I am guessing as soon as language was formed there have been parents, mainly the mothers debating their parenting styles. Arguing over what is the best way to raise our young, instead of just agreeing that any parent who is actively trying is technically a "good parent." So many things change every few years that being that ideal parent takes a lot of research with no free time to do as much as you would like. People who are well read on a particular subject will use the strongest wordings they can think of to try and persuade others to agree with them. But in all but a handful of topics there is no "black and white" -it's all in shades of grey.
But, intelligent people know that they could always hear or read new info. on topics they thought they already knew everything about that will inherently change their views. And on of the ways people try to get others in rereading on a topic they thought they already understood in the parenting department is by asking people, "Do you really care about your child?" "Do you want your kid to be healthy?" "Do you realize you could be mentally, verbally, or physically abusing your child if you are doing this?" See, stupidly strong wording just to get you to read their opinions and make you feel like you have been screwing up your child thru ignorance on your part. How Rude! Right?
We obsess on small decisions regarding our children because even though we consciously try to keep our kids healthy in every way, we still worry if we aren't doing something to accidentally mess them up. So here are some of the things I have noticed on my FB timeline from those parents who get really passionate about certain baby and kid topics that they believe only has one way to be right and those who don't follow it are being "bad parents" or ignorantly causing possible harm to their young and need to be educated until the agree with them to change and do it "their way." I know these people, so I know they aren't being pushy or bossy on purpose and they do it cause they really do care to make sure every child they know is safe and that comes first with the parent but how do we know that here in about 2-3 years some new study is gonna come out saying that that particular way was actually wrong or didn't matter. Oops! Our bad guys, we probably should have done a hundred more studies to make sure we were telling you the right way to raise your young before we told you, you were a bad parent if you didn't do it that way. But we got it now! Here's your new "Super Safe Car Seat." We promise we got it right this time! (~ sigh, yah sure, too late now. So glad my children didn't die from the now unsafe carseats they rode in when they we were told something else.~)
Here we go. ~ The Breast Is Best Mom.~ Yes, We all know that babies have been breastfeeding since women noticed after having a baby that their breasts filled up with a milk like substance. We have found out in more recent history that the babies who got those vitamins from breast milk in the first months of their lives had better immunities against certain viruses and other stuff. But where they make none breast feeding mama's feel like failures. I actually wanted to be a breast feeding Mama, I did try really hard but by the second or third month I just dried up or they were getting more air in their bellies than milk and every Mom knows how fussy an air filled baby can be and no one wants to be the cause of pain for their infant. But the breast passionate Mama's keep saying in all the stuff I have read on how you control your supply. How if you just try harder and pump more in between feedings your supply will increase. That is just not true for all of us! Cause I did it all, and with my younger son I even let him stay attached and switching sides for entire nights! It still just went away and there was nothing I could do but start buying formula.
~ Sleep coaching or Bed Sharing Families~ I admit I am a bed sharer! I love cuddling my little ones, I don't feel like they have taken over anything of mine. They were inside me for 9 months, just cause they have been born doesn't mean I have to start pushing them away at infancy. I took precautions when they were babies, I was aware of them being in my bed all night every night. They were put on an infant sleeping pillow that has little soft bumper sides to keep them from rolling and is slightly inclined but not enough they would slide down it. I don't knock parents who keep their kids in a separate room and bed but don't look down on me cause I don't. They have their own room, they have slept many times in their own beds. Actually to tell the truth they used to sleep in their own room for a long time, I started them on their own beds at around a year old and they did very well, especially my youngest who went from snuggling me at night to snuggling his Bubba at night so he has never felt alone. When a person I would obviously never speak to again broke into our home and climbed thru the kids window, knocked their head board down and robbed us of our huge movie collection, my older son has a memory like an elephant and so understandably is just scared of someone coming thru his window at night. I don't feel bad at all for letting them sleep with me now and they are allowed to do it as long as they feel they need me. I only get this time with them once, I want to remember it as the closest years ever.
A new one to me. ~ The Un-Altering Advocate~ To circumcise your baby boys or not? Women have now been claiming that circumcision is not worth it and that it desensitizes the males penis. But from what I read on it, they are getting their information and studies from adult men who had a circumcision done later in life. Here is where they lose me, I have had both my boys circumcised cause even just five years ago that was the norm to do with your sons. And from my experiences with my sons, my younger son's circumcision came out perfect and besides normal rashes little ones can get he is perfectly healthy in that region with no problems. My older son for some reason got what looks like a half or 2/3rds circumcision, they just didn't get it all. He is almost 6 and gets kinda shy about things so a lot of times it isn't until bath time that I notice he again has another infection. We have had prescription ointment for him pretty much since he was a 1 yr old for flare ups. He is just one prone to rashes and infections though and has a lower immunity system than most kids, I still wonder if he wouldn't be suffering as much if they had just done it right the first time.
~ The Anti-discipline or just Spank them Parents~ Do time-outs really work on all kids for everything? Will a spanking teach them hitting is wrong? No one wants their child to start being violent. But does spanking teach violence or respect? If your child won't stop slapping or biting other kids, and you have tried everything else, is it okay to do it back to them just once to show them what it feels like? I have been thru the slapping one with my oldest and sorry to say but the only thing that made him stop was one little slap on his belly where he had been doing it to his best friend at the time who is a kid who runs around in underwear most of the time was the only thing that stopped him from ever doing it again. I don't like spanking my kids, and I do use mostly time-outs but they continue to get in trouble for doing the same things over and over so I am open there to new suggestions to make them stop hurting each other and other children for no reason.
~ The Anti-Gun Piercing Parent~ That one is me too. I was with a professional piercer for 5 years who owned his own shop that I worked in at the counter with him for a couple of years so I feel strongly about it. The information is out there so I don't feel it's just opinion here but I know others who do. Places like Claire's reuse that disgusting piercing gun and may wipe it down with an alcohol pad in between clients. Did ya know that alcohol pads do not kill the AIDS, HIV, or Hep Viruses? Cause it doesn't, still seem harmless and safe? When you go to a professional piercer, most of them had to apprentice for 2 yrs before they were left to work on clients by themselves, I went to cosmetology school and the gun piercing was included in the classes, it lasted for maybe a week or two but was only for one hour a day during that time. I spent that time educating my fellow students on how gross and wrong a piercing gun was but some were still so excited that they would get to shoot blunt objects into each others ears so they didn't care. Oh yah, that's the other part, ever hear of a keloid scar? It's one of those nasty thick scars that sit raised on your skin, I and many others got one from getting a cartilage piercing from a gun, I did learn in the class one useful tip. Those guns are only supposed to be used on the soft part of your ear lobe, not the higher cartilage piercings. Those piercing ear rings with the pointy tip that is blasted thru your flesh by a gun cause bruising and scarring, not saying you can't get bruised by a professional needle too but you will heal twice as fast and they also have better healing solutions there to speed up the healing process. If you are considering a new piercing and haven't heard of H2Ocean yet, that is the best stuff ever! When a piercer does the piercing he is most likely (a good shop anyway) using a tri bevel, silicone coated, hollow needle in the gauge of your choice. These are the kinds that dr.s use when they need to get in your skin, remember how it just slid thru easily like a knife thru butter in your skin? Shouldn't your piercing be that smooth and quick too? Just saying.
~ Cloth Diapering Parents. Now I used disposable with both my boys, call me lazy or whatever but it's what I chose. Actually cloth diapering wasn't even a thing with my first and barely there with my second as far as I knew anyway. I do understand why, less in garbage means less in piles around our planet and there are a lot of people trying to share the same spaces so it makes sense. But I am one that has thrown away overly soiled underwear because of how gross they were and that is just on occasion. I couldn't imagine cleaning those dirty soiled things daily and putting them in my washing machine with our regular un pooped on clothing. I get it, but it's not for me.
~ Giving your little ones electronics to keep them quiet or making them earn toys and use their imaginations. A long title there I know but here's the thing. People in general, myself included are just turning into sloths and relying on electronics to entertain us. I know it's eventually going to happen with my boys but I don't have to push it under their noses as soon as they are old enough to push buttons. And yes, they talk sometimes incessantly while we are in waiting rooms and I still don't have electronics ready to shut them up and make them be still. I have let them earn and collect little tiny action heros, the Marvel characters they love and when we get ready to go somewhere I know they will need to sit down at I let them back a small backpack with their little guys and believe me they will entertain the room with their little inventive story lines sometimes. I make sure they don't get too loud with it and aren't in peoples foot paths as much as possible but I look around at all the adults faces too to make sure no one is looking peeved and surprise I see them smiling and some even laughing a little. I really do love how a small child's imagination brightens a persons day and with those timeless characters you can see or they tell me how they remember playing with the same little guys when they were children or when their children were little. Besides, if I am getting along with out all those new electronics then my kids will be just fine without them too.
~ The TV Critic. Hey, I like the idea of my kids learning from the shows they watch as much as the next parent. But you gotta admit, some of those shows and particular characters voices are just plain annoying and start grating on your nerves after awhile. We don't have cable so we watch a lot of DVDs, though after a 3rd robbery of just our movies, the pickings are slim. Luckily this time the one I am pretty positive that is the thief left us our burned movies and a few that were on the tv at the time, mostly cartoons. I admit I let my kids watch some movies though that other parents probably would not. I don't judge the movies by ratings but more on what they are about and there are some movies where when a part comes up that I don't want my kids seeing I skip it. They are movies though that the kids are not allowed to watch without me, so I am still controlling what they see by my own standards. I am mostly talking about "Super hero" movies that may be a little darker than the cheesy family flick ones or not exactly in the comic book movie category but more of just characters with some kind of powers that include some cool graphics. Or movies I know that have some cool looking "fake" characters that I think the boys would enjoy. I never claimed to be Betty Crocker or in new terms a "helicopter parent."
~ The car seat fanatic. We all want our kids to be safe while traveling, well the decent parents do. I used the rear facing seats while they were infants the toddler booster during their toddler years and regular booster seats now that they are bigger. But I admit that I may not have always got the chest piece exactly tight enough or in the specific spot on their chests while in infant seats. I didn't put the toddler seat rear facing and pretty much as soon as they were big enough to turn them around I did. My kids weren't happy in the rear facing seats and if you had a child like my oldest you would understand my reasons. Any time this kid got upset from birth to still occasionally at 6 years old he throws up. I jokingly nicknamed him the "exorcist baby" in his baby years. I admit I just went to our PCP pediatrician's office more than once to try and get them to help us with our baby exorcist issues cause having a baby throwing up lactose free formula daily was horribly gagging and smelly. The pediatrician said he probably had a bad case of acid reflux and the baby seat just helped the acid sit in his chest when he got upset but refused to give us any medicine to get him on to help him. She told us our insurance didn't cover the medication and it was expensive so she wasn't going to bother writing us a script for it. It made us mad but we were new parents and figured if she wouldn't do it then that was the end of that and we just had to deal with it. Though it's probably one of the main reasons that my son's top three teeth on top rotted and broke apart and had to be removed at just 4 years old. We live and learn and I think most of us as first time parents there will be things that what we know now is not what we knew then and if we could go back and change it then we would.
We all have our strengths and weaknesses as parents, and as people and people are going to judge us regardless. I know there are more topics that I could touch on and maybe I will write a part two some day. My point is, you can have your baby topics that you feel strongly about and want to get everyone on board with it but it's not going to happen. I do try my hardest to not judge my parent friends on these things though I know I have wrote posts in the past on the ones I do feel strongly about and may have hurt some feelings. I don't think they are bad parents though, I know we are all trying our hardest to raise our little ladies and gentlemen the best ways we know. Plus the "experts" are changing what makes us "good parents" every couple of years and it can be hard to keep up with, we just have to remember to keep an open mind and never think you know it all when it comes to raising kids. There will always be something coming up that you thought you knew cause heck! the experts told us it was supposed to be that way and now all of a sudden you will be labeled a "bad" parent for continuing to do and not immediately jump on the "change band wagon." It would probably be so much easier if all of us passionate parents came together to talk on what we know without using judging words which is harder said than done, it's ingrained into our brains when we are researching those topics and the choice wording that is used to make sure you have changed your mind by the time you are done reading it. Share our knowledge and understand we are not always going to agree and that's okay.
