Pettiest parenting pet peeves?

[Tucancrossing]

What's the pettiest thing that annoys you about other parents? Something that you know is so pathetic to care about but it really grinds your gears?

Mine is probably when people say they're doing 'a bit of traditional weaning and a bit of baby led weaning' - you can't half do BLW... traditional weaning is purees AND finger foods, BLW is your child ALWAYS feeding themselves regular food.

So petty, I wish I could let go of it, but I internally eye roll every time.

@GreenCrayon

For any parent who has ever had a late walker. The phrase 'enjoy it whilst it lasts, when they can walk you won't get to sit down'.

It's like they think that because the child isn't walking they are just sitting there like a sack of spuds. The fact they can still butt shuffle, crawl, cruise, climb and get into exactly the same amount of mischief as a walking child completely passes them by.

Completely! Usually followed by 'mine walked at 9 months and it was a nightmare!'.

@Nohomemadecandles

Can we stop this shit? One person's performance parenting is another just trying to engage their kid or make their day bearable. Or if they do want to explain mallards, what the fuck is is to you?? Perform all you like. Christ. This is depressing

Agreed.

I must remind myself that calling a duck a mallard can be interpreted as 'performance parenting' and it's for show. Never mind the fact that the journey to adopting my LO was long and is likely to be a long legal process that is causing my partner a great deal of anxiety.

Sometimes, every second with your LO count and you want to make memories that cannot be taken away. If I am going to call a mallard a mallard, then others can GTF if they don't like it.

@BlueyIsMyBae

"we're not going down the baby proofing route, we're teaching him what he can and can't touch"

Alright then.

This makes as much sense as, "We're not teaching him to wash his hands after the bathroom, we're teaching him not to pee on his hands."

As for your "pettiest peeve," I worked in emergency medicine for YEARS, and cannot tell the number of deep cuts, severe burns, broken bones, choking, abdominal surgeries to retrieve a variety of "non-passable" items that we saw because parents aren't nearly as quick as they think they will be when using this parenting "technique."

Also mums who say their partner "doesn't know how to do bath time/bed time/meal time/change a nappy" so they can never leave the baby with them. But said whilst laughing as if it is somehow totally normal for a father to just not parent. Bizarre.

Mine reflects far worse on me than the perpetrators -

But my peeve is always with the parent who remembers everything. Like the money you have to take in on a random Tuesday for year 6 enterprise day. Or the birthday card for the kid who isn't having a birthday party. Or the shoeboxes the school requested half way down a newsletter 3 weeks ago.

Tribalism in general. We use cloth nappies at home during the day, sometimes. But disposable at night and if out. We mostly BF but she had a bottle every couple of days because I needed to do things out of the house and she was hungry. We did mixed weaning. We co-sleep if she's having a bad night. She even rear faces in one car and forward faces in the other. Is there a name for parenting in a way that just works for everyone involved at the time without adhering to an ideology?

I have to say I am immensely grateful that my NCT group who are still mostly in contact two years on only compete to be the most self-deprecating or despairing, sort of thing. It's so refreshing and so much healthier as we can genuinely celebrate things too as we know they aren't braggy.

Oh also, as a PP said, bald baby bows. Yuck.

@openallflowers

Well according to my mother, I was fully potty trained AND dry through the night by 12 months

According to my Grandmother, her son was dry through the night by 9 months

😂

Oh my mum says this nonsense too. I was 15 months according to her. Dry day and night. No mother, that did not happen!

My lack of early toilet training is very lazy according to her (one at just 3 and just under). Ah well. I've never had to clean up wee from my carpets for weeks on end because I waited until they were ready and then they both cracked it in a day or two. She was horrified that I never bought a potty and put them straight on the toilet!

People who are judgmental about potty training - No one cares if your child trained easily at 2 or if it was a constant battle with 4 year old or whatever. They all train eventually.

Sidenote - I'm not sure I fully believe a child being dry overnight is your doing, but theirs. Be 'proud' of them, not you.

'Fed is best'... really. As if any mums don't feed their baby. And there's no point pretending that formula is equal to breastmilk - it isn't, it even says it on the bottle. It's just a very useful substitute.

@Leontine

Don’t know if it’s been mentioned yet but headbands on babies just look shit.

and dangerous

was it 2 years ago that a few months old baby's headband slipped down and suffocated her?

@GreenCrayon

Pretty much also someone with one child who then tells you to do exactly what they did as it made their baby sleep through/eat well/walk earlier/speak earlier without considering that all babies are different and just because it worked for one child doesn’t mean it’ll work for all.

I know someone like this. Her firstborn toddler is an early walking, talking genius who slept through from only a few weeks old and she brags about it all constantly.

As horrid as it sounds every part of me desperately wanted her to have another so she can see how perfect her child is has absolutely nothing to do with her superior parenting.

Lol I have only one child and she was/is the opposite of this description....hence I only have one child lmao

@GreenCrayon

For any parent who has ever had a late walker. The phrase 'enjoy it whilst it lasts, when they can walk you won't get to sit down'.

It's like they think that because the child isn't walking they are just sitting there like a sack of spuds. The fact they can still butt shuffle, crawl, cruise, climb and get into exactly the same amount of mischief as a walking child completely passes them by.

Oh yes exactly this. My little boy was a late walker and I got so fed up of being told how I easy I had it. We'd go to the park with our friends and all their babies of the same age would be running around playing together while poor DS got muddy crawling on the grass... and I was stood there thinking how is this easier?

On the same note my little late bloomer is a late talker too and is not talking at nearly two. It's rather heartbreaking hearing my friends say how annoying it is that their child won't shut up or is constantly saying 'mummy, mummy' when I'm just longing for DS to say mummy.

I understand that it's not their fault that this upsets me and I'm being overly sensitive.

The phrase ‘fed is best’. Even though I am 100% in favour of every parent making the right choice for them, and wholeheartedly support parents choosing to formula feed for any reason whatsoever if that’s what works for them and their family, this phrase gives me the rage. Fed is the bare minimum. You don’t have the option not to feed. Informed is best; fed is required.

Definitely this. Feed how you want, but fed is not "best", fed is a minimum.

@Babysharkdododododododododod

When you go to a soft play party and you see toddler girls wearing BIG FRILLY dresses that the poor little things can’t move around in. Chuck some leggings on them and let them enjoy themselves! As a mum of two boys and then a little girl I love dressing her pretty but now that she’s moving around I hardly do it because I don’t want her being uncomfortable

Wait until she's 2 and half and screams the house down when you try to put on said practical outfit and insists on wearing a "bootiful dress" regardless of activity/ weather/ suitability. And watch as they crawl up in to, step on, get very wet and rip said "bootiful dress" in soft play/ the forest/ play area etc. And continue watching them scream for 40 minutes when you remove the ripped, wet, dirty "bootiful dress" and replace with butterfly leggings and pink cat sweater.

I'm hoping she'll grow out of the "bootiful dress" phase quickly. Or at least agree to leggings underneath!

When parents whine at their children and plead with them to do something instead of just telling them to do it. I don't know why but I find it unbelievably grating. Whiny children are excusable because they are children. Whiny adults are unbearable.

Being told I’m ‘making a rod for my own back’. My god I could SCREAM every time this phrase is directed at me…

I WANT to hold my baby when he cries.

I WANT to breastfeed him through the night instead of giving formula so he ‘sleeps for longer’

I WANT to interact with him throughout the day instead of ‘putting him down for a bit’

Leave me alone with your unsolicited advice.

I am enjoying being a parent, doing things that feel right to me and spending time with my baby.

Yes I understand it is not for everyone but I am not everyone - I am me

*Being told I’m ‘making a rod for my own back’. My god I could SCREAM every time this phrase is directed at me…

I WANT to hold my baby when he cries.

I WANT to breastfeed him through the night instead of giving formula so he ‘sleeps for longer’

I WANT to interact with him throughout the day instead of ‘putting him down for a bit’*

Conversely (and I recognise this is not you as you seem to have come up against people on the other side rather than being the one giving unsolicited advice), but people who make preachy posts about how they could never leave their baby to cry and how unnatural it is, how we're their whole world and we've forgotten what real parenting is etc etc, are extremely annoying. I've never come across the other side of it - people telling you you SHOULD be putting them down more (rather than just saying it's ok to put them down), so perhaps the answer is just not to make preachy posts whatever side of the fence you are on!

Parents who brag about their kids and parents who moan all the time about how awful other parents are compared to them 😅🤣

Talking about the DC in front of them e.g. 'oh Freddie is scared of dogs, aren't you Freddie?' or 'Amelia won't eat anything except dry Cheerios!' or 'Bathsheba likes maths but hates writing'... like they can't hear you and aren't listening and thinking 'hmm, if that's what my parent thinks then it must be true' and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy... Also parents of girls who tell them not to get their shoes muddy, not to show their knickers and not to be bossy, when in most cases they wouldn't say that to boys.

My friend was very competitive ie. Stuarts sitting up is Susie sitting up, Stuarts got a tooth, has Susie got a tooth yet? you get the jist. Well ! I let her get under my skin and I thought I will show you, so I got Susie counting as we went up the stairs, by the age of about 2 she could count really well. Next time my friend came round I said to Susie remember your counting. I thought I will show you! The doorbell went I answered it and there was my friend with Stuart in her arms. He pointed to my door number and said look mummy number 13..............I gave up, he really was more advanced than my Susie. They are now both grown up and he was always way ahead of Susie at school and uni. What really takes the biscuit is he's very good looking and lovely person. grrrrrrrrrrr

I met a woman the other week who talked about her daughter as “we”. So, “we are Sarah*”, “we are two”, etc. Very strange.

But other than that, other people’s parenting doesn’t annoy me too much. I only have a little one, so maybe I haven’t come across too many other parents who aren’t already friends.

On the gentle parenting front, kind hands etc. What is the alternative? DD has hit out a couple of times. I’ve said ‘no’ firmly, and we practice ‘kind hands’. I don’t want to raise a feral child, I am also not really much of a shouter… genuinely interested here!

*Sarah not her real name.

@aSofaNearYou I've seen the same where there is a lot of judgement for not following attachment parenting/ebf/cloth nappies and BLW online. Although I don't where it actually comes from, because in RL I'm not getting the same. Especially with breastfeeding, the rates are only 1% past six months, I'm not sure why there is judgement when it's the majority (although I did notice there was more pressure for the first few months, reducing with time and then the tide turns at six months and the question becomes "when are you going to wean?"). Is it a backlash?

@FatSams I'm sorry people have hassled you for your choices. It's whatever is right for you.

I agree @aSofaNearYou that people’s parenting choices should be left alone, especially on the above mentioned subjects. My MIL loves to tell me how to parent and I find it extremely wearing