Competitive/pushy conversations - how do you deal with them?

[normalshmormal]

I've noticed a pattern where a friend will say "My DC weighs X now" or "has X number teeth" or "eats olives" or "has gone up to the next car seat now"..... etc etc and it just changes according to the stage of development.

I find myself getting irritated as either a) DS seems behind and I feel vulnerable, or b) DS is 'ahead' but I can't say because I'll look like a dick!

So I just smile and say "great" or something like that...

The culprits are usually the same handful of people (who I can't avoid) and I sometimes find myself just going quiet because I'm not sure what to say.

I'm aware that this will go on forever to the point of 'my DC has an astrophysics degree' and beyond so I'd like to know now if others are bothered by this stuff and what they do, to help me deal with these people for the next 20yrs plus!

No, I agree with you Fuzzled. Maybe because DD was never at all advanced in those early years (ha, I say that like 'of course, later she turned into a genius' when I just mean, and then we stopped talking about it anyway) I never thought 'she weighs X now' or 'has Y teeth' to be boasting. It's not a sign of Advancedness, it's just a physical reality. I didn't do anything right or wrong that affected when she started crawling, FFS. Surely boasting would have to involve an actual achievement that boded an ongoing advantage, or something? Whereas 'my daughter sat up at 6 months' is like 'my daughter has curly hair'.

OP, I gently suggest that you're the one thinking in terms of 'behind' and 'ahead' about perfectly normal developmental milestones.

As for 'getting bored in the rear facing car seat', I'm pretty sure that's code for 'screams all the bloody time when I have to drive anywhere and it's driving me bonkers'.

I think it probably comes down to "tone" more than anything else.

In a weird way I feel the opposite problem (here comes the boast!) because DS has done things quite early - normal things that can't be encouraged like growing teeth, sitting, crawling and standing, clapping, waving etc he all did weeks and weeks earlier than similar babies of the same age in my mums' group, and I kind of feel like I have to play it down to avoid being awful boasty mum.

Luckily he is also a screamy little thing so we each have our cross to bear....

Of course I am sure that his early development is a surefire sign of future brilliance....

Fuzzled - that doesn't sound pushy at all, I've had several of those conversations - totally different in tone, as pointed out by ozziegirlie, to the one or two that imply (and I fully accept that I could be reading it wrong) that their child is too intelligent for a rear facing car seat... Or whatever it is.

Hadn't thought that it could be code for 'he screams blue murder otherwise'.

Tortoise, yup could be me and my ishoo with ahead/behind, that's partly why I posted here to see if other people feel the same way. Whether it's my problem or not, it is nice to know that I don't seem to be alone!

Litha and thorny.... What the?!

I suspect the rear-seat thing probably means both things simultaneously - as in, the child is screaming blue murder, the parent has convinced themselves out of desperation that this is a sign of future genius.

I may have convinced myself, when DD was a newborn who screamed for hours on end every night, that this was a sign of intelligence...

Try and let it go or it will drive you batty.

I try to ignore. Occasionally I have been pushed when given details of a child being spectacularly intelligent to look really confused and ask 'so is his dad very bright?'

But I ignore because I realise that when I get annoyed it is because I am feeling defensive about my child and I just shouldn't.
If they do it all the time I drop them because that means they are just really dull and can't be talking about much else.

Sorry, haven't read whole thread but moving up a car seat is NOT a developmental milestone. Keep cramming them into the current one until they are genuinely too big or too heavy.

I will be back to read all your pushy anecdotes later.

I just say things like 'wow, stage 4 already, our kids swim like bricks..' , which is in fact, true. When it comes to academic things I try to cultivate a vagueness about it all, to the point that they get nothing out of the conversation eg ' Milo is on reading level turquoise' reply 'oh really, is that a high level? I can't remember the order, how does it go again?'.

They will soon go off and bother someone else who is interested in competing. In my opinion, life is not a race.

If you win the rat race, you're still a rat

I managed to get three children through school not knowing what level they were on.
A couple of mners told me I was lying. They had ishooos I think

Ahh, Paggy, when DD1 was learning to read, I knew exactly which level she was on (partly because her lovely but very new reception teacher always wrote in her reading diary when she moved her up a level). Now, with DD2 (who is probably a better reader), I only notice when I think 'Blimey this is taking ages to read' when listening to her reading of an evening, and sneaking glances at my watch. It eventually dawns on me it's taking longer because it's got more words in it

I would have been more interested but when ds1 was learning I never listened to him read or did spellings etc because it was impossible. I only wrote in the reading hook to write things like "sorry, ds2 has eaten ds1s spelling book again" [sigh]

By the time I got dd and had dealt with no reading non speaking non most things ds2 I was over the whole 'is she on level 3 or level 4' notion completely.

So it was circumstance really. But I am still pretty pleased. It wasn't always easy

I have found that saying "Really, that's nice" doesn't work as well as it should because the parent doing the boasting isn't usually very self-aware. The competitive boasting does get worse as they get older, but once they have started school you can usually avoid the main offenders.

I think it gets worse as it gets older! my son is fairly average at school but doing ok and is not very sporty or into climbing etc.

I was meeting a friend at the zoo and said beforehand that my son wouldn't want to do the zoo zip wire thing going all round the zoo as he doesn't like that kind of thing. When we met her son did want to do it which was fine but she made a big deal of her son not being scared of anything, loves things like that, is brilliant at football etc while he was doing it and in front of my son which of course made him feel awful. Then it was all her son had achieved level 3 in end of year (2) etc...

Just hijacking - I'm poppy's husband - and it's time for her to go to bed so I'm dragging her away from watching this thread.

The intensity of those first 'firsts' changes as they get older, as they're doing lots more than just getting bigger and more co-ordinated and growing teeth.

I'd find a way of processing it now because if you think comparing exotic food tastes is annoying, wait until you get to 'levels' in all their glory (reading, swimming, ballet etc ad infim).

A lot of it is in how it's said and when; no-one with a tantruming toddler wants to hear how laid back someone else's is right at that moment.

I'm 34 and my mother still reports 'good' stuff that I do to her friends.

I have a good friend who was a mate before we both became parents. She pronounced my dd as shy at the age of about 1 so I gout huge amounts of pleasure when my dd turned pout to be very outgoing and mischevous and foward in front of adults and hers is in fact shy. I am a cow but I felt that she was trying to compete right from the beginning. grrr. My pet hate.

got not gout!

When some stranger parent starts boasting to me about their kid, I really just feel like sighing, looking them straight in the eye and saying: "I couldn't give a toss.", and then just walking away. Of course, this is just a fantasy and I would never actually do that.

I have been very lucky that I havent come across many parents like this. I have a close circle of friends and we all 'brag' about our kids achievments to each other and we are all happy for each other and the kids. When I say brag, I don't mean this in a smarmy way. Even the smallest thing or achievement gets talked about and we all praise the children.

My biggest issue is my DS and his best friend. They drive me and the other Mum mad by being hugely competitive. Always saying things like 'XXX is only on stage 10 book and I'm on Stage 11' 'XXX is not as good as me at football, as he doesn't pass the ball'. We deal with it by saying things like 'Thats nice, well done to xxx or you are both good at different things - but they still drive us mad.