friendly) dog and notice this quite a lot.

The funniest part is that my DS is very stereotypically a "boy" (rough and tumble, likes sports and trucks, etc. Not because we've made him that way, it just seems to be who he is at this point. We thought we'd get a quiet little bookworm-imagine our surprise!) And my DN that BIL is worried about it is very sensitive, terrified of dogs, doctors, bugs, frogs, toads...and the list goes on. So, I really don't think my son going to gymnastics has anything to do with it! I worry about DN sometimes b/c he can be a lovely little boy and BIL is always deriding him and calling him a "little girl". First of all, "girl" is not an insult, and second of all, boys can be sensitive. It's ok! People are so odd sometimes...

i hate parents who use their child to show off like that swanduck - no good cos whats the opposite then - that a child who fails in a test etc is less valid? my bf really got into this with her dd2 and was always spouting things like 'oh yah, dd2 is sooooooo advanced blah blah even more than dd1'

not the end of the world i spose but i dont like children being appraised constantly. if anyone apart from the hv asks me about dd i will only tell them 'shes very jooly thanks - a joy infact'

lequeen re your last point...hmmm 'martyr mums' he he

LeQueen @ helicopter parents.

I have loads of things I could write, I mean a whole heap of judgy type things, but, I prefer to keep them between me and partner while we have a moment of 'oh, aren't we brilliant' and 'the way we do things is working out so well'. etc.

I'm sure there are as many out there who sit and judge our 'perfect parenting' in the same way.

The only thing I can't bear is competitive parenting. An acquaintance told me the other week that her baby started crawling at 5 months, which I am loathe to believe given that at 4 months the baby could not even get herself on to her tummy due to the fact she was so fat. DH and I were like - yeah and next her baby will be applying to study quantum physics at Cambridge - not. Does that sound mean? I cna't help it. I try to but I can't.

I cant stand parents who make a perfectly reasonable choice and then try and make it into some sort of moral crusade

e.g. decide to have one child - totally fine and no problem BUT then waff on about how they are doing it because they dont want to deplete the earth's resources whilst doing cat's bums at my hoards of (resource depleting) children.

Take their kids to dance class. The kids are having a lovely time pretending to be fairies. BUT they dont take them because of that - no its for far more deeply developmental reasons - ones that I couldnt possibly understand.

Food fascists. Back off. My DC eat what they want (within some sort of reason), including loads of stuff which many children won't eat but also including cake, deserts and sometimes sweets as well as occasional other "junk", they run around lots and are neither skinny nor overweight.

As someone else put it - 'Parents who are so f**king "child centred" they'll never say no to or reprimand their little darlings just use "distraction" instead.'

leQueen - especially for you - mothers who do the school run glammed up to the nines and look down their noses at those of us who choose to spend our time in other ways - what business is it of anyone's but mine what I look like?

Parents who are smug about putting their children to bed very early in the evening - why?

Parents who deny their children vaccinations and who use homeopathy and other woo on them.

lequeen- was agreeing with you until the bit about the make up. like thesecondcoming I look hot without it. Much sadder imo to tart yourself up to do the school run/buy a paper/walk the dog..

chegirl dd1 is most looking forward to some fairy based prancing when she starts ballet in september. I won't lie I just want to see her in the outfit. Hows the bump coming along?

bonsoir not smug just knackered want to have a bit of an evening so the girls go to bed at 7pm they are tired then.