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.

Hahahahahshahsh just you wait!!! JUST you waaaiiiiitttttt

I have to admit as dignified as I tried to make my response to this post I really really wanted to respond in a very similar manner to this.

It's so easy to think you'll never be this parent when you only have a tiny baby who sleeps whilst you're enjoying the meal.

Hopefully the poster didn't share her distain with her friends as I fear she may find they are only too happy to remind her of her comments when her child is the bored toddler.

@wallpaint

you don't know what I'm like.
in fact I'm a very good listener when it comes to others wanting to just let off steam.

but I was talking specifically about my mum's parenting idea of wanting to solve stuff instead of just being there.
it's an annoying parenting pet peeve of mine I've suffered from her.
and my point was that I don't like parents fixing their kids' problems instead of providing emotional support while they sort it for themselves, so don't get the personal attack at all.

is your friend also your mother?! and if it's so draining why are you still friends? not sure why you had to take your unresolved issues with her out on me.
but if it made you feel better I'm ok with that!

Parents who made it clear their first child was "their world" but are clearly less bothered about their second and make constant jokes about it rather than making a conscious effort to balance it out. I am a second child so this first child favoruitism really grinds my gears!

@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 ????

This!

My mother is terrible for it. It’s always a sodding competition. It’s toxic and tedious

@TinyTear. Message withdrawn*

As someone who has an only child and desperately wants a second child but is suffering from secondary infertility, I find this viewpoint bizarre and offensive. How do you know that they had an abortion? Do you have access to their medical records or something? What business is it of yours why they only have one child?

Also totally agree with @redheadonascooter about GP, but not because I judge parents who do things like this, but because it is so often so sanctimonious!

I am a big believer in the theory of "it takes a village" and have absolutely no problem with my child being told off by another adult if I'm not in the immediate vicinity etc. But pointless telling off / reminding by random strangers and/or family members annoy me, especially when I am standing right there. eg BIL if we're in our kitchen/dining area and I'm cooking and DD is wandering around will constantly say, "Ooh, DDName, be careful, the stove is hot." or similar. Or my sister will make a "jokey" comment like, "oooh, now DD you have to eat all your broccoli" and again, I'm standing right there so am perfectly capable of deciding how much of her food DD has to eat (these are two real examples, both of which irritate me even more because BIL wouldn't notice if his own kid was climbing INSIDE the oven and Dsis's kids are the fussiest eaters I have ever met you seem to largely survive on snickers bars.)

seeing social media ‘jokes’ about how the first born gets all sorts of things different to the next baby. e.g. ‘i have 10000 photos of dc1 and have to scroll for ages to find even one picture of dc2!!’ is it really so hard to love both kids the same

The "not my child" type parent. The ones who do not believe that there child would do anything wrong or behave badly (often these kids are horrors as they are allowed be). It normally starts in toddler hood when said parent does thing such as allows there little darlings to take toys, ruin other kids stuff all while watching on smiling.

ooh also - people forcing their kids to give family members hugs etc even when the child doesn’t want to. way to teach them about consent!

[quote Jellybabiesforbreakfast]**@TinyTear. Message withdrawn

As someone who has an only child and desperately wants a second child but is suffering from secondary infertility, I find this viewpoint bizarre and offensive. How do you know that they had an abortion? Do you have access to their medical records or something? What business is it of yours why they only have one child?[/quote]
Absolutely. Also, I know a woman who had an abortion due to the foetus not being likely to survive birth but who told most people she'd had a miscarriage because she couldn't face telling people the whole story. The baby was desperately wanted and she was as devastated as if she'd miscarried. These things are far more complicated than they might seem.

@nina3638

seeing social media ‘jokes’ about how the first born gets all sorts of things different to the next baby. e.g. ‘i have 10000 photos of dc1 and have to scroll for ages to find even one picture of dc2!!’ is it really so hard to love both kids the same

Glad I'm not the only one!

@nina3638

seeing social media ‘jokes’ about how the first born gets all sorts of things different to the next baby. e.g. ‘i have 10000 photos of dc1 and have to scroll for ages to find even one picture of dc2!!’ is it really so hard to love both kids the same

But it's not about love? It's about time surely? When DC2 was a baby, if she was sleeping, we weren't taking 500 pictures of her (which I did whenever DC1 was sleeping) but instead I was with DC1 so that he could feel a bit of the love after being largely ignored. There was a lot less time for me to spend just sitting on the floor with DD.

I'm a middle child but with a big gap between me and my brother and a small gap between me and my younger sister. There are lots and lots of baby pictures of him. Lots of me too because he was at school by the time I came along. But all the ones of my sister as a baby have me in them!

A male stranger asking me "was it a natural birth?"
I was 4 days pp pushing pram with first baby, flummoxed how to answer and mumbling erm yeah natural but foreceps.
Then I was left confused as to if it was natural or not. I should have been thinking why the hell tell a strange man I had foreceps 4 days ago. (It was a couple in a vegan cafe and it was the man who asked was it natural 🙄)

@Fundays12

The "not my child" type parent. The ones who do not believe that there child would do anything wrong or behave badly (often these kids are horrors as they are allowed be). It normally starts in toddler hood when said parent does thing such as allows there little darlings to take toys, ruin other kids stuff all while watching on smiling.

@Fundays12

🤣
see also "MY child would never"

umm, yes, they would and they will and they have because they did it right in front of my eyes when you didn't look🤫

@GreenCrayon I used to judge parents so hard for this. Now I'm the mum pushing around the buggy with the clangers theme tune emanating from it as I desperately try to get him to stop whining 😆

[quote Tucancrossing]@GreenCrayon I used to judge parents so hard for this. Now I'm the mum pushing around the buggy with the clangers theme tune emanating from it as I desperately try to get him to stop whining 😆[/quote]
Indeed no judgement here, you do what is necessary to keep the peace. I'll be sure to keep an eye out for you and offer a sympathetic nod as we pass. You'll know it's me as I'm the mum with the fucking Duggee stick song on repeat when he's in a very grumpy mood because I've strapped him back into his pushchair.

It's not so much what parents do as the divisive and judgemental terminology that irritates me. Baby led weaning is fine, butbased on that terminology what's the alternative - do you not think the baby has some say in the matter or how they are weaned by spoon, or do you think we ram it in whether they want it or not? Same as attachment parenting - if you want to do it crack on, but the term is inherently judgemental as the alternative must be detached parenting, where presumably you just leave them in the middle of the room to get on with it. And a PP has already mentioned gentle parenting - obviously the rest of us use violent parenting.

I used to feel the same way when people told me this ["they grow up so fast"] but I swear the past decade just flew by. The days are long but the years truly are short. Sorry about the cliche but I think it’s very accurate

Sorry but got to disagree. My DDs are 11.5 and 9 years, and it has honestly been the longest decade of my adult life. The days were long, the weeks were long, and the years were long. It's all subjective... which is why it drove me insane when people insisted repeatedly that it would feel quick.

My 20s - now there was a decade that flew by

@whoshouldItalkto

It's not so much what parents do as the divisive and judgemental terminology that irritates me. Baby led weaning is fine, butbased on that terminology what's the alternative - do you not think the baby has some say in the matter or how they are weaned by spoon, or do you think we ram it in whether they want it or not? Same as attachment parenting - if you want to do it crack on, but the term is inherently judgemental as the alternative must be detached parenting, where presumably you just leave them in the middle of the room to get on with it. And a PP has already mentioned gentle parenting - obviously the rest of us use violent parenting.

@whoshouldtalkto

first time I hear of gentle parenting.
🙄
is this the same as the can't say can't and don't say don't brigade?

I think it's too late for mine, they are used to their barbed wire beds 🤷‍♀️

@postitnoteseverywhere

Parents of newborns advising parents of toddlers about how to help baby sleep / how to parent generally.

See previous advice from parents of 3 months old criticising use of a screen for a 14 month old… easy to say when your baby lies flat and is entertained by a black and white muslin 😂

People boasting (mostly on here) about how much their teenage boys eat as if it's some sort of achievement, often listing how much they eat in a day, never a word about their teenage dds stuffing their faces oddly enough.

@Seriously79

Thought of another

Allergies - it seems to be the coolest thing now if you kid has an intolerance to something.

Trust me. It’s definitely not cool. It’s a massive ball ache and for some children life threatening.

@UpSlyDown

Basically any unnecessary judgement particularly when the parents can’t help it. I had to FF my first for a variety of reasons and was privately devastated. We are in a very middle class (maybe crunchy- new word from this thread!) area and the amount of people smugly BF while asking why I wasn’t then saying the good old ‘breast is best but formula is fine’. Can you imagine if I went round going ‘vaginal birth is best but c-section is fine’ ‘natural conception is best but IVF is fine’ to people incredibly upset about the way their body/parenting has turned out?

Absolutely. I had the same experience. I spent the first 6 months with my antenatal group friends treading extremely carefully around their myriad issues concerning conception, pregnancy and birth but my challenges with breast feeding were fair game.

@GreenCrayon the stick song is a banger though 😅