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Hawaii Babies
redshoegirl
member
weird competitiveness
redshoegirl
member
I have a very dear friend who is starting to make me kinda crazy with her parenting competitiveness/advice. It's not who can do something "better", but who is the more laid back, carefree parent, and any time I mention something we do, she has to top it with a story about how much looser her parenting style is. This is hard to explain...let me give an example.
Today we were talking about kids and stairs. We live in a 2-story house, so naturally we have the stairs blocked off. The boys can crawl up them, and I allow them to do so when I'm right behind them (like when we go upstairs for a nap or bedtime) but the rest of the time it's a no-go. My friend said that they always let their kids climb stairs whenever they wanted to, that it was good for them to learn and they never fell. But the way she said it, it implied that by not doing the same, I'm an overprotective helicopter parent.
I don't wrap my kids in bubblewrap - they play outside, eat dirt, get scrapes on their knees, etc. But I also think that wanting to prevent my kids from potentially falling down a flight of 15 stairs is reasonable!
I've seen this attitude on the Bump a lot, too - the "cool" parents are the ones that let their kids do whatever (or the ones that constantly post about eating lunchmeat or whatever when pregnant and mock more cautious women), unlike us losers who have a more traditional approach. I just don't GET it. It's such a weird thing to be competitive about!
I love my friend dearly, but this aspect of her personality/parenting style makes me a little crazy. Anyone else know someone like this?
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Re: weird competitiveness
I truly believe that this is part of human nature...people want to validate THEIR choices by invalidating yours. It happens with parenting, with relationships, anything where someone has elected to do something a particular way. Therefore, if YOU choose something different or, even worse (in their minds), exactly opposite, of what they've chosen, then you must be wrong because their way is obviously right.
I don't experience exactly what you've described (frankly I don't have very many mommy friends and the ones that are...we don't discuss parenting styles), but I do get the side-eye quite often if I mention that we're practicing attachment parenting and positive discipline. Some people cannot fathom a parenting style where the adults are not "the boss" of the children. Oh well....I experienced that approach and want to do it differently with my kids. Don't get me wrong, it is our job to lead by example and teach them what is expected, etc. but we will not be punitive or conditional with them. We also chose to respect their feelings and give them input into decisions about daily needs and wants, even at 12-15-18 months old, rather than "because I said so..." or "it's my way or the highway..." so that they'll learn to express themselves, even if they don't get their way and are mad/sad they'll be safe (emotionally/physically) to let us know.
With your particular example, I think your friend would feel VERY differently if/when he kids fall down the stairs and hurt themselves. FWIW, if we had stairs, we'd be taking the precautions you do...it's just common sense, IMHO. Also, she needs to recognize that you have TWO kiddos that are the same age...and one could be fine going up and the other could fall and take both of them out! That's a lot of risk to take for no good reason!
TTC/PG Blog | Mommy Blog
totally agreed. like all other parenting things, I think you just have to ignore her even though it may be pretty annoying that she is always trying to make it sound like her way is better.
your friend is just lucky that her kids haven't fallen down the stairs. DH saw a child in the ER that fell down the stairs and broke his/her neck and was paralyzed from the neck down! so you are definitely right in that situation in that it is better to err on the side of caution. it's not like the boys are going to grow up not knowing how to walk up/down stairs just b/c you have it blocked off!
Jaime & Brent
Oahu, Hawaii | Sept. 9, 2005
My Food Blog - Good Eats 'n Sweet Treats
I really like Lori's answer, she put it so much better than I ever could of.
I think that parenting is SO important to everyone who has a child. We all want to do it right. I've found that often moms affirm they're doing it right by condemning how another mom is doing it.
In regard to stairs. We have an entire flight of hardwood stairs that ends in tile (obviously we did our renos prior to having children - haha!). I let Elyse practice on the stairs when I'm there, but honestly our stairs are slippery and dangerous and scare the crap out of me. So she only has the opportunity to learn stairs at my parents or when she was in daycare. Elyse will not go to kindergarten unable to walk up and down stairs, it's just something she's going to learn later than other kids because I don't want her head cracked open in my entrance way.
I have a close friend whose son is 7 weeks younger than Elyse. She has a definite case of "the perfects." Everything she does in her life is the absolute BEST way possible. This is the case with her parenting as well. Her child is perfect, calm, never cries, always slept through the night blah blah blah.
A few weeks ago we were out for lunch and Elyse was having a REALLY hard time. She was crying, throwing food on the ground etc. So I ate quickly and was making moves to leave. My friend leaned into her son and said "honey, thank you so much for behaving, I'm so proud of how good you are." Then looked at me and smiled her perfect parent smile that I've seen her do to other parents she's judging.
I didn't even know what to say, my feelings were so hurt and I was SO angry that she was judging my daughter. This is just how my friend is, she does it a lot to make herself feel better. Her son (who is 17 months) hasn't yet said any words and just learned to walk. She doesn't talk about it at all, but I know it's worrying her, and she's just to proud/competitive to discuss it honestly. That being said, I've pulled back from her since.
Sorry your friend is being all weirdly competitive, it's hard when to feel judged by our friends.
Married Bio
oh wow! I can't believe she had the nerve to do something like that. that is just rude. I can totally see why she would want to give her child positive reinforcement, but she could have waited until you had left and told him in private. saying that in front of you serves no purpose except to (a) make you feel bad and (b) make her feel good. it's totally selfish and rude IMO.
I know you said that you've pulled back some, but if you do feel like having another conversation with her, I'd try to find a gentle way to bring this up with her.... it is not normal for a child that age to have no words at 17 months. the walking bit is totally normal - some babies don't walk until they are 18 months old. but his speech development (or lack thereof) is definitely abnormal and he should have at least 5 words or so by the age of 18 months. It doesn't sound like this is a case of "well, every child learns at a different pace" but more like something is truly wrong. it's important that she address the issue early so he can start to get some help. if it turns out that he doesn't have a problem, then there is no harm done (except to her ego maybe), but if he does have a problem then he will be much better off with an earlier intervention.
Jaime & Brent
Oahu, Hawaii | Sept. 9, 2005
My Food Blog - Good Eats 'n Sweet Treats
Thanks for the advice, everyone! I love my friend a lot...it's just this aspect of her personality that makes me craaaazy.
I think this is also VERY true:
This makes a lot of sense to me - especially because when my friend competes in this way, she often comes across as a bit defensive (even though I'm not in any way attacking her choices).
I remember the last time we talked about sleep, and I told her how the boys sleep from 7pm-7am, she asked in amazement, "How on earth do you get them to sleep for 12 hours?!" but then before I could answer, she launched into how they followed a particular sleep book word for word, and that was the only way to do it...even though I can see that clearly it didn't work well for her because her 3 and 5 year olds still have disrupted sleep at night. And now looking back, I think you're very right about her needing to validate her choices by insisting they were the right way.
I guess this sort of competitiveness is odd to me because all kids are different, and the approach you take with one might not work with the other (hell, Will and Dash need different approaches for some things and they're twins!). I think there are a handful of "absolutely not" approaches (like, say, beating your LO), but largely parenting just isn't a black and white world - so why get all competitive about it?
I can't believe she said that in front of you!
I know you've all seen this before but this post reminded me of this YouTube video about "Why I can't make mom friends" lol.
I was totally thinking this from the first post!
Some people are just like that - think back to middle school when girls would put other girls down just to make them feel better about themselves. I think it's still a self-esteem/validation issue.
Jaime, I'm seeing my friend this week so I'll feel out the waters in terms of talking to her about it. She's well aware of milestones, so I'm sure she's not neglecting it.
I really like being able to post here about advice etc. and not having people be judgey. This is a really great board!
Married Bio
FWIW, we also don't let B on the stairs unless I'm crawling right behind him. Our stairs are kinda steep (even I've fallen down them a couple of times) and I don't want to take the risk with B..but even if they weren't steep, unless it's a tiny set of stairs (like 2-3 steps from one section of the room to another), I wouldn't let B just go on them whenever he wants without supervision. Like pp mentioned already, she's probably just trying to validate herself for doing certain things and it's a shame that she has to invalidate you in the process. I'm sure things like this and what HulaLove is going through can be a bit straining on the friendship because it's just unsettling for people to put down their friends like that, whether directly or indirectly =/ I don't get it either but hopefully they'll mellow out later on?