Are there any absoute rights and wrongs in parenting?

[seeker]

Apart from bottom line safety issues?

I have been thinking about this because I consider myself by nature a relativist, and the mumsnet consensus is to end most discussions with something like "each to their own".

But I was on a thread recently when I felt very strongly that someone's viewpoint was just wrong. Not a different point of view, but wrong. And I said so - expecting to be flamed - but somewhat to my chagrin I was reminded of my insignificance by being ignored!

So, are there any parenting issues that people feel are absolutely right or wrong - or is everything except basic safety things like car seats and smoking over babies heads and not leaving your valium open in the cot a matter of opinion?

although I wouldn't get involved in squash argument i don't htink.

But smacking, screaming, calling child a cunt, that kind of thing.

and actually, maybe another category where I'd say somehting loudly to another parent (or a bit under breath) but would be too wussy to confront parent.

Sexualized clothing falls into this category.

There are a few things with my sister (who I hope doesn't post on here) when my brother has intervened occasionally and I have tried to say something. Those are very difficult situations. It's when it gets beyond different parenting styles into something you think you need to say something about.

yes Xenia - and the really difficult thing is, as this thread has shown, is that what you would consider 'something you think you need to say something about', others consider 'parenting styles'.

very awkward sentence, that.

I confronted my brother over a T shirt he and dsil gave my dd. They just thought I was really weird and precious and that they were right and I was wrong. I'm glad I did it, but it didn't help at all!

I remember you mentioning that Seeker. Luckily you can just lose the t-shirt, but what if they were dressing their daughter in similar?(it was something about loving men if they were rich, wasn't it?)

Would you mention it?

Yes I would - because I believe in the wider family bringing up children, rather than just the parents. Makes me popular, that does!

Oh yes I can well imagine..

Were you on the telling off thread? I just skimmed it.

I would normally be too much of a wuss to confront other parents about things they did. Absolute exceptions would be out and out cruelty. I believe (hope) I would always intervene/do something in cases that were clearly breaches of the law. thi then merges into the stuff that makes my heart sink into my boots - the mum who swears at/yells at/slaps around their child in the middle of Tescos. Might interfere. Might mutter. Might want to hurry away and hug DS tightly.

Emotional abuse I would find virtually impossisble to ignore - repeatedly telling the child they are useless/ that they are hated/ "neither use nor ornament"/insert your own horrific memory here etc. etc.

I guess for me the absolutes are around making your child feel unloved/insecure/worthless/lonely/frightened/unsure in any way that you would be there for them. That can be achieved in many ways, but all of them are the absolute wrongs for me.

Don't think I saw that one - what, telling off other people's children" Oh, I do that all the time.....

Tell you what onebatmother, you would only manage to shout at me once!! (I have never tapped, smacked, beaten up my child and hopefully never will btw)
Did it never occur to you what circumstances the poor girl was in, what would have driven her to such desperate measures, was she suffering from pnd etc etc etc. Might have been better if you had tried to help her instead of humiliating her. It certainly is not OK to humiliate ANY OTHER human being regardless of their age.

eh? what post are you talking about McFee?

You are wrong IMO mcfee - and unpleasantly aggressive, I might add.

You are misreading my post if you believe I was glad to have humiliated her.

I first asked her, quietly, to stop hitting her child and she told me to fuck off, very loudly, and mind my own fucking business, it was her child and she'd do what she fucking liked with her.

It developed from there.

Oh that one. With you there OneBat.

As you were then.

My sister - we were out on a walk and my fault - I took us all in hot sun far too far; her child picked up some dried sheep dung like any normal child might and then for 60 minutes she gripped his wrist and repeatedly told him what a dirty boy he was. It was absolutely disgusting treatment in my view. Obviously she was in a state or tense or something and no one is perfect in their parenting. I am sure I am not, but it went far too far. I suppose I must have said something like - it doesn't matter, it's very dirty but I didn't shout or force her to stop what she was doing or saying.

Interesting how people raise their hands in horror at telling a child they are stupid but have no such qualms about doing so to a fellow parent!

I am all for sharing responsibility for children, but this has to be done in such a way as to avoid undermining the very necessary solidarity between adults and undermining parent's confidence and authority. Although I suppose the prospect of 'solidarity' is unthinkable if you divide the world into 'good' and 'bad' parents.

But I DON"T divide the world into good and bad parents - and I have never said anything that might lead anyone to believe that I do!

Trying to come up with 'basic' rules is just a very unfortunate and unnecessary pursuit. Fine to decide on them for yourself, we all do this, but it is a recipe for an unhappy life to look at parents not using a 'car seat' or 'smoking over the head of a baby' and feel that they are morally wrong. As others have said, the really heinous crimes are already covered by law, anything else is really just a question of taste and circumstances.

'taste and circumstance'? For crying out loud.

Well if it's not taste and circumstances, are you suggesting it's a question of good and evil or perhaps scientifically proven or unproven? Neither of these frameworks apply to human emotions and complex relationsihps I'm afraid, much as you might like them to.

good and evil might be taking it a bit far - but right and wrong perhaps?

I'm not sure how one could argue that smoking over the head of a baby is anything but wrong. It's probably not evil, may well be done unintentionally or absentmindedly, and it certainly doesn't mean the parent/person is themselves intrinsically bad - but surely the act itself is still wrong?

Isn't it a bit like saying to our children "I love you, but I don't love {insert latest inappropriate behaviour}"?

But we are not talking about 'saying to our children', we are talking about other adults, who may or may not be convinced that smoking near a baby (not forcing a cigarette into the baby's mouth or burning it with the cigarette) is particularly harmful in the long-term.

Totally agree with JustGetOnWithiT. Where we can mostly agree - there is the law, and as our consensus on what is wrong and unacceptable changes (as it inevitably does) so the law changes.

Do you not agree that humans have moral obligations beyond the particular laws of their nation? It is not illegal for me to walk past someone who has fallen in the street, but I wouldn't do it.

Otherwise, lifestyle choices become the subject of intractable debate and unhelpful fractures in the social world of parents and children e.g. dummy or no dummy, wooden toys or Woolies' finest, trainers or Start-rite, organic or BOGOFs, breast or bottle etc ad infinitum and ad nauseum. Hopefully these differences will seem very trivial once our children are grown-up and are actually pretty similar human beings about whom the practices of their parents cannot possibly be inferred.