am i neglectful?

[Booooooooooyhoo]

my mum said something that has really got to me and i need to know if she is right.

i took myself and ds1 (4) and ds2 (5months) out for lunch. we had a lovely lunch, chatted, ate, talked to people we knew and then ds1 wanted ice cream. ds2 had been fed so i put him back in his car seat after eating my lunch one handedly and ordered ds1 an ice cream. it was huge and ds1 was in his own little world singing to himself and talking to himself. i took out a novel and read it while ds1 finished his ice cream. then we went to the shop and he picked out a magazine for himself as a treat for being very well behaved at lunch. i am on maternity leave at the minute so lunch out is a treat for me, and it helps shake off the cabin fever i feel i get being at home so much.

anyway at mums in the evening it came up that we were at lunch and had met friends, i told her that one of the friends had made a joke as they were leaving about me keeping my mind active by reading whilst on mat leave.

immediately my mum's expression changed and she said "you were reading at the table, while you had the boys with you?"

i said yes as we had all finished except ds who was entertaining himself.

she said it wasnt very stimulating for the boys. to which i replied that i didnt think it necessary to stimulate them all the time, that children need to know how to amuse themselves at times. she said that yes, while the boys are with me i should be stimulating them.

i was and still am quite surprised that she said this, she had two children aswell, surely she knows that its not posible to constantly be stimulating children.

to be honest i quite enjoyed reading my book knowing they were both fed and content. it was a welcome break from having to be constantly answering questions and cries. thats not to say if ds1 had asked me a question that i would have ignored him, i wouldlnt have.

but its really got to me, on one hand i think that my mother was a very good parent, she very much tried her best for us so i think perhaps she is right.
but on the other i think that she is setting an impossibly high standard that she knows i will never meet. some of you may have seen my other thread in Mental Health where i have said how overwhelming i'm finding things at the minute, so i am not sure whether it is me feeling as though this is another failure to add to my list or whether it is my mother being a bit unrealistic.

YANBU or Neglectful.
Your mum is setting Very High Standards which, as a Grandmother and not being with them all the time, she could probaly meet.

I always felt guilty after being around my mum with DCs as she bakes cakes with them and plays for ages. The only thing is we go home at the end of the day.

Your DSs were happy and you were happy. result all round I would say

YANBU.I feel for you too as little comments like that eat away at you and make you feel shitty and angry. It must be a generation thing - my MiL came in here when DS was 6 weeks old and asked why I had the news on instead of CBeebies as "he needed stimulation" WTF.

You have your DCs all day. You probably still have a huge sleep debt and like all mums, you probably can't remember the last time you had a wee in peace, never mind read a book. Grandparents can take this moral high ground because they are not "raising" their GCs, they are enjoying them at their leisure and without the huge responsibility of parenthood.

I am a strong believer that as well as interaction with adults, other kids, toys etc, that children are also stimulated and educated just from watching the world around them. How many adults do you know that are "people watchers", well, I bet those adults were once sat as kids watching the world go by whilst eating an ice cream.

As other posters have said, you went home with 2 happy DCs and you had a breather yourself. Ignore her.

YANBU, and I too am completely jealous, as at 2.4yo DD likes to give a running commentary on life from the minute she wakes up till she goes to sleep:

"Mummy, I been asleep, did you have a nice sleep? I got my milk, not mummy's milk, not daddy's milk. Mummy, what you doing? Mummy, are those your knickers? Are those your boobies mummy, are you putting your boobies in your bra? Is that tissue for your bottom mummy? Is that your stinky poo? Mummy, do you like going to the toilet?"

It's lovely but exhausting! I look forward to having another baby just so she has someone else to talk too!

Your mum is being PITA. Enjoy your book!

You would have been neglectfull if your Dcs were creating havoc while t=you were readind quietly. The situation you describe definitely does not fit with neglectful parenting. one of your children eating an ice cream while the other is sleeping is something I would dream of!

Believe me, if your Dcs had needed your undivided attention, they would have let you know!, just like TOYN said with a "~Mummy,Mummy... " with wolume increasing every time as well as lenght of "u" and "y"

I au-paired for a Swedish woman in Paris once and she said to me one time while her kids were just doing their own thing 'sometimes children just need to be' - have been thinking of this often recently while ds (5 months) is happily chuntering to himself on the playmat while I do stuff around the house, or god forbid on occasion go on facebook/mumsnet/ read paper on-line!

If your kids are not happy they will waste no time in letting you know about it at the top of their voices - meanwhile, enjoy just 'being' with them!

OP
Maybe buy her a copy of The Idle Parent by Tom Hodgkinson?
Children don't need constant stimulation. They need authentic parenting - which, in my world, means meeting my needs as well as theirs.
You are just fine as you are. As you know.

bumperlicioso

your daughter sounds delightful, i adore that sort of inquisitiveness (sp?) in children. although i do appreciate how grating that can be.

I agree with bambino, it is probably a generation thing. My mother is always doing something with DD and asking me if I'm playing with her enough. And I took my MIL to a playgroup a couple of times but had to stop as she just wouldn't understand that the children need to run around and play by themselves without her constantly attempting to play with them or instruct them in some way...other people's children too

I have very much left DD to entertain herself from the start (she is now 11 months) while giving her frequent cuddles and kisses and carrying her around in a sling in the beginning. Now she seems very "independent", happy to play by herself and discover things on her now. I think this is very important. A teacher friend of mine also said to me that in her opinion children are generally overstimulated and that she thought I was doing the right thing.

What were u supposed to do with him exactly? He was already eating an ice cream! She is being ridiculous. As long as they are happy and safe ( and not interrogating people a la My DS2) then I don't see the problem.

I quite often keep "half an eye" on them

mommy enjoying a good book is a fantastic behavioural model for your ds, and as long as he was happy why feel the need to intrude on his play?

your mother might have been a great mother but that doesn't mean you have to do things exactly the same as her to also be a great mother, we all have differant parentings styles and just because they're differant doesn't make them better or worse.

I, for example, am neglectfully sitting at the kitchen table with MN - while DS faffs around picking the butter of the bread that is meant to be (part of) his lunch.

Would go mad if I had to discuss the merits of bread picking at the mo.

I have found my Mothers standards in parenting increased greatly from when we were kids to when we had kids.

Neglectful would be leaving the kids at home while you went out to lunch on your own

My Mum and MIL seem to feel the need to 'bring me down to earth' every so often with a well chosen comment. I suspect that they think we have it easy compared to them when they were in our shoes. I ignore her comments and go on my merry way.

All Mum's talk codswallop sometimes (even us!) so just brush this one off.

Friend of the family is a social worker. She says one of her previous clients was a GM who cared for her DD's baby. She never, ever left the poor kid any thinking time - constant stimulation, constant attention. They were concerned that the poor kid wasn't given any space to just grow and develop, because she seemed to need to be on his back, even lovingly, every minute he was awake. So no, YANBU at all. Your little boy was happy and contented and in his own thoughts - how rude it would be to try to take him out of them for absolutely no good reason.

I often read when DS is playing or doing something. Not for long, because he soon wants attention, but for a few minutes I do, sure. I have even been known to flip on Ceebeebies purely to stretch those few minutes that bit longer - if MaccaPacca and the Ninkynonk keeps him happy, then great.

I'm sure your Mum is a lovely woman and was a fantastic parent, but frankly she is being ridiculous - and not the best parent to you at this point in time, either. You need support, not to be set unattainably high standards.

Bless your Mum, she's just being a loon. Try to ignore her. Children NEED to be left to their own devices sometimes. They don't need intrusive parents controlling every aspect of their day.