What do you reckon is the most controversial/touchy subject around parenting right now?

[franch]

As the whole smacking debate has kicks off again I was just thinking: when you're around other parents, what are the subjects you dread/avoid like the plague/like to get on your high horse about?

I guess for me it is discipline (though not usually corporal punishment), and gender-based stuff. ('Oh, you've got girls, it's easy for you' etc etc.) More fraught when they were babies, I suppose: routines, weaning, breast vs bottle, etc.

Oh and the whole working mum vs SAHM thing; I'm always sad when there's tension between the two but it does seem to happen (I'm a part-time WAHM so I tend to sit on the fence and observe ...).

What gets your back up?

I have a fairly young dd, so weaning (what age, blw vs spoonfeeding) and sleep training (to cc or not, to give a nighttime bottle or not) are my topics to avoid. Also any discussion involving the phrase 'making a rod for your own back'.

breast/bottle is always a humdinger obviously.

Mine are older though and at the school gates it could be competitive pushy parenting - do we constantly push our kids to be better than the rest or do we let them make their own pace and not care whether they are top/bottom/middle of the class?

With us it's how many activities are you forcing your children to letting your children do. Also fraught is the only ( we tried but couldn't have another) vs. smug mothers of many.

Just depends on what age your children are - there will ALWAYS be other parents who do things differently from you. Doesn't mean they are controversial topics, just means they are on your radar at this time in your life.

Yes, the massive assumptions relating to gender wind me up too.

Received "wisdom" and "well, I've had boys/girls and I can tell you they always/never/innately/naturally/automatically do blahblahblah.." comments make me mount my high horse/soap box. The vast majority of people IME don't even want to consider how much cultural prejudice and reinforcement has shaped our own and our children's gender identities and just assume that things are the way they are because that's the way they are.....

Especially since I read the excellent Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine. Fascinating, entertaining and really knocks the scales of your eyes.

Immaculada - Yy I agree.

I think that the hot topics change as your babies/ children get older.

With babies its breast/ bottle.
With pre schoolers it is the developmental olypmics. Does your child count to ten or pee in a pot.
With young primary school children the issue is what reading band they are on.
Slightly older children its the issue of how much computer time, do you give them a mobile phone, allow them to walk home from school or send them to tutoring.

It is our own insecurities, what decisions we make affect our children surprisingly little. No one cares what age a ten year old first pissed into a pot.

For me it's SAHM vs nursery as a lot of my contemporaries are now back in the office. I hate justifying my choice and explaining that I am as busy as many working mums, especially to those without kids who think I am just a lady of leisure...

In real life I haven't had anything controversial! My mum's group are, I think, a rare breed in that we all just get on really well and support each other. Some of us breastfed (I couldn't), some ff, we all weaned in different ways, some have gone back to work, some haven't. I think the one thing that ties us all together is that we're all quite relaxed, non anxious mums - the children eat leaves and drink from each others' bottles, we all feed each other's kids, all give cuddles and mild tellings off. It helps maybe that we are all first time mums and all a little bit older (from 30-40). I don't know - I think it's just luck and fate really.

However, on here I'm amazed at how worked up people can get about total strangers' parenting choices.

School selection. Religious schools and pretending or otherwise to be religious, avoid this one like the plague.
I feel quite uncomfortable with the sahm's I know sometimes. They say things like 'they're only little once and it's such a short time' - as if I didn't feel guilty enough.
In fact I'm considering avoiding hanging out with other mothers as I find it quite stressful. Get on much better when its just me and ds and don't feel like I have to justify my choices, eg why I wouldn't never feed my ds the shite food you feed your kids, or what time he goes to bed, or how I discipline him. It seems everything is a loaded issue when it comes to how you parent.

Perhaps you just need some nicer, non judgemental friends?

Or, just chat about other things. I have no idea what time my friends' children go to bed, or what they eat for dinner.

The SAHM, Working mum one is a bit tricky - I am a SAHM and sometimes people say "So, have you gone back to work?" and I go "ah, no" and feel slightly awkward that I should be justifying why I'm looking after my own child! But I don't think I'm doing it better, just different.

Depends on the person.

With one friend, we do things differently and it's just "whatever", with another every teeny little thing is tense because she's extremely defensive about her kid.

I think for sheer consistency irrespective of fad or fashions of an era, it has to be How And When You Discipline, and what boundaries you set in relation to behaviour and manners.

Closely followed by Breast v Formula

and WM v SAHM

Janet "They say things like 'they're only little once and it's such a short time'""

I always just say "Yeah, thank God"

I think the "hot" topics depend on the norms within your group. eg I know boarding school is massively controversial on MN, but in my group it would just be "oh right" as there are a lot of expats and a lot of people who went themselves/see it as normal

However, the real elephant in the room where i live is pre-school (yeah i know)- english only vs mandarin and montessouri vs chalk n talk. People truly agonise.

at RealLife
OzzieGirly The women in my close circle of friends are not even thinking about having babies yet. I'm the only one. The two mums I enjoy seeing work too so just a shame the ones who go to the same groups as I do are the judgy ones with too much time on their hands to worry about what time other people's kids go to bed. You're very lucky

I know, and to be honest, we have kind of self selected. I used to go to two groups as DS fell at the cusp of being youngest of one, oldest of the other. One group were nice enough women but I just didn't really gel - they were all putting children down at private school from birth, worrying about choking, panicking when they put a stick in their mouth and slightly bragging about how well their offspring could feed themselves (at 12 months)

The other group are just a lot more laid back, friendly. And we had a couple of more anxious type mums who came along, fretted about a fly landing on a child (I kid you not) and the tiny bit of my DS' skin that was exposed to natural sunlight and when we kind of brushed off their concerns they didn't come back again.....

So luck and also the fact that where I live there seem to be an absolute abundance (sp?) of mothers' groups.

I would add vaccinations to the list.

In real life... almost nothing. Or maybe I just gravitate towards open-minded people.

Secondary schools, maybe, and schools in general, is the one thing I've often heard people be very sniffy about IRL. I take perverse pleasure in coaxing out PFB-style or elitist tendencies & prejudices.

Mums dressing like town tarts on the school run attract awful comments (yet the bottle-blonde very plump mum who dressed daily in miniskirts & high heels turned out to be one of the nicest people I've ever met). Little girls in bikinis tutted about at one recent group (that made me silently smirk, there's a picture of me in a bikini age age about 5yo, 1972, why not?). Cloth nappies (I felt compelled to correct someone insisting they needed to be boil washed recently). Breastfeeding & childbirth choices at one family gathering about 8 yrs ago. Feel like I'm dredging the barrel, though. IRL I rarely care or debate, I only bother to opine online. :)

Extended Breastfeeding and co sleeping, ds is 21 months old and I cannot admit to either of these for fear of negative comments :(

I'm beginning to believe self weaning is a myth, ds is a milk monster!