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.

@TinyTear you cannot judge what it is like. The stigma attached to it as well, as you’re displaying. It leaves damage, long lasting, horrific damage. Abortion isn’t just people willy nilly getting pregnant then getting rid of the baby because they can’t be arsed. I imagine many women who call it miscarriage do so because of the awful judgement.

Not sure it’s petty, but I can’t stand it when I see parents allowing their kids to behave abominably in public - shouting, screaming, making an unholy mess in a restaurant, dropping litter ect. Drives me insane. If you as parents can’t teach them any respect they’re just going to be dragged up sideways and stay completely feral.

Most petty things are probably “gentle hands” (urgh) and that REALLY irritating, descriptive cutesy language used to describe baby/kid’s food (yummy, squishy, melty, dippy eggs- aaaargh!). It’s just so twee. Food companies are forever putting such crap on packaging too. Nothing wrong with it of course but it irritates the bejesus out of me.

[quote Eileen101]@seriously79 - how are intolerances/allergies seeking to be 'the coolest thing'? My second child is allergic to three foods, unfortunately pretty major foods. This is my first foray into allergies as we have no family history of it. I tell people who need to know in case they, you know, give her something that will have her in agony with a swollen tummy and shitting green for 24 hours. If I don't mentioned it e.g. to friends or similar, they enquire as to the new addition of non cows milk to our house/cafe visit/restaurant visit and it comes up in conversation.
Raising awareness of allergies/intolerances is hugely important not because someone wants to be 'cool'.[/quote]
This. Definitely doesn't feel cool knowing your kid will be the child with a pack up from home at birthday parties due to his potentially life threatening allergies. It's upsetting and terrifying

regularly turning up late to school with no reasonable excuse. not the odd day or for a few weeks while sorting stuff out.
every. fucking. day.

we've all been there: got stuck in traffic, had a kid projectile vomiting all over the bathroom 5 mins before needing to leave, had a car not starting, had bad news, forgot what bloody day it was or that the clock has gone forward....
shit happens.

but every year I see some parents who arrive as I'm leaving which means they are always late.
this really pisses me off. get your shit together.

The parents who tell me to do x or y because they did it and little Jenny is fine.

Refusing to let your 17yo ds come for a sleepover with mine, his best mate from school, for months: on the basis that mine has been known to have a small can of beer, with my knowledge & permission, on a Friday night.

Then relent, but get into a screaming row with your ds when driving him over & chuck him out of the car by the side of a dual carriageway several miles away...

Thanks for that one Sandra 😆.

@ZingDramaQueenOfSheeba

regularly turning up late to school with no reasonable excuse. not the odd day or for a few weeks while sorting stuff out. every. fucking. day.

we've all been there: got stuck in traffic, had a kid projectile vomiting all over the bathroom 5 mins before needing to leave, had a car not starting, had bad news, forgot what bloody day it was or that the clock has gone forward....
shit happens.

but every year I see some parents who arrive as I'm leaving which means they are always late.
this really pisses me off. get your shit together.

I used to feel this way and still sort of instinctively do, but I've also realised that these parents are often the chaotic ones because there's something else going on too.

Good lord @FatSams defensive much?! Can't you comprehend what you read? Where did I say doing any of those things make you a bad parent or that your child will be a horror? Nowhere. I did some of those things too.

What I don't like (as I've said twice now) is the holier than thou attitude of some mothers who typically do all of those things towards those that don't as though it is some how better parenting to become a slave to your child's every whim. Who then invariably complain that their child is 3 and won't go to bed without mum, or sleep in their own room and so their relationship is on the rocks due to zero adult time or who still insist on being fed three times a night rendering the mum as exhausted as if she still had a newborn.

jobsagudden
*@Letsallscreamatthesistene @Orangeinmybluelightcup**

A crunchy mom is one who is willing to go against the grain and do what is best for her child. She willingly does her own research for pregnancy and birth, breastfeeding and baby wearing, vaccines and solid foods

Who knew?*l

So all of us then.

*@Aozora13 Food before 1 is just to experiment. They get all the nutrition they need from breast milk until 12 months.
*
Not true in the slightest.

Oh my god I have so many!

1. 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.

1. People telling you you need to let your baby cry it out / do controlled crying to get them to sleep through. Fine if that approach works for you and you’re comfortable with it, but it’s not the holy grail of sleep, and it’s not for everyone.

1. People assuming that because I breastfeed, use cloth nappies, co-sleep and use the sling I’m antivax. Would never have anticipated this but 3 people have made the assumption so far and it’s annoying.

1. Antivax parents

1. People posting every moment of their kids’ lives on social media with no thought for how they’ll feel about the lack of privacy when they’re older

1. Competitive parenting

1. ‘Food before one is just for fun’. No Janet, your baby now has an iron deficiency.

@redheadonascooter your comments were downright judgemental. Reread the last paragraph of your second post. So rude about others parenting when I imagine your children have issues the same as all children do.

Other parents palming off hand me downs even when you’ve said that you DO NOT NEED THEM!!!

@MsMarch

I guess it irritates me so much because I try my utter best to get there on time every single day, despite all of our circumstances, and it just grates that they swan in at 5 past 9 laughing and smiling seemingly without a care in the world.

it just feels like a punch in the face because it would be so much easier for me to do the same.

@iMombie my friend nearly gave me a nervous breakdown doing this. My first baby, she had four. I had many losses, went into shock when baby was born, was kept in a week.

She asked me many times and I said I was ok, did not want anything, thank you.

She emptied her loft, kids bedrooms and garage into my kitchen, when DH was picking me up from hospital. (Rural, don't tend to lock door).

I got home and couldn't move, pushed me right over the edge. This is the same friend who once decided to have a surprise party in my house the week before Christmas. The surprise being I didn't know it was happening. We don't speak much anymore.

[quote FatSams]@redheadonascooter your comments were downright judgemental. Reread the last paragraph of your second post. So rude about others parenting when I imagine your children have issues the same as all children do.[/quote]
Oh well I'm sorry you find that part judgemental. I stand by it though. I have yet to meet a well behaved child that was raised by a 'Gentle Parent' and if you read the GP Facebook page it's not difficult to see why!

My children are not perfect no, they're children. Sometimes they act up. When they do, they have appropriate boundaries and consequences are put in place so that they learn the behaviour is not acceptable.

@redheadonascooter and you can’t see why someone would be defensive about your horrible comments? Seriously stop judging other parents and let them find their own way. If you don’t like GP then get off the Facebook groups and worry about your own problems.

[quote FatSams]@redheadonascooter and you can’t see why someone would be defensive about your horrible comments? Seriously stop judging other parents and let them find their own way. If you don’t like GP then get off the Facebook groups and worry about your own problems.[/quote]
You ARE a bit defensive tbh....

Get so annoyed when you go to a sandpit/ splash park etc and ppl take toys for their children to play with and if any other child goes near them gets really annoyed and huffy pulling them (the toys) away from them. Small children will want to play with a truck left in the sandpit and don't understand who it belongs to.

This reminds me of our last trip to the sandpit . We'd taken some toy trucks and I was feeling lazy so sent my 3yo DC back to the sandpit to round them up when it was time to go home. Unbeknown to me, two mums with much smaller kids had come along in the meantime and the kids were happily playing with the trucks until my (very bossy) DC informed them loudly that they had to hand over the toys and proceeded to snatch them away. We don't normally allow snatching toys but he thought it was fine since he was acting on my orders. I was mortified!

@Letsallscreamatthesistene yes, because someone is criticising my parenting choice. I guess I’d consider myself GP and this person is making out that GP children are not okay. So I’m defending it because it’s shit to listen to people suggesting your parents ting style is bad. It’s shitty and upsetting when you’re doing what you feel is best for your child.

I had a friend of mine who taught both her daughters that their genitals where 'dirty' and when she heard i was teaching mine that they where 'private' she went mental at me
She was a sap at parenting-and would moan like hell that they where feral and then gloat if mine where naughty as hers where so good all the time
I let the friendship go in the end

[quote FatSams]@Letsallscreamatthesistene yes, because someone is criticising my parenting choice. I guess I’d consider myself GP and this person is making out that GP children are not okay. So I’m defending it because it’s shit to listen to people suggesting your parents ting style is bad. It’s shitty and upsetting when you’re doing what you feel is best for your child.[/quote]
But if you know and are condfident that your kids are fine, then who cares what someone thinks? Let them have their opinion, whilst you're safe in the knowledge that they're wrong. I feel that way about BF as my son is FF and is thriving 🙂

[quote Letsallscreamatthesistene]@thelovlinessofdemons I have absolutely no idea why BLW is such a emotive subject. Its so weird.[/quote]
Yes, extremely.

@updownroundandround

The eternal one up-man-ship, regardless of the actual topic..............

If my baby got their 1st tooth at 4 mths, then their baby got their 1st tooth at 2 mths !

Gets on my wick every......single.............time ! because it never ends ffs !

My kids are now adults, and it's still a bloody 'competition' to some people I know i.e If my DD got into Uni, their DD got into a better one !

Will it never end ????

I had a neighbour that did that. His ds is a month younger than dd so anything dd did, his ds did bigger and better. I dealt with it by getting more and more ridiculous in my claims as to what dd could do.

I think it was my claim she had completed a 1000 piece jigsaw age 3 that stopped him. Not sure if he realised what I was doing or just couldn't bear dd being better .

one is yes its ok for your children to have long curly hair even if you have boys, but please maintain it. Don't let it get to a stage where its an unruly mess so its constantly in their eyes , or even worse hanging near their mouth that it ends up in their food and all. It is allowed to be tied up neatly or you can get it cut every so often and still maintain their length and curls. Yes its ok that you allow your children to run around your own house with no bottoms or nappies on but please when you are in other peoples house or in public make sure they wear them. I don't want your child going to the toilet on my kitchen floor or want to see their naked bottom half

Any Parenting Philosophy with A Name (Gentle Parenting, Attachment Parenting, BLW, EBF etc etc etc). Makes me back away slowly, as things are usually seen in absolutes. Give me a parent with an "eh, I tried this and that" approach any day.

"Food before one is just for fun." Nope, nope, nope.