Let's talk about parenting for a minute. Do you realize, that right now, whatever kind of parent you have decided to be, is wrong? Yep. You are wrong. Every choice you have made is wrong and you are harming your baby. In fact, your child is going to grow up to be either a murderer, or they will just be dead because of all the unsafe choices you have made.
Seem a little harsh?
Yeah.
Seems harsh to me too.
Why is it, that every single choice you make as a parent, someone HAS to tell you that it's wrong and dangerous? Every single thing you do! Putting them in their crib causes abandonment issues, but having them sleep in your room causes clingy children. Feeding them solids before their 6 months gives them allergies, but if you don't feed them until their 6 months you're not giving them the proper nutrients. Breast is best and only breast is the only way to go (according to the breast nazi's, oh I mean lactation specialist), but giving formula is better because then your baby will love both parents equally as oppose to favoring mommy. Also, breast feeding in public is basically a hanging offense.
Those are just a couple examples of what I've been told.
And this is being told to me by public health nurses and doctors.
Then I started going to MotherCare and Early Years.
Where there are other mothers.
Who live in the real world.
They are much more forgiving for all the terrible things I do.
Such as:
Co-sleeping
Baby wearing
Breast feeding in public (shock horror. I know.)
Baby Led Weaning
Picking my baby up when she cries
No "Baby Training"
Why is it that people think that they always know what is best for your child? It bugs me! It makes me want to look them in the eye and say, "Look lady," (and it's almost always ladies. I'm not being sexist, I'm being honest) "My kid. My rules. If I deem it acceptable for my kid to run around naked and sleep on the lawn and pee in the bushes, then that's my choice. MY CHOICE!!"
Look, I might not be the best parent in the world. I make mistakes. That's ok though, because I'm not the worst parent in the world either! The choices Cuinn and I have made as parents for our daughter works for our lives. It may not work for you and that's ok. We are all very unique, which means we all need different parenting styles, you know what? My parenting style with Aislynn is probably going to be different with my next kid, because everyone needs something different.
I know this blog seems to be a little ranty, and I'm sorry for you having to read my venting. But if you could just take one thing from this, I hope that it would be this.
Please remember that how you parent is going to be different from how I parent. I will always respect your decisions, I may not agree with them, I may think you're crazy, but I will respect that it's your choice. I just ask that you respect my choices too.
2 comments:
Good for you!!! It took me a long time to get to the point when I was confident in the choices I was making and you are so right, people don't hold back sharing their opinions. If it makes you feel any better, the people who criticize are often the people who, in the long run, will turn around and tell you the opposite to what they said before. There is one person in particular who was hard on me in the beginning ("you are going to spoil her, she will NEVER sleep in her own bed" etc who now tells me that my child is one of the best behaved she knows and that I am too hard on her.
Just know, you know your little girl better than anyone and you and Cuinn will make the best choices for her. Everyone else can just keep their opinions to themselves!
Thank you, Sarah! I wasn't feeling so very confident before, but since I've started going to Mothercare group and the Early Years Center I have met some other fantastic moms in my town. They all are so supportive and a few of them even do the "attachment parenting" that we do. I didn't even know that our style of parenting had a name, but it's comforting to know that we're not the only ones raising her like that.
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