This is the thread where we judge other people's parenting

http://www.recordsale.de/cdpix/r/rare_soulrnb-here_comes_the_judge(custom_records).jpg

here, I'll do some judging, too:

Jeff and I were out and about with the kid and a woman was shopping with her toddler and presumably the toddler's grandmother, and the woman picked up the kid and I don't know what happened, but the woman yelled, "OW! Molly!" then put the toddler down and said, "I am DONE WITH YOU." And the toddler cried some fat sad toddler tears and raised her arms up to her mom, who was not having it. Grandma to the rescue.

NOW I don't know what Molly did. She may have stabbed her mom in the face with an OXO Tot baby knife for like the tenth time that day. And I don't have a toddler yet. I have a cute, squishy infant who most of the time is pretty chill and easy to handle (which isn't to say that I haven't been bitten on the nipple or bashed in the mouth with a cute little forehead or kicked in the tit so I get that babies hurt sometimes) and I am generally a big time cuddler but man alive seeing that toddler cry and reach for her mom was rough.

― carl agatha, Wednesday, August 6, 2014 2:42 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think the most common mistake parents make w/misbehavior is overreacting to something a toddler doesn't understand is wrong or why it's wrong, like i think it's pretty understandable but at the same time you've got to do the calm and kind explanation thing as opposed to the verbal tongue-lashing or silent treatment or even the "time out" (which i think is kind of not partic helpful tbqh.)

― LIKE If you are against racism (omar little), Wednesday, August 6, 2014 3:12 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm somewhat sympathetic to the mom. Sometimes these moves are not parenting choices in the sense that they're supposed to help the child learn something, they're parenting choices in helping the child by letting the parent step away and regroup. Saying "I am done with you" isn't cool obviously but sometimes getting a breather is necessary to regain sanity. Like a "time out" isn't just for a kid, it's also for a parent to get their shit together and figure out next steps without a kid screaming and flailing in your face.

Also parenting is really fucking hard but this tweet made me laugh

https://twitter.com/ChelseaVPeretti/status/495255649488359424

na otm xp

yeah totally otm.

It was the "done with you" followed by the crying/arms up that suggested that whatever the woman said/did to the kid reached her that got to me, probably on a personal level that I need to explore with my therapist. And like I said, I don't know what kind of toddler hell that woman had been through prior to that moment.

Being able to step away is super key. Best if you can say, "Hey grandma, take Molly here over to look at something on the other side of the store while I take a few nips from my hip flask and do some deep breathing exercises" but what's best and what we can manage are rarely identical.

Fun fact: the three main points emphasized in all of the new baby pamphlets the hospital gave us were: 1) you can't spoil a baby, so it's cool to pick her up if she cries; 2) back to sleep! and; and 3) don't shake the baby but if you think you want to shake the baby, just put the baby down in her crib and close the door and take a break.

I'm probably feeling more sympathetic because Evie was being really difficult all weekend and we had a battle over ???? that took over most of Sunday afternoon and it sucked.

I'm sorry. That does suck.

More judging:

This woman just rolled her double wide stroller into the coffee shop where I'm working and it contained THE CUTEST TWIN BABIES I HAVE SEEN.*

*since I looked at DJP's pictures of D&J.

this whole time I thought you meant you were a BARRISTER

lol

timely: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/aug/08/mother-shakes-child-in-public-do-you-step-in

Anyone have any thoughts on those who give their 3 yr old daughters the full Disney princess treatment?

I don't know if I've ever met one of these full-fledged Disney princess kids. They must be out there. I've met enough adult Disney fan weirdos to extrapolate their existence.

My daughter's very big into Frozen and mildly into other the other princesses. I don't even know how this stuff happens. But what do you mean by the full Disney princess treatment?

Buying them a castle.

i know several daughters who full-on decided themselves that they wanted the full disney princess treatment. the moms and dads in each case (especially one of them) are basically the complete opposite of 'disney parents'

it's a difficult situation when your kid wants to explore and pursue something that you may be uncomfortable with. i'm not there yet since my kid is still not even 2 but i imagine it's hard

that said though i imagine there are plenty of parents who encourage that shit

When she was little I more actively pushed back against the princess stuff, but it's basically impossible to avoid if your kid is around other kids. I don't want to shut down stuff that makes her happy but if she wants to play princesses with me, I try to subvert it by insisting that I get to be a princess too if I want (instead of a prince), or bringing in other toys like dinosaurs or cowboys.

I don't think this is really what omar little was talking about originally but it's something I think about a lot.

carl's I'M DONE WITH YOU mom reminded me of a weird thing Mr Veg & I witness in Target recently

We were standing in line for returns, and a Young Angry Mom behind is saying in a very loud frazzled voice "NO. NO. YOU GET BACK HERE RIGHT NOW. NO. YOU ARE WAY TOO OLD TO BE PULLING THIS STUFF. GET RIGHT BACK HERE RIGHT NOW. I'M WARNING YOU."

From the the tone of voice I was guessing the kid must have been 4 or 5.

But I turn around and all I see is a tiny little toddler that's barely walking, standing there in a diaper and a tshirt the middle of the aisle, just staring up at her Mom like "?"

We laughed about it when we left but I did feel super bummed for her exhausted mom who's having long angry one-way conversations with a tiny little human in the middle of Target.

I mean, I'm imagining it's not solely about playing dress-up. My daughter doesn't play dress-up too much, although she has a couple cheap plastic tiaras and a growing collection of fairy/butterfly/bumblebee wings that she'll throw on once in a while. When my son was her age though, he wore superhero outfits every chance he could (when not at daycare, basically). He had several and would change them repeatedly throughout the day.

During our pregnancy, we intended on raising our daughter as a rugged tomboy. No pinks! No purples! No princesses. But even very early on, we felt like we noticed her displaying and being attracted to what we thought of as stereotypically feminine behaviors and traits. But we keep it balanced, to be sure.

xp:

Heh. I was yelling at my son in the grocery store over the weekend. But it was a lighthearted kind of yelling. He was acting like an insufferable smartass (an unfortunate aspect of his current developmental stage or whatever) and I was joshing him about being ready to smack him or how he was cruisin' for a bruisin' or whatever. I have never hit or even spanked either of my kids and he totally played back with the joke. Then we go over one aisle and we run into one of the librarians from his school. I don't know if she heard us or was paying attention, but I reallllllly hope she didn't get the wrong idea.

But what do you mean by the full Disney princess treatment?

i'm talking about like a dozen princess dresses worn all day in and out of the house, princess bday party with cinderella in attendance, frozen and cinderella in constant rotation, disney trips all the time, and so on. i realize it might actually be pretty common and some of those things probably aren't too bad and perhaps some people might think it's okay, it just seems a bit overboard to me.

One of our relatives works at Disney and is suuuuuuuper into it and got Ivy a little Disney Princess dress and bloomers that said "DISNEY PRINCESS" on it and involved tulle and sparkles. It was a summer outfit and Ivy outgrew it before the weather cooperated but I'm not sure if I would have put it on her anyway. I'm cool with pink stuff and things that read as "girlie" because those kinds of things comprise only part of Ivy's wardrobe* and her room, toys, books, and other baby accessories are pretty much universally gender neutral, plus when she starts having opinions, I want her to know that being a girlie princess is a viable option. Like, it's not bad because it's girlie and princessy. It's bad because some people insist that is the only option available to girls.

Howeverrrrrr I have issues with Disney as a media company in general with the gender essentialism and racism &c so for that reason, if Ivy shows tendencies towards princessness, I will probably try to steer it towards generic princess and not Disney Brand Princess (tm). I only have so much energy, though, and I would prioritize deprogramming her from a bazillion other bullshit messages she's going to get as a female** over a love of Disney-specific princess stuff, plus I am totally going to take her to Disneyland when she's tall enough to ride all the good rides so who knows.

*plus a lot of Ivy's clothes come from my mom, who definitely digs the girlie pink look.
**Every day on the bus: "What a pretty little girl! Smile! Smile for me! Can you smile?" and I really want to snap "My child is not a performing monkey and she doesn't have to smile if she doesn't want to!" and just generally liking it when people say positive things about my daughter. I am not cool when strangers touch her but I'm not sure what to say about that.

the only people who will randomly touch my kid are middle-aged ladies who like to pat him on the head. my kid on the other hand likes to walk up to other people, put his hand on their knee, then run away. on occasion, he likes to pat women on the leg or slightly higher when we walk past them. : /

"What a pretty little girl!"

I try to smooth this stuff out by referring to her as "kid" as much as possible, for example "Oh, you are my sweetest little kid!" In sorta the same tone as the "pretty little girl" comments. But then sometimes I know she'll want to be complemented on her looks, like if she put effort into combing her hair or picking out an outfit or something. I think about this stuff a lot.

punctuation went out the window in that paragraph. sheesh.

Oh, and I didn't even finish my thought either. Need a nap.

But then sometimes I know she'll want to be complemented on her looks, like if she put effort into combing her hair or picking out an outfit or something.

So I'll give her more girly girl complements. She has a special way of saying "girl" - sounds kinda like "girl-ah" - which she delivers with a little bit of sass. I'll throw that back at her to let her know that I think she's as pretty as she wants to be.

When Ivy's keyed up, she definitely likes to reach out and touch people on the bus. More often, she'll just stare. Like, intense, minutes long eye contact that has prompted more than one person to remark with some discomfort, "She's staring into my soul."

We ride the bus with one of her daycare classmates who just turned 1 and he is a hilarious and adorable ball of energy who spends the entire ride climbing all over his amazingly patient mother and grabbing people or people's bags. He and Ivy actually held hands for a about 15 seconds the other day (and then he got excited and yanked her arm) and it was cute as fuck.

My favorite interaction was when we sat down next to a rough customer looking at his phone. He looked up at Ivy, who was staring at him like she was trying to read his thoughts, nodded and said, "Hey little man," then went back to his phone. I liked that he was basically acknowledging her humanity without making a big deal out of it, plus I just really like it when people call babies "little man."

my daughter went through a princess phase around the ages of 3-4. It never got that out of hand imo - she got a couple princess outfits that she would dress up in for parties or special occasions, she would draw lots of princesses etc. We took her to Disneyland and she was v excited to meet Cinderella. She seems to have mostly grown out of it by this point (and moved on to superheroes - if she dresses up these days it's usually wonder woman although she still has loads of other dress-up clothes of various types). We did nothing to really encourage the Disney stuff, iirc one day she saw some coloring books at a friend's house and it was like "yup! that's for ME!" and then I humored her by sitting through a few Tinkerbell movies and whatnot but it didn't really bug me or my wife.

xp

I just really like it when people call babies "little man."

lol this is what I call any male child under the age of 16 tbh

one time i was sitting outside with my kid at a cafe when he was maybe a year old and he was just staring at this woman opposite us and she looked at him and looked at me and said, "the combination of you two is making my hormones act up."

anyway i have zero issue with princess stuff, i think it seemed like princess boot camp though, they really want her to know how special she is. i mean, like every parent does, but i mean they want her to know how REALLY special she is. there's a bit of a difference.

Like, intense, minutes long eye contact that has prompted more than one person to remark with some discomfort, "She's staring into my soul."

:D

i'm talking about like a dozen princess dresses worn all day in and out of the house, princess bday party with cinderella in attendance, frozen and cinderella in constant rotation, disney trips all the time, and so on.

I might get a little judgey about this but it's hard to say who's to blame - the parents for indulging the child, the corporation for instilling the desire in the child in the first place, or the child for being obsessive (probably plenty of blame to go around tbh). There is a line where this behavior gets kind of creepy, like jesus christ isn't there anything else you can encourage your child to be interested in.

I feel similarly about kids and sports, and especially specific sports team allegiance, and especially when the allegiance is handed down from an equally obsessed parent.

Well you live in Cubsland, of course you should be ashamed of those people. #GOCARDS

especially when the allegiance is handed down from an equally obsessed parent.

lol no danger of this from me, most of the time I feel like the only adult male in existence who loathes professional sports. at most they'll get it from my dad, who's a Giants fan. Which is fine, he comes up to visit, we go to a ballgame, no big deal.

^pointedly sat in the next room while my entire birthday party watched the US tie Portugal.

hey I wanted to talk to Justin!

Lady on eastbound trans-Atlantic flight with three well-behaved kids who spent entire flight with eyes glued to in-flight entertainment and made no attempt whatsoever to get her children to stop watching dumb videos all night and maybe sleep for a second: I judge you, but given the triple-exhaustion-meltdown I saw brewing as you were trying to leave the plane to make your connecting flight, you will be paying for that mistake for the next few days.

that may have been my wife!

ime (with kids) there's no more price to be paid for that than for usual eastbound jet lag

Maybe after staying one place watching dumb videos for one flight, they'll be fast asleep for the entirety of the second flight.

She was speaking Hebrew, and VIE is really popular for flights to Tel Aviv -- if that's where they're headed, the second flight will be about 6 hours. So the Motion for Reconsideration of Judgement is granted. Sorry, anonymous parent!

Sunny took our 2-year-old daughter to Australia a few years ago and reported getting more stink-eyes than ever.

The 2-year-old is now five, and we're all going back down there in December - this time with her five-year-old brother.

This is a safe place, 3WU, thread title says it all, so I'm not judging your judging. But if they sit still and watch dumb videos for 15 hours, I'll take all the stink-eyes I can get.

2-year-old is seven.

not gud with math

kids were well-behaved, as I said, so I didn't give the mother the stinkeye -- but the new "improved" VIE is a confusing nightmare and not nice to make connections at any more, and based on the plane-exiting drama, I was picturing her having to drag three confused kid corpses to the next gate, which I wouldn't wanna do to myself or my kid (they looked 3, 5, and 7 to me).

corpses would be easier to drag, tbh.

nah wasn't us, it was start of June & not to Vienna. but o/w sounds familiar!

I flew ahead of the fam & behind me was a woman flying with four+ kids and they were all awake all night, left the overhead lights on too, but I dunno, it's hard to get too mad since those flights are so horrid under the best of conditions. & she had a fascinating north carolina / irish mixed accent.

Here's where I judge my own parenting:

I realized a couple of months ago that my children DON'T KNOW HOW TO CROSS A STREET. They're 10 and 13. WTF.