pull down to refresh

I follow a lot of parenting, motherhood, pediatrician, and child psychologist websites. I read the comments of many young mothers from different places, and we all definitely come to the conclusion that parenting is (or seems to be) very difficult these days. No matter what you do, everything is done wrong, nothing is ever good enough.
Having the Internet is a blessing; it gives us windows into knowledge and learning about things our grandmothers basically ignored or had to guess at. Apparently, parenting 50 years ago was "easier" if a child had a roof over their head and more than enough food; it was a successful upbringing.
Now, thanks to our beloved Internet, the very fact that we have so much information at our fingertips has caused confusion in all of this parenting stuff because the information you find contradicts each other.
Mothers now feel guilty about everything, and I include myself in this situation.
• Breastfeed, bottle-feed, or mix feed. • When should you start complementary feeding? BLW or soups, purees, and creams? When can you give them water? • Free movement on the floor? Or do they get sick from lying on the floor? Do babies get scuffed or kicked? Should they sleep in their own room from birth or co-sleep? • Speak at least 2 languages • You should play sports, but not too many. • You must stimulate your children, but not overstimulate because it hurts them. • Respectful education, without crossing boundaries and not being permissive, but not too rigid either. • Don't use the word "NO" unless it's an emergency. Use assertive language. • Sugar-free, gluten-free diet • If you are a working woman then you are a bad mother for abandoning your children, but if you decide to be a housewife and dedicate yourself to your children then you are lazy, slack and kept.
This is just a small list of situations you face every day. Although it may seem silly and insignificant, there are many mothers right now who feel inadequate for not doing things "perfectly," because no matter how hard you try, there are always, always people judging your parenting and making comparisons. "My son, at your son's age, was already flying, spoke 10 languages, and earned a master's degree." We must know how to filter the information we consume. Some content is overly exaggerated and out of touch with reality.
This doesn't seem like a problem because, at the end of the day, everyone decides how to raise their children, and no one should interfere. We need to set clear boundaries with family and friends, and we ourselves should avoid unsolicited opinions.
Parents are more likely to say they feel judged by family members than by their friends, other parents in their community or people they interact with online.
There are wide differences in some of the ways mothers and fathers describe their parenting style. For example, about half of mothers (51%) say they tend to be overprotective, compared with 38% of fathers. In turn, fathers (24%) are more likely than mothers (16%) to say they tend to give their children too much freedom. Mothers are also more likely than fathers to say they tend to give in too quickly (40% vs. 27%, respectively), while fathers are more likely to say they stick to their guns too much (36% vs. 24% of mothers).
There are signs of a backlash, led by so-called free-range parents, but social scientists say the relentlessness of modern-day parenting has a powerful motivation: economic anxiety. For the first time, it’s as likely as not that American children will be less prosperous than their parents. For parents, giving children the best start in life has come to mean doing everything they can to ensure that their children can climb to a higher class, or at least not fall out of the one they were born into.
Don't give in to the comparison game, it's a trap.
One thing to keep in mind is that everyone who tells you do this or do that, and they push for this practice or that practice, they only ever show you their victories on social media--they never show you their struggles. So don't be fooled into thinking other people are so much better. You know best what your child needs, not anyone else.
reply
You know best what your child needs, not anyone else
It's right.
Now with this social media thing there's this tendency to want to look perfect, everything is so superficial.
reply
63 sats \ 1 reply \ @Scoresby 13h
It's surprising how durable your children can be. I have three and they have all been through their fair share of bumps and accidents. No parent likes to see their children get hurt, but the courage required of us is to let our children get hurt and damaged.
reply
102 sats \ 0 replies \ @bief57 OP 11h
This is so true, sometimes we would like to put them in a bubble so that nothing and no one can hurt them, but living in a bubble is more harmful than facing reality.
reply
We were fortunate to read Emily Oster’s excellent parenting books and Bryan Caplan’s. They’re both economists who dug into the evidence for most of these things and generally found that the claims are wildly overstated, if not outright false.
Our takeaway was that we can basically parent how we want and things will probably work out.
reply
42 sats \ 1 reply \ @bief57 OP 11h
I need to read these books.
It really is like that, each family has its traditions and customs, each person educates, loves and teaches in a different way and that is fine (as long as your child's life is not in danger) nobody has to give an opinion about the rest and sometimes family members tend to be the ones who most point out your way of raising children.
reply
The Caplan book is probably the most relevant because the others are mostly about pregnancy through early childhood.
There’s at least one good episode of Econtalk with Caplan talking about his book.
reply
21 sats \ 1 reply \ @grayruby 12h
You just do the best you can. Give them lots of love. Support their interests. Be tough on them when it comes to keeping good habits and manners but go easy on them with other things. Ultimately you just have to keep them from making the catastrophic mistakes and support them through everything else.
reply
I love it, it's my motto. You can do whatever you want as long as you don't harm others or yourself.
reply
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @398ja 7h
Please add peacefulparenting.com to your reading list.
Parenting is only hard when you disregard the fundamental needs of the child — feeling safe, bonding...
Everything else is secondary, or even irrelevant.
reply
They forgot to add to the list the stress/anxiety my kid might buy a cryptocurrency other than Bitcoin!
reply
Your posts help us raise and understand our little ones a little better! Thanks for sharing!
reply