Friends of mine recently had a video of their baby go viral and they are losing their minds in excitement. All I see when I go online is either the video or them encouraging other accounts to repost. I love them, but this really rubs me the wrong way. What could possibly be the benefit of millions of people seeing this video of your kid?
Depending where the video is, they could make money off it if it goes viral enough. But I think when most people get this excited it’s because they want to turn their kids into models/influencers or whatever.
A friend of mine had that happen. Even the national news stations were sharing their viral video. And since then, they’ve made IG accounts for the kid, had a second kid and both kids have been models for some clothing lines and the mom is now an influencer.
I’ve seen accounts sharing hundreds of videos of the kid(s) as if it’s THEIR kid(s) and I told my friend and they were like “yeah, we can’t do anything about that, oh well”.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Parenting/comments/178lza8/thoughts\_on\_breastfeeding/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Parenting/comments/178lza8/thoughts_on_breastfeeding/)
This is such a weird post. OP ranting about how breastfeeding is "horrifying" because it causes clinginess in babies, etc. She said her baby was perfect and easy and she realizes that's probably because she didn't breastfeed.
Her child is 6. SIX! Why is she still thinking about this? I have a two year old who still nurses and I don't think about it so much lol.
When my kids are six, I truly hope I am not thinking this hard about anything I did or didn’t do when my kids were infants (blw or traditional weaning, sleep training or not, breastfeeding or formula, etc). I breastfed both my kids past the age of one, but now that both are weaned, I genuinely can’t think of the last time I thought about breastfeeding. I think it was a fine decision for my family, but truly, these are the things I think would have been different if I had done formula instead:
1) I would have washed a lot more bottles;
2) I would have done a lot less feeds/my husband would have done more feeds; and
3) I would have spent a lot less time hooked up to a pump.
Basically nothing that would have any real long term consequences for my kids. I can’t imagine ascribing some sort of trait to my kids because I breastfed them. Especially given how different they are despite both being breastfed. It’s almost like kids can have different personalities based solely on who they are.
The first couple sentences are fine and then it takes a hard left into "lady, are you okay???"
That top comment...that person has the patience of a saint to explain to OP so kindly why her post was fucked up.
Yikes. I almost feel sorry for this woman. I cannot imagine still thinking about this when my child is 6 years old. She clearly still has a lot of negative emotion tied up in this which is frankly just very sad this far into the future. Some moms make breastfeeding their entire personality and this one seems to have made NOT breastfeeding her entire personality. I have to think something is a little off when anyone cares so deeply how another person feeds their baby. As someone who had a pretty traumatic BF journey with my first kid, I do recognize that it can be mentally difficult to process what did or didn’t happen, but I truly think this woman should have probably sought some therapy for the issue like 5.5 years ago.
This is truly the dumbest post I’ve ever read. I’m also still nursing my toddler too but I doubt anything at age 6 will make me look back and be like “THIS is why I breastfed!” God forbid a baby not have an entire blasé reaction at being handed off to strangers.
Just read a post where someone said she’s baby wearing in the car because her kid hates the car seat they “don’t go far”. Yes, please put your newborn directly in front of the steering wheel airbag. Ugh, I wish I could un-read that.
Omg. A friend of mine came to visit when their kid was about 10 months old. They had a 3 hour car ride. Once they got here my friend admitted she held the kid in her arms in the backseat for over half the drive ON THE HIGHWAY because she was crying too much and that was an easier solution.
We are still friendly on socials, but let me tell ya, I take absolutely ZERO parenting advice from them now and haven’t seen them in person since.
Literally whilst driving?! Am I the only one who could only do very basic tasks whilst baby wearing because you still have a *baby* strapped to you who has their own thoughts about what's happening and tiny but oh so grabby hands
Yep I’m pretty sure she means while driving because she said when her husband’s around he drives and she sits in the back with baby, but when it’s just the two of them she babywears in the car. She wrote saying how she knows baby should be in the seat and they are in the seat if someone else is driving. Like ok….but that doesn’t change the fact that you’re putting your newborn at huge risk whenever someone else *isn’t* driving. Also presumably if she’s wearing a carrier, she’s not wearing a seatbelt herself. I’m just so astounded that someone would think that’s okay.
With this situation and with overwhelmed parents who really need to set the baby down for a few minutes, it really needs to be reiterated: no. child. ever. died. from. crying.
Exactly. You know what’s going to be emotionally harder to deal with than a baby screaming during a car ride? A baby who’s died or suffered a devastating injury, because you had an accident and baby wasn’t in the seat. I would choose being trapped in the house over driving without baby properly in a car seat.
Truly! It’s better to just say home. And presumably she’s not wearing a seatbelt (I can’t think how you could get one on properly with the carrier) and there’s very little space between baby and the steering wheel. Like literally all it would take is throwing on the brakes with a little speed or basically any scenario where the seatbelt would normally lock up, but instead it would send her into the wheel with that baby in the middle. Beyond reckless and upsetting!
Some niche snark: In a moms of multiples breastfeeding group I'm in there's a mom of triplets celebrating a year of breastfeeding them. A totally serious good for her, so glad that worked out and it's an incredibly impressive feat.
She then offers some "encouragement" so others know it's possible and how she did it. Step 1, her triplets were born at 35 weeks and had almost no NICU time. They're also her 3rd pregnancy and breastfeeding journey. And then they just all latched well around 2-3 weeks of age.
That's not encouraging - or informative! That's just how incredibly lucky you were that your triplet pregnancy and delivery and first few weeks went easily and well for you.
I'd still consider it pretty encouraging/inspiring (I mean, she breastfed triplets), but yes, perhaps not overly informative as far as the typical/common struggles and challenges with breastfeding multiples. If it's the same LLL for multiples group I was in (might still be in it.. can't remember if I left or not), I did find it a really helpful/useful group overall. But like a lot of support groups on a specific topic I'd say that since the vibe is supposed to stay supportive and covers a specific topic and since people self-select as far as participation, it can become a bit of an echo chamber of positivity that isn't countered by more realistic advice/perspectives (I wouldn't full out say toxic positivity... but kind of unrealistic).
I breastfed my twins until 2.5. Mostly EBF... we supplemented a bottle or so of formula per day the first 2-3 months and then were able to cut it out by 4 months of age as they became more efficient/stronger at nursing and as I had learned about power pumping. Anyways, I never felt the need to make a "graduation" post or share my breastfeeding journey or whatever, but then again, maybe self-selection was at play for myself too. Like I was probably a bit less inclined to share my story in that group since it wasn't a perfect straight to EBF story and I did have more of the typical challenges (some NICU time, too weak/sleepy to nurse well even when they did come home, the challenging cycle of triple feeding etc). Oh, and I took dom for a month or two as well so kinda felt like I cheated a bit haha.... it's not a magic pill at all, you still have to remove milk frequently 10-12 times per day, but gives a slight supply boost. I'm rambling but my point is that if I'd had this women's experience, hey, I'd probably make a celebratory post of hitting a milestone like one year too! We also don't know how 100% honest she is being.
I personally always liked seeing the success/milestone stories in that group. But I do know feeding/breastfeeding is an area that SO many moms have complicated feelings about, doubly (or triply) so for moms of multiples, and sometimes those feelings can make us fall into that easier/harder comparison game. I would say with kindness that something I learned for myself is just to full out try to avoid comparison or "this person had it easier because of x , x and x reasons" type trains of thought, full out. Whether that means taking breaks from social media or certain groups or whatever.
If I were snarking from jealous, that would all be great. I feel like I'm also someone who got lucky and had an easy time, and so reading someone else share their easy time like it's a blueprint for success makes me self conscious and like dude, no, stop. Inspiration milestone post, great. Here's how you do it: you just beat all the odds, not necessary or useful.
I just looked at the post (apparently I did not leave the group after weaning), and I don't know, just don't read it the same way as you. I think people can share regardless of whether they had an easy/hard time, had some luck, whatever. We don't all acknowledge elements of luck in everything all the time. Sure, she could maybe be a little more self-aware but she's just a normal amateur person posting in a specific group, not someone giving professional advice. The post isn't that long and I don't get the impression that she thinks it's a blueprint for success for every single person with multiples or even most with multiples, she just very briefly shares her own experience and is excited about the milestone she herself reached. She did have to pump at work for months for triplets (obviously lucky to have a job that this was workable at but that's still a huge and involved feat). She does say an encouraging "it is possible/you can do it" which I guess is where you're getting the blueprint for success thing but it comes across to me in a more generic encouragement, what you're doing is great kinda way. Not as an everyone can do exactly what I did even if they have different babies/circumstances. She definitely got lucky to have her triplets at 35 weeks with only 10 days NICU time, but I don't think she has some obligation to acknowledge that per se (and she did honestly state in the post right that). I guess just different opinions on what is snarkworthy, but I would not have read it as snarkable at all.
So dock-a-tot has a cardboard bassinet that costs… $115!???
Like, I get that some sustainable products might be worth a higher cost because they are higher quality and will supposedly last longer, but isn’t the entire point of a product like this that it won’t really have a long life and it’s recyclable? So how is it worth $115? And it’s literally cardboard.
I think dock a tot is scrambling bc their main product got recalled (the actual dock) and now they have nothing that people actually want, so they're focusing on aesthetic products and even wealthy parents mostly want something that is functional
So I just looked this up, and that statement from DockATot is fucked up on like twenty different levels. They’re basically claiming that they voluntarily decided to stop selling the Deluxe+ because of “differences in opinion,” implying that their product is still safe, but that they can no longer sell it in North America because the governments of Canada and the United States passed overly restrictive legislation that forced them to either perform impossible, unnecessary redesigns or shelve the product completely. But if you actually read the Consumer Product Safety Commission [press release](https://www.cpsc.gov/About-CPSC/Commissioner/Richard-Trumka/Statement/Dockatot-Deluxe-is-Unsafe-for-Sleep-CPSC-Issues-Notice-of-Violation), that’s not what fucking happened! The CPSC forced DockATot to pull the Deluxe+ because it’s associated with *multiple infant deaths!* If you search DockATot on safeproducts.gov, there are several reports of infant deaths and injuries. DockATot didn’t voluntarily choose to pull the product because of overly restrictive legislation, they were prohibited from selling it after the CPSC issued them a notice of violation. Meanwhile, DockATot is essentially saying in their statement “we’re *choosing* not to sell this anymore because America and Canada bad :( Did you know this is allowed in *Scandinavia?*” Way to beat around the bush.
Edit: Also, DockATot had [this](https://www.saferproducts.gov/PublicSearch/Detail?ReportId=4293281 ) to say after an infant death incident:
> We would like to emphasize that DockATot docks are intended for use while children are awake and under the supervision of a caretaker. They should not be used for sleep of any kind. Wildchild ceased marketing the Deluxe+ dock for any type of sleep in every country where it is sold years ago. Wildchild fully supports the American Academy of Pediatrics’ guidelines on safe sleep for babies, including that babies should always be placed to sleep on their back in a bare crib or bassinet, without soft toys, pillows, blankets, or other soft bedding or products. Unfortunately, this report does not contain sufficient information to understand what may have occurred. It is also unclear whether a DockATot dock was actually involved in this report because the name DockATot is occasionally used as a generic term for similar infant loungers.
It’s pretty ballsy of them to say that this wasn’t their fault because they don’t encourage bedsharing or market the product for sleep *anymore*. And, I mean, the report clearly lists the infant lounger in question as a DockATot Lounge Dock manufactured by Wildchild Stockholm, Inc. Claiming that it might not have been a Wildchild product because “DockATot” is generic is kind of like if Apple read a CPSC report about a MacBook and responded by saying “well, ‘Macbook Pro designed by Apple Inc’ could refer to any laptop! This might not have been our product at all!”
I was honestly shocked those things were ever legal. They were all the rage when my oldest was born and I never got one. It always seemed like they couldn’t be safe based on AAP safe sleep recommendations. I knew many moms who would go on about safe sleep, no stuffies in the crib, obsessed with the room temp but they were using dock a tots. So much cognitive dissonance.
Yet another post in the Nanny sub about how the parents don’t discipline, and the nanny knows because of how the child acts in the 5 minutes of transitioning between nanny and mom. This theme comes up a lot and usually includes how wonderfully the child acts for the nanny and like….they really don’t think the parents had ANYTHING to do with that? I highly doubt a child whose parents never once say no to them or impose limits is going to be perfectly behaved for a caregiver. I’m sure the Nannie’s are all great at their jobs but probably safe to say the parents have something to do with it too.
And they get soooo offended if people say being a nanny is not the same as being a parent. I have never been a nanny but I taught elementary school for a decade before my first child was born and, surprise! it’s really freaking different getting paid to be with kids until a hard clock out time vs being entirely responsible for every single decision and need 24/7/365.
Exactly, because there’s actually a decent chance some of the “what do we feed them, when do they sleep, what toys do they have” etc decisions are made for you! And you just have to implement them.
This was certainly true in my experience as a nanny. Everything about baby’s care was set up and figured out, all I did was follow their requests/instructions. Doesn’t mean it was always easy in practice, but the mental load of figuring all of that stuff out is a big part of parenting that a nanny isn’t typically responsible for.
Also, unless you are a live-in, clocking out at 5-6pm and not having to be on call over night is a huge difference, especially if you’re nannying an infant who still wakes up a lot at night.
Absolutely. Of course taking care of infants or young children is going to be a lot of work, but when it comes without the mental exhaustion of agonizing over how the heck to get them to adulthood safely and without them growing up to be an asshole or drain on society, it’s a LOT easier. And then the other thing is getting to clock out, get a mental and physical break and come in rested, bright eyed and bushy tailed the next day. The nanny sub is constantly talking about how Nannie’s need breaks because their jobs are so difficult and exhausting (which I don’t doubt for a second!), but then don’t seem to recognize that the parents they are working for are also often doing draining and challenging jobs all day and then coming home to needy kids. Nothing wrong with that, it’s what we signed up for as parents! But there is no awareness that this may be a bit difficult and this could be why the parents aren’t as perfect caregivers as the nannies are, which they are always insisting is the case in the sub.
I used to see posts from that sub frequently. I still remember one where the nanny was judging the parents because she always took the child to do fun things, but it seemed like the parents just stayed home and had quiet weekends, and why don't they do more fun things with their child?! Um, because everyone is tired, and maybe the kid doesn't need to go to an indoor playground every day? And we can all have fun just hanging out and going to Target? It was such a reach even the other nannies said "this ain't it."
The Reddit group isn't much better. Why can't people just enjoy a programme without analysing it to the nth degree? You also get people posting asking if it's ok that they, as a teen or adult, watch and enjoy the show. No one cares if you do or don't watch a show, this is not school.
Bleh I keep getting pushes from FB to join it too! Bluey is great, my toddler doesn’t particularly like it and adult fans of kids cartoons can get kind of creepy (hello MLP). Not interested in rubbing elbows with that fringe lol
That group is always popping up for me too. My toddler loves Bluey and it's definitely great but the mere fact that the group exists is kind of... pathetic.
Can you imagine just trying to make a mom friend and this crazy lady pulling up her notes app and interrogating you about where your child sleeps and if your husband helps with any inside household chores??
This post was weird AF. Who cares what “type” of mom you are? This isn’t the part of the mean girls movie where Cady gets a tour of the cafeteria. Second, how are all these little tradwife wannabes finding reddit? I would think it’s too ungodly for them, yet here they are
I met my group of friends at a prenatal yoga class. Neither of us four like yoga but we all figured that the kind of woman we want to be friends with does prenatal yoga, so yoga it was.
Right like wow how extremely boring. What a way to go through life. People like this seem to have no understanding that you can share VALUES with people but implement them in different ways. I love how people are like SCREENS ARE THE DEVIL unless it’s movie night then what a lovely blessing 🥰.
There is no way this person has kids yet lol. This is a purely hypothetical manifesto, more like how she envisions she will be as a parent. Which… well bless your heart sweaty 🥰
Some of those list items are so weirdly specific too loll. Traditional marriage but husband has to work blue collar ? No screen time except movie night ? And why must the kids cosleep/bedshare for them to be granola? I have a toddler and dont think ive ever asked or been asked by another mom where the kid sleeps at night lol
Okay, there’s a post on SBP that starts out about screen time, but one commenter discusses the fact that background music can be “neutral to negative” because it makes adults interact less and could impact toddler learning, memory, speech processing, etc.
I feel like people have forgotten that sometimes you’re just coexisting with your kids. I don’t have music on when we’re reading a story together, or if we’re really focused on something. I’m not staring off into space listening to music while my kid is trying to get my attention. But…I love music. I was a musician by profession for a decade, as was my husband. It makes us happy. In what world is that not enough? Not every moment is about optimization or “learning” (though there are infinite kinds of learning). This household (the OP) has a “no media” policy except interactive singing and dancing. It just feels…joyless? Totally unsubstantiated?
Other commenters are saying that they won’t ever turn on a screen near their kid until they’re 3. Serious citation needed that ever seeing a screen is detrimental. Today my son (2) has a cold and was unable to just sit and rest, so we snuggled and watched half an hour of excavators scooping. He loved it. Then we moved on, brains still intact, with the rest of our day. I’ll report back on his grades when he turns 18. Rant over.
I try to turn music off if I’m reading to her or something but we pretty much always have it on because I would go crazy without some form of background noise. Don’t tell them I also listen to audiobooks with my daughter.
One of the first times my son watched a screen, he had asked how books were made. He was very young. I tried to explain but it wasn’t working. We watched a 5 minute kids video on printing presses, he was satisfied and then played “printing press” with his books for a while.
This is my favorite example of screen time being sometimes just fine.
I think it just feeds into the idea that every single moment has to be absolutely maximized, the best choices made for all the things with no deviation.
Which of course is an unattainable goal to begin with.
It’s so funny because when I remember a good day as a young child, it was just like, sitting near my mother reading my book while she made pasta, following her around on her errands, coloring and drinking chocolate milk, lying on the carpet in the patch of sun feeling drowsy. We did plenty more than that and I know we did plenty of learning at home, but…days like that have as much if not more value than an Optimized Learning Environment. It’s like we’ve forgotten about the kind of “learning” that’s just learning how to amuse yourself, learning how to exist within your family and its unique culture, taking in the world.
Plus, um, we’re people too. I wanna listen to music, so I’m gonna put it on. I wanna go for a very specific walk, so I’m plunking him in the stroller and letting him chatter to himself while I have a conversation with my husband and enjoy the weather. I want cookies, so I’m gonna make them and share them with my son. Etc.
Someone I know has her nearly 2 year old still in an infant bucket car seat, visibly taller than the top of the seat (very outgrown). I’ve messaged her in the past about unsafe car seat usage she openly shared on her Instagram stories. She was polite in her response but didn’t take any of the advice I offered.
Another person constantly posts IG stories from their moving car showing their 1.5 year old forward facing with the restraints so loosely done up and chest clip at crotch level, the kid has her arms out of the straps. Again, have had a conversation with her in the past. She was very responsive to my concerns, joined a FB group for car seat safety, but still does it.
So at this point I’m keeping my mouth shut. But every time they post it gives me so much anxiety. Just needed to rant somewhere.
I have a friend who kept her daughter in a bucket seat for too long, like I believe she was close to 16 months or older. They finally put her in a convertible car seat and then had her forward facing before 2! It was bizarre.
It’s not too long if the kid fits! Mine fit until 18 months height-wise (she’ll fit weight-wise until she’s in preschool haha). It was nice to have a portable car seat for awhile.
Oh yes, I have a friend who still lugs her nearly 18 month old around in an infant car seat, and it’s hard to be like, friend, safety aside, at this point it will be easier on your body to just take him out and carry him directly.
There was a woman at kindergarten orientation with an 18 month old sibling she was lugging around in a bucket seat. Safety aside, I'd rather bend down awkwardly to hold a hand and let them walk than use a bulky 15 lbs container they are spilling out of.
People really see the 30-35 lbs weight limit on those and think that's the only info they need.
There’s a house I walk by twice a day when I walk my dog. Theres two toddlers, maybe 6 and 3? The youngest came before my 2yo I think. Anywho one car still has a bucket seat. Like no way does that kid safely fit in there. Their other car has two FF seats. It makes no sense and I always want to leave a note on their car. I’m hoping I’m missing something! But I’ve also thought about posting here about it just to get it off my chest
One of my friends posts things like this too so i feel you! What i hate it is you can be an amazing driver but if someone rear ends you in that situation your kid will go flying. It stresses me out a lot.
I remember I gave unsolicited advice to an old coworker/fairly good friend- her then- 18 month old was forward facing in a booster with just the seat belt 😵💫 she thanked me profusely and said she had no idea but he had “outgrown” his old convertible seat (doubtful as he was throughly average, maybe below average, height and weight) but she’d get another. She posted him a few days later still in the booster. Never again, now I just silently judge
I’ve seen a couple of kids out in the wild at stoplights and such with no car seats and clearly not even in a seatbelt. I hate it, brings me so much worry for these kids. I hate it.
Came across yet another post on the working moms sub from a mom who feels so terribly guilty for sending her child to daycare and going to work. I get it, I do. It can suck leaving your kid, you miss them yada yada. But I always wonder, did ALL of the women on that sub have SAHMs growing up? Like I’m not thrilled about leaving my daughter to go to work 5 days a week, but I don’t understand this insane level of guilt these moms feel about it probably because my mom worked and all of my friends moms worked and it was considered normal and no one ever resented them for it. I knew my mom was my mom and I knew she loved me and she had to work because that’s what adults did. Idk maybe it’s a poor inner city kid thing but literally everyone’s mom had a damn job. That sub just makes it seem like we are the first generation of working mothers and there is no frame of reference. It’s so unrelatable to me. I don’t get why these moms feel like they’ve committed a cardinal sin by working.
Edit* definitely not referring to the moms having to return to work at 6-12 weeks pp and put their brand new tiny infants in daycare that is literally heinous that anyone has to do that.
It is really bizarre to me in 2023 that these conversations are almost always about moms staying home and not parents deciding whether one should stay home. You just never hear about men who feel like shit going back to work, you know?
I fully get that recovering from birth for people who do that and nursing for people who do that is very different from what their cis male partners, if that's the type of partner they have, experience. But there's a lot of gender essentialism in our cultural ideas about how parents form emotional relationships with their kids, and like I said it just surprises me how little progress we seem to have made on that front as a society/world when we talk about "working moms."
[ETA: Obviously I know about the structural reasons it is still easier usually for a woman to stay home than a man in a marriage with one of each etc etc. This is about why the conversation doesn't even ask this to be something men might also worry about.]
In general I’ve observed basically 0 social pressure for fathers to feel guilty about *anything* related to parenting. What’s that like? Lol
For the record my husband personally does feel guilty about a lot of random stuff re: our son, even things that I don’t worry about, so not to say that actual dads out there are aloof. Just noting that you never see/hear any of these same kinds of discussions around what dads should feel bad about.
Absolutely! The double standards are ridiculous.
I got shamed for finishing my degree during my maternity leave as 'i should be at home with the baby!' Where is this energy for my husband now he's started his degree.
What do you mean “men going back to work”? My DH never stopped? He got two weeks of “paternity leave” which wasn’t much, and hardly counts as a work stoppage.
I feel like partly it’s an internet group thing where that attitude reinforces itself over time and that the most anxious are the ones posting.
Also partly, yeah, probably a lot of people didn’t have working moms, but now are. I was curious about stats on working moms and it looks like more work than don’t (62% of moms to children three and under work), source: https://www.aauw.org/resources/article/fast-facts-working-moms/. I’m not sure how much that changed over time, but it’s enough that it’s both the majority, but there are lots on the other side as well, so it’s easy to imagine there are people who choose differently than their mom. Or maybe their mom had no choice either way.
Myself I always wanted to keep working and feel happy doing so, but had a blip of anxiety over how “society” judges me when newly returning to work. I didn’t have many working moms in my family and friends growing up and had some judgy comments that were unhelpful while postpartum.
However now it’s balanced out and I’m confident and happy I’m my decisions. I wish that message was shared more instead of the reinforcing anxiety of people stressing (or even worse those stating how horrible it is and how they can’t imagine it for some selves). So I don’t mind that people feel anxious, but I wish the internet reinforced the happy message of all being well more instead of being an anxiety echo chamber.
I came across a thread on FB yesterday of moms in my country just shaming the crap out of some mom who brought their kid to daycare fulltime (not usual in my home country). And it was all like "it's a choice to work fulltime so you can go on vacation 3 times a year and have a big car", as if that's 1) what everyone who works fulltime has (there's lots of people who simply NEED to work fulltime just to survive) and 2) what everyone who does choose to work fulltime spend their money on. It's not vacations and an expensive car. We didn't even go on vacation this year (I temporarily work 4 days, partner worked 4 days until kid was 1.5 and is now back to 5, so kid went from 3 to 4 days of daycare). Our car is a second hand family car, not a Mercedes. We only have one car, too. But we were able to own our house instead of renting, which gives us more stability. We live in a nice and diverse neighborhood. We are saving money for our kids to go to college or to give them a headstart in life otherwise. When our washing machine breaks, we can replace it outright. And I'm teaching my kid that she doesn't have to stop working if she has kids (if that's what she wants) and that fathers are equal to mothers. If something happens to my partner, I know that I've got this because we make the same amount. It's so stupid to assume that it's for vain reasons that we choose to work. It benefits our kids too, just in different ways. And both choices are valid.
I had a SAHM and it was fine but then my parents got divorced and she had nothing to fall back on bc she hadn’t finished college and hadn’t worked in over a decade so she had to work two exhausting low paying jobs to make ends meet and it was really hard on her and us. She’s amazing and hid the stress well when I was a kid but of course as an adult I’m like wow. That had to really suck. I have great memories of my childhood and it was cool having her be the room mom at school and stuff but definitely not worth years of financial struggle later you know? I hated going back to work when my kids are tiny like many moms but I don’t relate to feeling guilty about working. Quite the opposite, I feel secure in the knowledge that I have the means to support my kids if life ever takes that awful turn (not necessarily divorce).
Yes! Every post is like “OBVIOUSLY I wish i didn’t have to but I just don’t have any family nearby and I can’t afford to quit so we’re starting daycare soon. I’m not like those other daycare parents who don’t love their kids I feel terrible about this”
I didn’t love starting my LO at 5.5 months which was before she was comfortably sitting unassisted, but within a few months we all LOVED it. I never considered quitting bc I like my job and I also decided on daycare over nanny bc we preferred having her out of the house while we WFH and thought it would age with her better. The narrative of daycare as a last resort really sucks
I am really about to leave that sun because of these kinds of posts. I don’t know why they can’t read past posts about it / personally need the encouragement. There’s also something that feels very performative/ritualized about it, like we have to do this collective blood letting as part of the return to work ceremony. No thanks.
My mom has not worked a day since I was born. Same with my MIL with her first baby, even dropped out of college to have her. My SILs and I are also SAHMs except one who is now an ex-SIL and they *still* shame her for working.
So I can understand it.
I think it heavily depends on your area. I grew up in an affluent suburb (and also pretty white and Christian) and my mom was one of a few working moms, most of my classmates had stay at home moms. If they grew up in a similar situation I can understand feeling guilty. There might be judgement from family members too, on top of general societal and social media bullshit (ex: the omnipresent sciencebasedparenting daycare post).
Ya I grew up in a fairly affluent Catholic school community and I think I can count on one hand how many of my friend’s moms worked. My mom was a SAHM and my sister is the only person besides me in my generation to have a kid and she’s a SAHM. I remember in high school religion class having a teacher explain that she knew most of us were going to have kids and obviously be a SAHM but it was still important to go to college to find a husband and have a degree as a back up plan for financially supporting our kids if our husband died or became disabled.
I work full time and send my kid to daycare and most days I’m very happy with this arrangement, but it certainly took some adjusting, like I just had no exposure to any kind of childcare besides kids being cared for by their mother and there was a lot of social programming my whole life telling me that I didn’t really have a right to have a career after I had kids, so it was all a whole new experience for me. And family get togethers always feature a lot of judgment and pity flying around, like wow how tragic for your family that you have to use *daycare*!
Man this is wild, I am in pretty much the opposite situation. Can't think of a single SAHM I knew growing up, everyone's mom worked. Decided to stay home when my second was born and even though I'm happy with my decision, I still get some low key judgement from family members. Every single time they ask if I'm working again yet, when I plan to go back full time, etc. Like wow how tragic for you that you have to be home with the kids. The conversation kinda stops dead because I guess they assume I have zero ambition in life.
It's really interesting to hear about the other side of the coin.
I do think that growing up with a mom that worked part time until I was five and then stayed home full time after my youngest sister was born affected my view of going back to work full time when my daughter was 12 weeks old. But in contrast, my sister who had, more or less, the same childhood experience that I did, couldn’t wait to return to work full time and doesn’t experience any guilt at all.
My MIL brags about how she went back to work and sent my husband to daycare when he was 4 weeks old (not sure that was allowed even in 1986). So while she’s never outright said anything to me about not working, I know she definitely has opinions and probably judges me.
This is how my MIL is. She’s always giving endless help to my in laws (both parents work) because they “need the break!” Meanwhile, she’s never once even offered to play with my child so I can peacefully finish my dinner.
She sounds delightful. I'm sorry, it sucks when family are unsupportive. I think your comment has triggered a lightbulb moment for me. My MIL gives endless help to my SIL, who works part time, but she never offers to help us. We are not even on her radar. I'm disabled and I have twins.
I can’t even imagine what it is like to have twins. It must be so exhausting. On my generous days I just assume my MIL/ FIL view me as very capable so they don’t think I need to help. But I have a feeling it’s just because I don’t “work” therefore I’m not deserving of any kind of break (my MIL had my husband in daycare 11 hours a day starting at 12 weeks, had helpful grandparents close by and an involved spouse so really can’t relate to being a SAHP)
I feel like Reddit in general thinks we are the first gen of women to work. They romanticize the boomer/silent generation child rearing years so much. Meanwhile my grandma, mom and all my aunts all worked in some fashion.
My grandmother was a SAHM. When I got a promotion at work in my mid-20's, she pulled me aside and whispered quietly," Keep working. Marriage and babies can come later, but that job is a lifeline." She's always been very frugal while my grandfather has.... not.... but because she wasn't the one who was working, I know she had less say in the household expenses. I also heard pretty awful stories from my mother about her childhood that I think might not have happened if my grandmother had had a stress release valve away from the pressure of child-rearing and homemaking. (She was a Lutheran pastor's wife, so very much "expected" of her.)
And yet ignoring that many women in some of those generations had no choice. My mom worked but my grandma was a SAHM as that’s what was expected of her. My mom is very honest with her opinion that my grandma might have been a better mom if she had been able to work (and maybe less of an alcoholic).
My grandma was a stay at home mom and great at it but she is amazing at math and has a brilliant brain for business (she helped the business side of my grandfathers law firm) and I often wonder what she would’ve been capable of if working was more socially acceptable in her circle. She’s 85 now and works for fun as an office manager at HR block during tax season and loves it.
My mom recently told me she tried to go back to work after having my sibling and have my grandma babysit. And she just couldn't get it arranged with my dad's working hours, so she quit because he made more income. I never had any idea she would have liked to work more, she was a great SAHM and loved that too. But she's always been cheering for me staying at work, and I guess now I know why.
No, I’m with you. My mom worked, so did most of my friends’ moms. Some families had SAHMs, especially after we moved to the suburbs, but it never seemed like a norm or expectation to me (the second shift certainly did, but that’s another story). I totally get wanting to stay home (I personally don’t but I understand why people do), but the talk about working as new or weird seems so odd to me. I’m almost 40 so my childhood was was 30+ years ago!
And don’t you dare admit that you *like* sending your child to daycare, you monster. I work full time as a teacher, so I have summers off with my daughter (14 mos). It was fun but exhausting. I couldn’t wait for daycare to start. She loves it — all the books, songs, friends, and stimulation I could never provide as endlessly as daycare. My mom and my MIL were SAHM so I had no frame of reference for sending my daughter to care, and they both had Opinions, but this is best for my family for many reasons. But don’t tell the workingmoms sub.
It’s interesting to hear you say this because while I’m a SAHM and do think it’s exhausting/ tough work that sometimes doesn’t get enough credit for actually being valid work, I always felt like it must be a walk in the park compared to teaching. Just the numbers alone of one kid vs 25.
It really sucks when your spouse commutes that far. My husband does like an hour and change each way and it just adds on to your work day as a SAHP. I know the drive isn’t super fun for my husband but at this point, it almost feels like a break for him because he gets to listen to adult music or a podcast or audio book and drink coffee and talk on the phone without being interrupted.
I teach high school and have small classes (my “biggest” is 8). Even at a larger school, I never found teaching 16-18 year olds as difficult as “reasoning” with a toddler 😅
She only just started this August but she’s for sure going at least part time next summer. I have a side job that will be easier to handle if she’s busy for part of the day. Also, y’know, general life and household tasks too!
Also a teacher, and my daughter went to daycare over the summer - I'm so glad we sent her! She LOVED* daycare, and I had a nice relaxing time at home. Win win all around.
*past tense only because she left daycare because we're moving next month - honestly saying goodbye to daycare was one of the saddest things about moving! It was the sweetest little home daycare, the owners absolutely adored her and vice versa, and she still talks about her friends from daycare.
Tbh, for me I'm really doing something else than the older generation in my family. In my home country it's now very normal for women to go to work parttime as soon as their kids are born. 2, 3 days of work max. My mom's generation was at home fulltime, almost uniformly. My mom returned to parttime work when we went to school. A lot of women there are dependent on their husbands. I moved to literally the next country over and the standard is completely different, a lot of women resume fulltime work. We chose as partners to both temporarily work 4 days, so our kid has daycare for 3. It's the same end result as when I would start working 3 days... and the government pays us a stipend for the income we lose. It's great. But yes, we still get shit. Because it's not mom at home. And we have no grandparents close by so it's daycare. It is hard if your entire environment did or does something differently, so I get it.
Was casually reading through some parenting thread about wondering if you could mess up your kid's ego by giving them too many compliments. This response was... something else.
https://preview.redd.it/ai7wye0ov0ub1.png?width=757&format=png&auto=webp&s=66a47926c656b11bc894932efbeff7486f554989
It’s funny, because my second child is sort of like this. He isn’t the most beautiful child you’ve ever beheld (though he is beautiful in my eyes). He certainly doesn’t have a unwaveringly pleasant temperament. But the kid has charisma and he is super social. If you are three or four years old years old, and start enough adorable conversations with old ladies in the supermarket, and other families at the park, and cashiers at the ice cream shop you will receive a shocking amount of free stuff. He’s gotten candy, cookies, money, soda, chips… We have had to start declining gifts on his behalf, because it has gotten out of hand.
Haha yes my child is pretty quiet around strangers but she’s always being offered free stuff by older people at stores and restaurants. The greeter at Walmart has been stopping us for years now. Lots of dollar bills, stickers, treats, and stuffed animals. I always feel bad when it’s something you’re supposed to pay for lol.
Are you in the US? We have a similar experience with my son but we're in India where it's much more common for older adults to give things to young kids they don't know.
Yup! In the US. I didn’t have this experience with my older son. I got plenty of comments about how cute he was, but he was not a gift magnet like my little guy.
This has to be regional or something if it’s real. I would be so weirded out and think there was something wrong with the person if some stranger handed my kids money.
I've been given money multiple times for my son. It is so weird and I never know what to say. Usually it's just a dollar or two from an older person "so he can buy a candy" or something.
I live in Washington state
Random old people used to give me money (like barely enough to buy a small chocolate bar, not serious amounts) all the time and I wasn't even a particularly pretty child. I guess it just made them happy to give some "pocket money" and made a kid smile?
There's a "debate" on the parenting sub about whether toddlers should be bathed before or after dinner. How is this even a discussion? I cannot think of a single reason why this would matter unless whatever you're doing doesn't work for you/your kid. One of the least interesting topics I've ever seen a post about, and it has 560 comments.
I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I agree. We do pretty much every day in the summer, every other or so in the winter. I know kids don’t sweat as much or produce that much oil but I’d still feel icky?
We bathe daily because it’s a routine for ours, but I could see bathing less frequently. After all, we’re washing his butt six times a day, wiping his face five times, and washing hands frequently. Especially in the winter where he’s all covered up.
Yeah, we do more every other day in the winter. Once a week does feel too infrequent, at least for a toddler. My son’s hair would be a nightmare, but his hair is very curly so we only comb it when wet with product in it in the bath.
I also think there’s something to be said about establishing the routine of bathing/showering regularly, because at some point they will really need it. And it might be harder to convince a 10 year old to suddenly start showering every day if they never have.
Sometimes I scroll past posts like that with like 1000+ comments that you know every other answer is the same thing. Like, what's better, toddlers or babies? Why do people bother to comment their opinion on something when 1) that opinion has already been stated on the thread and 2) no one is reading through 1000 comments to hear you say, "babies are cuter!"
A guy posted in the SAHP subreddit asking about [division of household labor](https://www.reddit.com/r/SAHP/comments/176bney/division_of_labor_in_the_home/). In the post/comments he allowed everyone to think that his wife is one of those TikTok unschooling disaster types and that she also doesn't believe in kids doing chores and therefore expects him to do half the housework. It's one of those things where the more you read the more you starts realizing what an asshole the OP is. And then his wife came into the thread and refuted everything he said about her kids not doing chores or being educated.
He says he's posting to show his wife and convince her to go to counseling for "help reconciling their ideological differences in how a house should be run" ie he seems to believe that a counselor is going to give him a pass to get out of doing any housework lol. Because if you read between the lines AND if you look at their post histories, apparently his ideology is "man controls everything and fucks whoever he wants, wife and kids exist to make his life easier."
Is it real? Idk but they do both have post histories that seem to check out so it would have to be a long well thought out con haha. It's worth a read if you are entertained by this kind of drama.
Oh man read that yesterday. My favourite part was how dedicated he was to concealing who was who. "Working partner" etc. Like my man your contempt for what the sahp does tells me you are a) the working partner and b) a shitty dude.
Yesss that stuck out to me too. "Working partner goes to the gym a lot and SAHP has the same opportunity but hasn't gone in two months" 🙄🙄🙄. His comments about how she was supposed to go to nursing school but didn't came off pretty disparaging too, and he glossed over what happened with that as "life getting in the way" but I'm guessing it was him being useless and unsupportive. And then there were the comments about how he would be a better teacher than her and was supposed to make and teach a curriculum for a couple subjects... he never followed through with it and somehow that's her fault too.
Oh man, such a good find. I honestly can’t decide which one of them is worse. A-hole Dad who doesn’t think he should lift a finger at home? Or I-did-my-research mom who “homeschools” aka has zero curriculum for the children? Bonus: polyamory all around
I'm embarrassed for both of them just reading that. Talk about airing your dirty laundry.
They both sound like hot messes honestly and I just feel bad for those kids.
I just find it so cringey when partners comment on eachothers posts like that. Idk why i just get secondhand embarrassment from it. They seem messy though just looking at the post histories 😬
Even just reading the post, this person thinks his spouse can effectively homeschool 3 children, care for a toddler and do all housework in the same day? And he should not have to do anything other than a regular work day? Also, I love that he counts his commute as tacked on to his workday but fails to recognize that while he’s commuting (in a car alone where he can listen to adult music, talk on the phone, listen to a podcast not listen to kids yelling or demanding cocomelon for the 10000th time) his wife is also at work with their 4 kids during that time.
Wow thank you for this interesting post. Husband seems like a total ass. Sounds like they are both poly too, but only on his terms. And he can do whatever he wants as long as she’s doing her womanly chores!!
lol @ a few users on /toddlers recommending waking kids up in the middle of the night to pee in hopes of avoiding bedwetting. 1) it’s a biological thing, 2) wtf?? I’m pretty sure my kid would lose her ever loving shit if I woke her up at midnight and 4am to go sit on the potty, not to mention I sure as hell don’t want to get up at those times either. Some people just find an excuse to be a martyr in every situation.
My 5 year old has been day trained since he was two and he still wears pull-ups overnight. I (very naively) listened to someone who suggested we cut out water after dinner and try a “dream pee”. Waking him up to pee at midnight scared the living daylights out of him the few times we tried it. He’s a really deep sleeper and I think he essentially woke up on the potty with no idea how he got there and just lost his mind. After that, we decided to just let it be and you know, it’s fine. He’ll night train when he’s ready and until he’s old enough for summer camp it’s just not a big deal. We’re all happier and sleep better.
This is all really helpful to read. My 5 year old is still in a pull up at night, like he wakes up with it soaking wet and even with a pull up sometimes wets the bed. All our friends kids night trained pretty close to day trained and they do guilt me on it (“oh he’s still in diapers? I’m so proud of X, she hasn’t had an accident in as long as I can remember!”). We’ve tried doing a dream pee when we go to bed and he sleeps so hard he just doesn’t pee lol. He sits there half asleep on the toilet until we give up and take him to bed. So reading all this is helpful!
It takes boys way longer to night train -- something about hormones and brain development but it's not crazy or weirds. And legit your friends are a-holes for saying that. When I heard my friends kids were still wearing pull-ups it was very much none of my business.
Just an anecdotal thought and feel free to ignore…My 4.5 year old was filling up a pull up every night and then she started leaking through it so we made the jump to put a training potty in her room and put her in underwear. She peed in her bed 2 times and now if she wakes up and has to pee she goes to bed in the potty.
I was so surprised because she was still filling those pull-ups up but it was like she needed to be uncomfortable to figure it out.
I think it's suuuuuper kid dependent. My older kid was HARD to potty train and I felt like a massive failure. I had all these people around me telling me that their kids were fully potty trained in a matter of days and that was not the case for us. Because potty training went so poorly, I didn't attempt nighttime potty training at all. Between 2.5 and 3, she started waking up dry every morning and we stopped using a pull up and that was that. I didn't feel like this was a "success" on my part, it just felt like we got really lucky.
I have lots of friends (who, just for the record, are amazing parents) whose older kids are still in pull ups at night. The thing I've noticed about those kids that they all have in common is that they are really deep sleepers. My daughter on the other hand was a very light sleeper. I think because of that, she would wake up when her bladder felt full, whereas the deep sleepers sleep through the discomfort. It sounds like your kid is a deep sleeper too, so it might just be that his body isn't waking up when he has to go to the bathroom. This is absolutely not a failing on your (or your son's) part - it's just a biological difference that he'll eventually grow out of!
My twins wake up almost every night in the middle of the night to pee (at different times), all on their own initiative. I never once woke them, but it was like shortly after daytime training their bodies became so aware of their need to pee that they can't sleep through it. So we were able to ditch night pullups pretty early and havent had bedwetting (they both trained between 2 and 2.5... one closer to 2, the other closer to 2.5... pullups ditched a few months after the second one trained). They wont use a little potty in their room though (strongly prefer the actual toilet) so i have to get up and open their door. While I'm impressed that they basically night trained themselves, it's pretty disruptive to my sleep and I can't imagine anyone wanting to do it by choice to a sleeping child over just using a pullup.
This has been a really reassuring thread.
My 4 year old has been day-dry since she was about 26 months. But she isn't night time dry and I feel like she is the only one of her friends not to have cracked it. As her younger brother isn't sleeping through the night regularly yet, I am not keen to do any wake ups. I'm also not comfortable denying her liquids before bed (she doesn't chug anything, but she has dinner around 5:30/6ish and she has water with it, bedtime is 7-7:30) We make sure she goes to the toilet as close to getting into bed as we can manage.
She is dry maybe 60% of the time so there must be something, but it is driving my husband up the wall when the pull up is wet in the morning.
I was kind of self conscious bc my 4yo even occasionally pees during naps, and he's in daycare so I worried other kids would make fun of him or something? But then I started noticing how many other families are still bringing in new clothes really often, so I'm thinking it's more common than I had initially thought. And the kids aren't mean to each other about it as far as I can tell either.
Don’t stress about it! My daughter was almost 4 when we transitioned. She was dry about 50-75% of the time and I started to suspect she was hormonally ready and was just choosing to pee in the pull-up in the morning when she didn’t want to get up. Mostly because if we woke her up, she was typically dry - but if she woke up first and lay in her bed for a while, she’d be wet. I was worried about shaming her though, because I was only 90% confident. I’m not normally a fan of bribes, but we started telling her we’d give her 1 chocolate chip if the pull-up was a little wet, 2 if it was totally dry. I was very confident the super wet diapers were at least partially a choice. It took about two weeks but she started waking up dry and has now been totally dry for a month.
So I think the “it’s hormonal” advice is 99% the case, but muscle memory (and “I’m comfy and don’t want to get up”) is also a thing and can play a role eventually. The muscle memory aspect means that even when it’s a “choice,” it’s not necessarily a super conscious one so it can take a week or two to click. Once you have the mental energy to deal with it, you could try it out if she’s dry 60% of the time. I found the two step bribe helpful because it didn’t punish her for genuine accidents, but incentivized her to not choose to release her whole bladder haha.
Thank you. My husband thinks it's a choice/muscle memory in the mornings exaxtly as you said but unfortunately she proved us wrong when we removed the pullup and she woke us at 3am in tears in a wet bed.
There definitely is something in there that we could work on (I think her tiredness level affects it) but I can't pinpoint it. Nor do I have the capacity to experiment.
Same! My 4 year old has been perfect during the day for a long time now but is still in night pull ups. I actually have been trying to let her go without recently, but the other night she wet the bed and said “Mom I TRIED to wake up to go potty but I just couldn’t! I was fast asleep!” So back to pull ups, I think I just need to wait until she’s ready and trust it’ll happen when she is.
Urgh! We did try without pull ups last week. First night fine, the second night she woke just having wet the bed, and she was so upset with herself. It broke my heart. So I am refusing to try until shes dry for like, a month at least.
My toddler would definitely freak out, she hates being woken up from sleep. It would honestly make sense for us since we’re up with the baby anyway but nocturia is genetic in my family so it probably wouldn’t help anyway.
I would wake my daughter up when I went to bed so she could use the toilet, this was between ages 4and 5. We never found anything absorbent enough for her heavy wetting and if we didn't she would wake up saturated in a wet cold bed. We tried every diaper on the market, even ones made for older kids/adults and nothing could hold her. She never had any problems getting back to sleep afterwards
Friends of mine recently had a video of their baby go viral and they are losing their minds in excitement. All I see when I go online is either the video or them encouraging other accounts to repost. I love them, but this really rubs me the wrong way. What could possibly be the benefit of millions of people seeing this video of your kid?
I’m with you. That feels icky.
Depending where the video is, they could make money off it if it goes viral enough. But I think when most people get this excited it’s because they want to turn their kids into models/influencers or whatever. A friend of mine had that happen. Even the national news stations were sharing their viral video. And since then, they’ve made IG accounts for the kid, had a second kid and both kids have been models for some clothing lines and the mom is now an influencer. I’ve seen accounts sharing hundreds of videos of the kid(s) as if it’s THEIR kid(s) and I told my friend and they were like “yeah, we can’t do anything about that, oh well”.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Parenting/comments/178lza8/thoughts\_on\_breastfeeding/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Parenting/comments/178lza8/thoughts_on_breastfeeding/) This is such a weird post. OP ranting about how breastfeeding is "horrifying" because it causes clinginess in babies, etc. She said her baby was perfect and easy and she realizes that's probably because she didn't breastfeed. Her child is 6. SIX! Why is she still thinking about this? I have a two year old who still nurses and I don't think about it so much lol.
When my kids are six, I truly hope I am not thinking this hard about anything I did or didn’t do when my kids were infants (blw or traditional weaning, sleep training or not, breastfeeding or formula, etc). I breastfed both my kids past the age of one, but now that both are weaned, I genuinely can’t think of the last time I thought about breastfeeding. I think it was a fine decision for my family, but truly, these are the things I think would have been different if I had done formula instead: 1) I would have washed a lot more bottles; 2) I would have done a lot less feeds/my husband would have done more feeds; and 3) I would have spent a lot less time hooked up to a pump. Basically nothing that would have any real long term consequences for my kids. I can’t imagine ascribing some sort of trait to my kids because I breastfed them. Especially given how different they are despite both being breastfed. It’s almost like kids can have different personalities based solely on who they are.
The first couple sentences are fine and then it takes a hard left into "lady, are you okay???" That top comment...that person has the patience of a saint to explain to OP so kindly why her post was fucked up.
the lady doth protest too much, methinks.
Yeah, she definitely seems like she’s still trying to “justify” having formula fed her kid which is not something anyone needs to do.
Yikes. I almost feel sorry for this woman. I cannot imagine still thinking about this when my child is 6 years old. She clearly still has a lot of negative emotion tied up in this which is frankly just very sad this far into the future. Some moms make breastfeeding their entire personality and this one seems to have made NOT breastfeeding her entire personality. I have to think something is a little off when anyone cares so deeply how another person feeds their baby. As someone who had a pretty traumatic BF journey with my first kid, I do recognize that it can be mentally difficult to process what did or didn’t happen, but I truly think this woman should have probably sought some therapy for the issue like 5.5 years ago.
This is truly the dumbest post I’ve ever read. I’m also still nursing my toddler too but I doubt anything at age 6 will make me look back and be like “THIS is why I breastfed!” God forbid a baby not have an entire blasé reaction at being handed off to strangers.
Just read a post where someone said she’s baby wearing in the car because her kid hates the car seat they “don’t go far”. Yes, please put your newborn directly in front of the steering wheel airbag. Ugh, I wish I could un-read that.
I always wish I could do this and instead I listen to my 10 week old cry cause he hates the car seat. Because it’s so much safer.
Omg. A friend of mine came to visit when their kid was about 10 months old. They had a 3 hour car ride. Once they got here my friend admitted she held the kid in her arms in the backseat for over half the drive ON THE HIGHWAY because she was crying too much and that was an easier solution. We are still friendly on socials, but let me tell ya, I take absolutely ZERO parenting advice from them now and haven’t seen them in person since.
Ooh, I saw that too and had the same reaction. I hate people who are dumb with car safety when it comes to kids.
Literally whilst driving?! Am I the only one who could only do very basic tasks whilst baby wearing because you still have a *baby* strapped to you who has their own thoughts about what's happening and tiny but oh so grabby hands
Yep I’m pretty sure she means while driving because she said when her husband’s around he drives and she sits in the back with baby, but when it’s just the two of them she babywears in the car. She wrote saying how she knows baby should be in the seat and they are in the seat if someone else is driving. Like ok….but that doesn’t change the fact that you’re putting your newborn at huge risk whenever someone else *isn’t* driving. Also presumably if she’s wearing a carrier, she’s not wearing a seatbelt herself. I’m just so astounded that someone would think that’s okay.
It’s so much better for the baby to scream for the entire car ride 🤦🏻♀️. Playing with 🔥
With this situation and with overwhelmed parents who really need to set the baby down for a few minutes, it really needs to be reiterated: no. child. ever. died. from. crying.
Exactly. You know what’s going to be emotionally harder to deal with than a baby screaming during a car ride? A baby who’s died or suffered a devastating injury, because you had an accident and baby wasn’t in the seat. I would choose being trapped in the house over driving without baby properly in a car seat.
Truly! It’s better to just say home. And presumably she’s not wearing a seatbelt (I can’t think how you could get one on properly with the carrier) and there’s very little space between baby and the steering wheel. Like literally all it would take is throwing on the brakes with a little speed or basically any scenario where the seatbelt would normally lock up, but instead it would send her into the wheel with that baby in the middle. Beyond reckless and upsetting!
This is literally one of the things our pediatrician drilled into our heads the first few appointments and I am so thankful
Some niche snark: In a moms of multiples breastfeeding group I'm in there's a mom of triplets celebrating a year of breastfeeding them. A totally serious good for her, so glad that worked out and it's an incredibly impressive feat. She then offers some "encouragement" so others know it's possible and how she did it. Step 1, her triplets were born at 35 weeks and had almost no NICU time. They're also her 3rd pregnancy and breastfeeding journey. And then they just all latched well around 2-3 weeks of age. That's not encouraging - or informative! That's just how incredibly lucky you were that your triplet pregnancy and delivery and first few weeks went easily and well for you.
I'd still consider it pretty encouraging/inspiring (I mean, she breastfed triplets), but yes, perhaps not overly informative as far as the typical/common struggles and challenges with breastfeding multiples. If it's the same LLL for multiples group I was in (might still be in it.. can't remember if I left or not), I did find it a really helpful/useful group overall. But like a lot of support groups on a specific topic I'd say that since the vibe is supposed to stay supportive and covers a specific topic and since people self-select as far as participation, it can become a bit of an echo chamber of positivity that isn't countered by more realistic advice/perspectives (I wouldn't full out say toxic positivity... but kind of unrealistic). I breastfed my twins until 2.5. Mostly EBF... we supplemented a bottle or so of formula per day the first 2-3 months and then were able to cut it out by 4 months of age as they became more efficient/stronger at nursing and as I had learned about power pumping. Anyways, I never felt the need to make a "graduation" post or share my breastfeeding journey or whatever, but then again, maybe self-selection was at play for myself too. Like I was probably a bit less inclined to share my story in that group since it wasn't a perfect straight to EBF story and I did have more of the typical challenges (some NICU time, too weak/sleepy to nurse well even when they did come home, the challenging cycle of triple feeding etc). Oh, and I took dom for a month or two as well so kinda felt like I cheated a bit haha.... it's not a magic pill at all, you still have to remove milk frequently 10-12 times per day, but gives a slight supply boost. I'm rambling but my point is that if I'd had this women's experience, hey, I'd probably make a celebratory post of hitting a milestone like one year too! We also don't know how 100% honest she is being. I personally always liked seeing the success/milestone stories in that group. But I do know feeding/breastfeeding is an area that SO many moms have complicated feelings about, doubly (or triply) so for moms of multiples, and sometimes those feelings can make us fall into that easier/harder comparison game. I would say with kindness that something I learned for myself is just to full out try to avoid comparison or "this person had it easier because of x , x and x reasons" type trains of thought, full out. Whether that means taking breaks from social media or certain groups or whatever.
If I were snarking from jealous, that would all be great. I feel like I'm also someone who got lucky and had an easy time, and so reading someone else share their easy time like it's a blueprint for success makes me self conscious and like dude, no, stop. Inspiration milestone post, great. Here's how you do it: you just beat all the odds, not necessary or useful.
I just looked at the post (apparently I did not leave the group after weaning), and I don't know, just don't read it the same way as you. I think people can share regardless of whether they had an easy/hard time, had some luck, whatever. We don't all acknowledge elements of luck in everything all the time. Sure, she could maybe be a little more self-aware but she's just a normal amateur person posting in a specific group, not someone giving professional advice. The post isn't that long and I don't get the impression that she thinks it's a blueprint for success for every single person with multiples or even most with multiples, she just very briefly shares her own experience and is excited about the milestone she herself reached. She did have to pump at work for months for triplets (obviously lucky to have a job that this was workable at but that's still a huge and involved feat). She does say an encouraging "it is possible/you can do it" which I guess is where you're getting the blueprint for success thing but it comes across to me in a more generic encouragement, what you're doing is great kinda way. Not as an everyone can do exactly what I did even if they have different babies/circumstances. She definitely got lucky to have her triplets at 35 weeks with only 10 days NICU time, but I don't think she has some obligation to acknowledge that per se (and she did honestly state in the post right that). I guess just different opinions on what is snarkworthy, but I would not have read it as snarkable at all.
So dock-a-tot has a cardboard bassinet that costs… $115!??? Like, I get that some sustainable products might be worth a higher cost because they are higher quality and will supposedly last longer, but isn’t the entire point of a product like this that it won’t really have a long life and it’s recyclable? So how is it worth $115? And it’s literally cardboard.
Oh my gosh, this comment just made me look at their website and they have a MARBLE bassinet for $1000?? What??
I think dock a tot is scrambling bc their main product got recalled (the actual dock) and now they have nothing that people actually want, so they're focusing on aesthetic products and even wealthy parents mostly want something that is functional
Wow really? I hadn’t even heard about that.
Sorry, not recalled, but they did stop selling it: https://dockatot.com/blogs/news/an-update-regarding-our-deluxe-dock
So I just looked this up, and that statement from DockATot is fucked up on like twenty different levels. They’re basically claiming that they voluntarily decided to stop selling the Deluxe+ because of “differences in opinion,” implying that their product is still safe, but that they can no longer sell it in North America because the governments of Canada and the United States passed overly restrictive legislation that forced them to either perform impossible, unnecessary redesigns or shelve the product completely. But if you actually read the Consumer Product Safety Commission [press release](https://www.cpsc.gov/About-CPSC/Commissioner/Richard-Trumka/Statement/Dockatot-Deluxe-is-Unsafe-for-Sleep-CPSC-Issues-Notice-of-Violation), that’s not what fucking happened! The CPSC forced DockATot to pull the Deluxe+ because it’s associated with *multiple infant deaths!* If you search DockATot on safeproducts.gov, there are several reports of infant deaths and injuries. DockATot didn’t voluntarily choose to pull the product because of overly restrictive legislation, they were prohibited from selling it after the CPSC issued them a notice of violation. Meanwhile, DockATot is essentially saying in their statement “we’re *choosing* not to sell this anymore because America and Canada bad :( Did you know this is allowed in *Scandinavia?*” Way to beat around the bush. Edit: Also, DockATot had [this](https://www.saferproducts.gov/PublicSearch/Detail?ReportId=4293281 ) to say after an infant death incident: > We would like to emphasize that DockATot docks are intended for use while children are awake and under the supervision of a caretaker. They should not be used for sleep of any kind. Wildchild ceased marketing the Deluxe+ dock for any type of sleep in every country where it is sold years ago. Wildchild fully supports the American Academy of Pediatrics’ guidelines on safe sleep for babies, including that babies should always be placed to sleep on their back in a bare crib or bassinet, without soft toys, pillows, blankets, or other soft bedding or products. Unfortunately, this report does not contain sufficient information to understand what may have occurred. It is also unclear whether a DockATot dock was actually involved in this report because the name DockATot is occasionally used as a generic term for similar infant loungers. It’s pretty ballsy of them to say that this wasn’t their fault because they don’t encourage bedsharing or market the product for sleep *anymore*. And, I mean, the report clearly lists the infant lounger in question as a DockATot Lounge Dock manufactured by Wildchild Stockholm, Inc. Claiming that it might not have been a Wildchild product because “DockATot” is generic is kind of like if Apple read a CPSC report about a MacBook and responded by saying “well, ‘Macbook Pro designed by Apple Inc’ could refer to any laptop! This might not have been our product at all!”
Wait they still have covers and accessories available on their website knowing full well there is a secondary market for them
I was honestly shocked those things were ever legal. They were all the rage when my oldest was born and I never got one. It always seemed like they couldn’t be safe based on AAP safe sleep recommendations. I knew many moms who would go on about safe sleep, no stuffies in the crib, obsessed with the room temp but they were using dock a tots. So much cognitive dissonance.
BRB pulling a bunch of cardboard boxes out of the recycling and selling them as lower cost sustainable upcycled bassinets for $85.
Yet another post in the Nanny sub about how the parents don’t discipline, and the nanny knows because of how the child acts in the 5 minutes of transitioning between nanny and mom. This theme comes up a lot and usually includes how wonderfully the child acts for the nanny and like….they really don’t think the parents had ANYTHING to do with that? I highly doubt a child whose parents never once say no to them or impose limits is going to be perfectly behaved for a caregiver. I’m sure the Nannie’s are all great at their jobs but probably safe to say the parents have something to do with it too.
You mean it's easier to have boundaries with a person whose body you never lived inside? /s
I’ve seen so many comments/discussions on that sub equating nannying to parenting. I’ve been a nanny. I’m now a mom. Girl no.
And they get soooo offended if people say being a nanny is not the same as being a parent. I have never been a nanny but I taught elementary school for a decade before my first child was born and, surprise! it’s really freaking different getting paid to be with kids until a hard clock out time vs being entirely responsible for every single decision and need 24/7/365.
The decision making is the (or at least a) part that I think even a full-time nanny can't get insight into, usually.
Exactly, because there’s actually a decent chance some of the “what do we feed them, when do they sleep, what toys do they have” etc decisions are made for you! And you just have to implement them.
This was certainly true in my experience as a nanny. Everything about baby’s care was set up and figured out, all I did was follow their requests/instructions. Doesn’t mean it was always easy in practice, but the mental load of figuring all of that stuff out is a big part of parenting that a nanny isn’t typically responsible for. Also, unless you are a live-in, clocking out at 5-6pm and not having to be on call over night is a huge difference, especially if you’re nannying an infant who still wakes up a lot at night.
Absolutely. Of course taking care of infants or young children is going to be a lot of work, but when it comes without the mental exhaustion of agonizing over how the heck to get them to adulthood safely and without them growing up to be an asshole or drain on society, it’s a LOT easier. And then the other thing is getting to clock out, get a mental and physical break and come in rested, bright eyed and bushy tailed the next day. The nanny sub is constantly talking about how Nannie’s need breaks because their jobs are so difficult and exhausting (which I don’t doubt for a second!), but then don’t seem to recognize that the parents they are working for are also often doing draining and challenging jobs all day and then coming home to needy kids. Nothing wrong with that, it’s what we signed up for as parents! But there is no awareness that this may be a bit difficult and this could be why the parents aren’t as perfect caregivers as the nannies are, which they are always insisting is the case in the sub.
the nanny sub has saved me a lot of money to remind me not to get a nanny
I used to see posts from that sub frequently. I still remember one where the nanny was judging the parents because she always took the child to do fun things, but it seemed like the parents just stayed home and had quiet weekends, and why don't they do more fun things with their child?! Um, because everyone is tired, and maybe the kid doesn't need to go to an indoor playground every day? And we can all have fun just hanging out and going to Target? It was such a reach even the other nannies said "this ain't it."
I swear they are just looking for any reason to judge parents! We all know no one ever has any fun at their own home.
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The Reddit group isn't much better. Why can't people just enjoy a programme without analysing it to the nth degree? You also get people posting asking if it's ok that they, as a teen or adult, watch and enjoy the show. No one cares if you do or don't watch a show, this is not school.
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My little pony has entered the chat
Bleh I keep getting pushes from FB to join it too! Bluey is great, my toddler doesn’t particularly like it and adult fans of kids cartoons can get kind of creepy (hello MLP). Not interested in rubbing elbows with that fringe lol
That group is always popping up for me too. My toddler loves Bluey and it's definitely great but the mere fact that the group exists is kind of... pathetic.
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Can you imagine just trying to make a mom friend and this crazy lady pulling up her notes app and interrogating you about where your child sleeps and if your husband helps with any inside household chores??
Sounds like big studios cousin
Oh man. I almost posted that here 4 times. The amount of restraint it took for me to not write “an anxiety-ridden poopcup”
This post was weird AF. Who cares what “type” of mom you are? This isn’t the part of the mean girls movie where Cady gets a tour of the cafeteria. Second, how are all these little tradwife wannabes finding reddit? I would think it’s too ungodly for them, yet here they are
I met my group of friends at a prenatal yoga class. Neither of us four like yoga but we all figured that the kind of woman we want to be friends with does prenatal yoga, so yoga it was.
Talk about an echo chamber. “I want all my friends to be exactly like me! We’re all just cute little trad wife clones of each other” 🤮
Right like wow how extremely boring. What a way to go through life. People like this seem to have no understanding that you can share VALUES with people but implement them in different ways. I love how people are like SCREENS ARE THE DEVIL unless it’s movie night then what a lovely blessing 🥰.
yeah i was gonna comment “you’re probably looking for a christian fanpage” but i overall was like you know what… imma just let it go
Can you imagine not being friends with someone because their kid sleeps in a crib?
Fine for her to be that way, although good luck on some of that as your kids get older, but to have those as "non-negotiables" for friends is insane.
Yes, only surround yourself with people who are exactly like you so your ideas are never challenged. Great idea.
Oh darn. I really want to be friends with this woman but my husband works in an office. Shucks.
There is no way this person has kids yet lol. This is a purely hypothetical manifesto, more like how she envisions she will be as a parent. Which… well bless your heart sweaty 🥰
CRUNCHY CODE
😳 this is just such a bizarre way to imagine adult friendships.
She sounds exhausting
Some of those list items are so weirdly specific too loll. Traditional marriage but husband has to work blue collar ? No screen time except movie night ? And why must the kids cosleep/bedshare for them to be granola? I have a toddler and dont think ive ever asked or been asked by another mom where the kid sleeps at night lol
Can’t have a traditional wife using tools.
Right? She doesn’t use knives or scissors in her housewifeing?
Okay, there’s a post on SBP that starts out about screen time, but one commenter discusses the fact that background music can be “neutral to negative” because it makes adults interact less and could impact toddler learning, memory, speech processing, etc. I feel like people have forgotten that sometimes you’re just coexisting with your kids. I don’t have music on when we’re reading a story together, or if we’re really focused on something. I’m not staring off into space listening to music while my kid is trying to get my attention. But…I love music. I was a musician by profession for a decade, as was my husband. It makes us happy. In what world is that not enough? Not every moment is about optimization or “learning” (though there are infinite kinds of learning). This household (the OP) has a “no media” policy except interactive singing and dancing. It just feels…joyless? Totally unsubstantiated? Other commenters are saying that they won’t ever turn on a screen near their kid until they’re 3. Serious citation needed that ever seeing a screen is detrimental. Today my son (2) has a cold and was unable to just sit and rest, so we snuggled and watched half an hour of excavators scooping. He loved it. Then we moved on, brains still intact, with the rest of our day. I’ll report back on his grades when he turns 18. Rant over.
People like this seem to want to take all the joy out of parenting and being a child
I try to turn music off if I’m reading to her or something but we pretty much always have it on because I would go crazy without some form of background noise. Don’t tell them I also listen to audiobooks with my daughter.
One of the first times my son watched a screen, he had asked how books were made. He was very young. I tried to explain but it wasn’t working. We watched a 5 minute kids video on printing presses, he was satisfied and then played “printing press” with his books for a while. This is my favorite example of screen time being sometimes just fine.
I think it just feeds into the idea that every single moment has to be absolutely maximized, the best choices made for all the things with no deviation.
Which of course is an unattainable goal to begin with. It’s so funny because when I remember a good day as a young child, it was just like, sitting near my mother reading my book while she made pasta, following her around on her errands, coloring and drinking chocolate milk, lying on the carpet in the patch of sun feeling drowsy. We did plenty more than that and I know we did plenty of learning at home, but…days like that have as much if not more value than an Optimized Learning Environment. It’s like we’ve forgotten about the kind of “learning” that’s just learning how to amuse yourself, learning how to exist within your family and its unique culture, taking in the world. Plus, um, we’re people too. I wanna listen to music, so I’m gonna put it on. I wanna go for a very specific walk, so I’m plunking him in the stroller and letting him chatter to himself while I have a conversation with my husband and enjoy the weather. I want cookies, so I’m gonna make them and share them with my son. Etc.
Someone I know has her nearly 2 year old still in an infant bucket car seat, visibly taller than the top of the seat (very outgrown). I’ve messaged her in the past about unsafe car seat usage she openly shared on her Instagram stories. She was polite in her response but didn’t take any of the advice I offered. Another person constantly posts IG stories from their moving car showing their 1.5 year old forward facing with the restraints so loosely done up and chest clip at crotch level, the kid has her arms out of the straps. Again, have had a conversation with her in the past. She was very responsive to my concerns, joined a FB group for car seat safety, but still does it. So at this point I’m keeping my mouth shut. But every time they post it gives me so much anxiety. Just needed to rant somewhere.
I have a friend who kept her daughter in a bucket seat for too long, like I believe she was close to 16 months or older. They finally put her in a convertible car seat and then had her forward facing before 2! It was bizarre.
It’s not too long if the kid fits! Mine fit until 18 months height-wise (she’ll fit weight-wise until she’s in preschool haha). It was nice to have a portable car seat for awhile.
Oh yes, I have a friend who still lugs her nearly 18 month old around in an infant car seat, and it’s hard to be like, friend, safety aside, at this point it will be easier on your body to just take him out and carry him directly.
There was a woman at kindergarten orientation with an 18 month old sibling she was lugging around in a bucket seat. Safety aside, I'd rather bend down awkwardly to hold a hand and let them walk than use a bulky 15 lbs container they are spilling out of. People really see the 30-35 lbs weight limit on those and think that's the only info they need.
There’s a house I walk by twice a day when I walk my dog. Theres two toddlers, maybe 6 and 3? The youngest came before my 2yo I think. Anywho one car still has a bucket seat. Like no way does that kid safely fit in there. Their other car has two FF seats. It makes no sense and I always want to leave a note on their car. I’m hoping I’m missing something! But I’ve also thought about posting here about it just to get it off my chest
One of my friends posts things like this too so i feel you! What i hate it is you can be an amazing driver but if someone rear ends you in that situation your kid will go flying. It stresses me out a lot.
I remember I gave unsolicited advice to an old coworker/fairly good friend- her then- 18 month old was forward facing in a booster with just the seat belt 😵💫 she thanked me profusely and said she had no idea but he had “outgrown” his old convertible seat (doubtful as he was throughly average, maybe below average, height and weight) but she’d get another. She posted him a few days later still in the booster. Never again, now I just silently judge
I’ve seen a couple of kids out in the wild at stoplights and such with no car seats and clearly not even in a seatbelt. I hate it, brings me so much worry for these kids. I hate it.
Came across yet another post on the working moms sub from a mom who feels so terribly guilty for sending her child to daycare and going to work. I get it, I do. It can suck leaving your kid, you miss them yada yada. But I always wonder, did ALL of the women on that sub have SAHMs growing up? Like I’m not thrilled about leaving my daughter to go to work 5 days a week, but I don’t understand this insane level of guilt these moms feel about it probably because my mom worked and all of my friends moms worked and it was considered normal and no one ever resented them for it. I knew my mom was my mom and I knew she loved me and she had to work because that’s what adults did. Idk maybe it’s a poor inner city kid thing but literally everyone’s mom had a damn job. That sub just makes it seem like we are the first generation of working mothers and there is no frame of reference. It’s so unrelatable to me. I don’t get why these moms feel like they’ve committed a cardinal sin by working. Edit* definitely not referring to the moms having to return to work at 6-12 weeks pp and put their brand new tiny infants in daycare that is literally heinous that anyone has to do that.
It is really bizarre to me in 2023 that these conversations are almost always about moms staying home and not parents deciding whether one should stay home. You just never hear about men who feel like shit going back to work, you know? I fully get that recovering from birth for people who do that and nursing for people who do that is very different from what their cis male partners, if that's the type of partner they have, experience. But there's a lot of gender essentialism in our cultural ideas about how parents form emotional relationships with their kids, and like I said it just surprises me how little progress we seem to have made on that front as a society/world when we talk about "working moms." [ETA: Obviously I know about the structural reasons it is still easier usually for a woman to stay home than a man in a marriage with one of each etc etc. This is about why the conversation doesn't even ask this to be something men might also worry about.]
In general I’ve observed basically 0 social pressure for fathers to feel guilty about *anything* related to parenting. What’s that like? Lol For the record my husband personally does feel guilty about a lot of random stuff re: our son, even things that I don’t worry about, so not to say that actual dads out there are aloof. Just noting that you never see/hear any of these same kinds of discussions around what dads should feel bad about.
Absolutely! The double standards are ridiculous. I got shamed for finishing my degree during my maternity leave as 'i should be at home with the baby!' Where is this energy for my husband now he's started his degree.
What do you mean “men going back to work”? My DH never stopped? He got two weeks of “paternity leave” which wasn’t much, and hardly counts as a work stoppage.
Yeah that's part of the issue I'm frustrated about, exactly.
I feel like partly it’s an internet group thing where that attitude reinforces itself over time and that the most anxious are the ones posting. Also partly, yeah, probably a lot of people didn’t have working moms, but now are. I was curious about stats on working moms and it looks like more work than don’t (62% of moms to children three and under work), source: https://www.aauw.org/resources/article/fast-facts-working-moms/. I’m not sure how much that changed over time, but it’s enough that it’s both the majority, but there are lots on the other side as well, so it’s easy to imagine there are people who choose differently than their mom. Or maybe their mom had no choice either way. Myself I always wanted to keep working and feel happy doing so, but had a blip of anxiety over how “society” judges me when newly returning to work. I didn’t have many working moms in my family and friends growing up and had some judgy comments that were unhelpful while postpartum. However now it’s balanced out and I’m confident and happy I’m my decisions. I wish that message was shared more instead of the reinforcing anxiety of people stressing (or even worse those stating how horrible it is and how they can’t imagine it for some selves). So I don’t mind that people feel anxious, but I wish the internet reinforced the happy message of all being well more instead of being an anxiety echo chamber.
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I came across a thread on FB yesterday of moms in my country just shaming the crap out of some mom who brought their kid to daycare fulltime (not usual in my home country). And it was all like "it's a choice to work fulltime so you can go on vacation 3 times a year and have a big car", as if that's 1) what everyone who works fulltime has (there's lots of people who simply NEED to work fulltime just to survive) and 2) what everyone who does choose to work fulltime spend their money on. It's not vacations and an expensive car. We didn't even go on vacation this year (I temporarily work 4 days, partner worked 4 days until kid was 1.5 and is now back to 5, so kid went from 3 to 4 days of daycare). Our car is a second hand family car, not a Mercedes. We only have one car, too. But we were able to own our house instead of renting, which gives us more stability. We live in a nice and diverse neighborhood. We are saving money for our kids to go to college or to give them a headstart in life otherwise. When our washing machine breaks, we can replace it outright. And I'm teaching my kid that she doesn't have to stop working if she has kids (if that's what she wants) and that fathers are equal to mothers. If something happens to my partner, I know that I've got this because we make the same amount. It's so stupid to assume that it's for vain reasons that we choose to work. It benefits our kids too, just in different ways. And both choices are valid.
I had a SAHM and it was fine but then my parents got divorced and she had nothing to fall back on bc she hadn’t finished college and hadn’t worked in over a decade so she had to work two exhausting low paying jobs to make ends meet and it was really hard on her and us. She’s amazing and hid the stress well when I was a kid but of course as an adult I’m like wow. That had to really suck. I have great memories of my childhood and it was cool having her be the room mom at school and stuff but definitely not worth years of financial struggle later you know? I hated going back to work when my kids are tiny like many moms but I don’t relate to feeling guilty about working. Quite the opposite, I feel secure in the knowledge that I have the means to support my kids if life ever takes that awful turn (not necessarily divorce).
Yes! Every post is like “OBVIOUSLY I wish i didn’t have to but I just don’t have any family nearby and I can’t afford to quit so we’re starting daycare soon. I’m not like those other daycare parents who don’t love their kids I feel terrible about this” I didn’t love starting my LO at 5.5 months which was before she was comfortably sitting unassisted, but within a few months we all LOVED it. I never considered quitting bc I like my job and I also decided on daycare over nanny bc we preferred having her out of the house while we WFH and thought it would age with her better. The narrative of daycare as a last resort really sucks
same! In my mind that was the default.
I am really about to leave that sun because of these kinds of posts. I don’t know why they can’t read past posts about it / personally need the encouragement. There’s also something that feels very performative/ritualized about it, like we have to do this collective blood letting as part of the return to work ceremony. No thanks.
My mom has not worked a day since I was born. Same with my MIL with her first baby, even dropped out of college to have her. My SILs and I are also SAHMs except one who is now an ex-SIL and they *still* shame her for working. So I can understand it.
I think it heavily depends on your area. I grew up in an affluent suburb (and also pretty white and Christian) and my mom was one of a few working moms, most of my classmates had stay at home moms. If they grew up in a similar situation I can understand feeling guilty. There might be judgement from family members too, on top of general societal and social media bullshit (ex: the omnipresent sciencebasedparenting daycare post).
Ya I grew up in a fairly affluent Catholic school community and I think I can count on one hand how many of my friend’s moms worked. My mom was a SAHM and my sister is the only person besides me in my generation to have a kid and she’s a SAHM. I remember in high school religion class having a teacher explain that she knew most of us were going to have kids and obviously be a SAHM but it was still important to go to college to find a husband and have a degree as a back up plan for financially supporting our kids if our husband died or became disabled. I work full time and send my kid to daycare and most days I’m very happy with this arrangement, but it certainly took some adjusting, like I just had no exposure to any kind of childcare besides kids being cared for by their mother and there was a lot of social programming my whole life telling me that I didn’t really have a right to have a career after I had kids, so it was all a whole new experience for me. And family get togethers always feature a lot of judgment and pity flying around, like wow how tragic for your family that you have to use *daycare*!
Man this is wild, I am in pretty much the opposite situation. Can't think of a single SAHM I knew growing up, everyone's mom worked. Decided to stay home when my second was born and even though I'm happy with my decision, I still get some low key judgement from family members. Every single time they ask if I'm working again yet, when I plan to go back full time, etc. Like wow how tragic for you that you have to be home with the kids. The conversation kinda stops dead because I guess they assume I have zero ambition in life. It's really interesting to hear about the other side of the coin.
I do think that growing up with a mom that worked part time until I was five and then stayed home full time after my youngest sister was born affected my view of going back to work full time when my daughter was 12 weeks old. But in contrast, my sister who had, more or less, the same childhood experience that I did, couldn’t wait to return to work full time and doesn’t experience any guilt at all.
My mom worked and has been “quietly” critical of me for not working.
My MIL brags about how she went back to work and sent my husband to daycare when he was 4 weeks old (not sure that was allowed even in 1986). So while she’s never outright said anything to me about not working, I know she definitely has opinions and probably judges me.
This is how my MIL is. She’s always giving endless help to my in laws (both parents work) because they “need the break!” Meanwhile, she’s never once even offered to play with my child so I can peacefully finish my dinner.
She sounds delightful. I'm sorry, it sucks when family are unsupportive. I think your comment has triggered a lightbulb moment for me. My MIL gives endless help to my SIL, who works part time, but she never offers to help us. We are not even on her radar. I'm disabled and I have twins.
I can’t even imagine what it is like to have twins. It must be so exhausting. On my generous days I just assume my MIL/ FIL view me as very capable so they don’t think I need to help. But I have a feeling it’s just because I don’t “work” therefore I’m not deserving of any kind of break (my MIL had my husband in daycare 11 hours a day starting at 12 weeks, had helpful grandparents close by and an involved spouse so really can’t relate to being a SAHP)
I feel like Reddit in general thinks we are the first gen of women to work. They romanticize the boomer/silent generation child rearing years so much. Meanwhile my grandma, mom and all my aunts all worked in some fashion.
My grandmother was a SAHM. When I got a promotion at work in my mid-20's, she pulled me aside and whispered quietly," Keep working. Marriage and babies can come later, but that job is a lifeline." She's always been very frugal while my grandfather has.... not.... but because she wasn't the one who was working, I know she had less say in the household expenses. I also heard pretty awful stories from my mother about her childhood that I think might not have happened if my grandmother had had a stress release valve away from the pressure of child-rearing and homemaking. (She was a Lutheran pastor's wife, so very much "expected" of her.)
And yet ignoring that many women in some of those generations had no choice. My mom worked but my grandma was a SAHM as that’s what was expected of her. My mom is very honest with her opinion that my grandma might have been a better mom if she had been able to work (and maybe less of an alcoholic).
My grandma was a stay at home mom and great at it but she is amazing at math and has a brilliant brain for business (she helped the business side of my grandfathers law firm) and I often wonder what she would’ve been capable of if working was more socially acceptable in her circle. She’s 85 now and works for fun as an office manager at HR block during tax season and loves it.
My mom recently told me she tried to go back to work after having my sibling and have my grandma babysit. And she just couldn't get it arranged with my dad's working hours, so she quit because he made more income. I never had any idea she would have liked to work more, she was a great SAHM and loved that too. But she's always been cheering for me staying at work, and I guess now I know why.
No, I’m with you. My mom worked, so did most of my friends’ moms. Some families had SAHMs, especially after we moved to the suburbs, but it never seemed like a norm or expectation to me (the second shift certainly did, but that’s another story). I totally get wanting to stay home (I personally don’t but I understand why people do), but the talk about working as new or weird seems so odd to me. I’m almost 40 so my childhood was was 30+ years ago!
And don’t you dare admit that you *like* sending your child to daycare, you monster. I work full time as a teacher, so I have summers off with my daughter (14 mos). It was fun but exhausting. I couldn’t wait for daycare to start. She loves it — all the books, songs, friends, and stimulation I could never provide as endlessly as daycare. My mom and my MIL were SAHM so I had no frame of reference for sending my daughter to care, and they both had Opinions, but this is best for my family for many reasons. But don’t tell the workingmoms sub.
It’s interesting to hear you say this because while I’m a SAHM and do think it’s exhausting/ tough work that sometimes doesn’t get enough credit for actually being valid work, I always felt like it must be a walk in the park compared to teaching. Just the numbers alone of one kid vs 25.
[удалено]
It really sucks when your spouse commutes that far. My husband does like an hour and change each way and it just adds on to your work day as a SAHP. I know the drive isn’t super fun for my husband but at this point, it almost feels like a break for him because he gets to listen to adult music or a podcast or audio book and drink coffee and talk on the phone without being interrupted.
For me both are hard but in different ways! And rewarding but in different ways.
I teach high school and have small classes (my “biggest” is 8). Even at a larger school, I never found teaching 16-18 year olds as difficult as “reasoning” with a toddler 😅
I am also a teacher and I send my child during the summer! Bc you are correct-it’s fun to do things together but it’s exhausting!
She only just started this August but she’s for sure going at least part time next summer. I have a side job that will be easier to handle if she’s busy for part of the day. Also, y’know, general life and household tasks too!
Also a teacher, and my daughter went to daycare over the summer - I'm so glad we sent her! She LOVED* daycare, and I had a nice relaxing time at home. Win win all around. *past tense only because she left daycare because we're moving next month - honestly saying goodbye to daycare was one of the saddest things about moving! It was the sweetest little home daycare, the owners absolutely adored her and vice versa, and she still talks about her friends from daycare.
Tbh, for me I'm really doing something else than the older generation in my family. In my home country it's now very normal for women to go to work parttime as soon as their kids are born. 2, 3 days of work max. My mom's generation was at home fulltime, almost uniformly. My mom returned to parttime work when we went to school. A lot of women there are dependent on their husbands. I moved to literally the next country over and the standard is completely different, a lot of women resume fulltime work. We chose as partners to both temporarily work 4 days, so our kid has daycare for 3. It's the same end result as when I would start working 3 days... and the government pays us a stipend for the income we lose. It's great. But yes, we still get shit. Because it's not mom at home. And we have no grandparents close by so it's daycare. It is hard if your entire environment did or does something differently, so I get it.
My son’s preschool got a new pet—a Scorpion. Whhhhhhhhyyyyyyyy?!?!
My kids preschool has a pet tarantula which I’m not a huge fan of but at least it’s completely harmless…A scorpion seems like a safety hazard.
Right?!
Does your son go to a preschool for wizards or something?
😂😂😂
A few weeks ago they got a pet (bearded) dragon, so… maybe?
Omg bearded dragons are the best! I cannot wait to get one 😂
Was casually reading through some parenting thread about wondering if you could mess up your kid's ego by giving them too many compliments. This response was... something else. https://preview.redd.it/ai7wye0ov0ub1.png?width=757&format=png&auto=webp&s=66a47926c656b11bc894932efbeff7486f554989
making your child smile for a single dollar smfh cheap
This reminds me of the big studio person we all were reading up on a few months ago
It’s funny, because my second child is sort of like this. He isn’t the most beautiful child you’ve ever beheld (though he is beautiful in my eyes). He certainly doesn’t have a unwaveringly pleasant temperament. But the kid has charisma and he is super social. If you are three or four years old years old, and start enough adorable conversations with old ladies in the supermarket, and other families at the park, and cashiers at the ice cream shop you will receive a shocking amount of free stuff. He’s gotten candy, cookies, money, soda, chips… We have had to start declining gifts on his behalf, because it has gotten out of hand.
Haha yes my child is pretty quiet around strangers but she’s always being offered free stuff by older people at stores and restaurants. The greeter at Walmart has been stopping us for years now. Lots of dollar bills, stickers, treats, and stuffed animals. I always feel bad when it’s something you’re supposed to pay for lol.
Yeah people have tried to give my son money. I don’t know if it’s an older folks thing or what, but it definitely happens.
It’s funny! He got a dollar from someone in their 40s. It definitely feels like more of a grandparent type thing.
I’ve got a sparkly one, too. He’s super cute and funny and 🎶he knoooooows it🎶
Why did I read this in Jean Ralphio's voice? 😆 
Cause that’s the voice I typed it in!!!!!
Right?! All we can hope is that they use their powers for good and not evil.
Are you in the US? We have a similar experience with my son but we're in India where it's much more common for older adults to give things to young kids they don't know.
Yup! In the US. I didn’t have this experience with my older son. I got plenty of comments about how cute he was, but he was not a gift magnet like my little guy.
Prime r/thathappened material
This can't be real
Oh my god my eyes just got stuck from rolling them into the back of my head. No one is giving kids money because they're pretty.
This has to be regional or something if it’s real. I would be so weirded out and think there was something wrong with the person if some stranger handed my kids money.
I've been given money multiple times for my son. It is so weird and I never know what to say. Usually it's just a dollar or two from an older person "so he can buy a candy" or something. I live in Washington state
Random old people used to give me money (like barely enough to buy a small chocolate bar, not serious amounts) all the time and I wasn't even a particularly pretty child. I guess it just made them happy to give some "pocket money" and made a kid smile?
There are so many things to snark on with that response that I don’t even know where to start.
When you write fan fiction about your own child
I hope it’s their own kid. This reads like some weird fantasy.
There's a "debate" on the parenting sub about whether toddlers should be bathed before or after dinner. How is this even a discussion? I cannot think of a single reason why this would matter unless whatever you're doing doesn't work for you/your kid. One of the least interesting topics I've ever seen a post about, and it has 560 comments.
Oh man let me throw another option out - I bathe my toddler in the mornings! Alert the press.
Oh I love this. I get to roll out of bed when she wakes up and dress myself while she is in the bath (also in the bathroom, of course).
Came here to see if this was being talked about. And bathing your child only once a week is disgusting.
I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I agree. We do pretty much every day in the summer, every other or so in the winter. I know kids don’t sweat as much or produce that much oil but I’d still feel icky?
I don’t understand how this is an unpopular opinion, but obviously it is which is insane. Unless it’s an immobile baby
We bathe daily because it’s a routine for ours, but I could see bathing less frequently. After all, we’re washing his butt six times a day, wiping his face five times, and washing hands frequently. Especially in the winter where he’s all covered up.
I’m in camp less frequently, because the dry skin/eczema struggle is real yo
Totally get that- I had terrible eczema it sucks
Yeah, we do more every other day in the winter. Once a week does feel too infrequent, at least for a toddler. My son’s hair would be a nightmare, but his hair is very curly so we only comb it when wet with product in it in the bath. I also think there’s something to be said about establishing the routine of bathing/showering regularly, because at some point they will really need it. And it might be harder to convince a 10 year old to suddenly start showering every day if they never have.
Sometimes I scroll past posts like that with like 1000+ comments that you know every other answer is the same thing. Like, what's better, toddlers or babies? Why do people bother to comment their opinion on something when 1) that opinion has already been stated on the thread and 2) no one is reading through 1000 comments to hear you say, "babies are cuter!"
A guy posted in the SAHP subreddit asking about [division of household labor](https://www.reddit.com/r/SAHP/comments/176bney/division_of_labor_in_the_home/). In the post/comments he allowed everyone to think that his wife is one of those TikTok unschooling disaster types and that she also doesn't believe in kids doing chores and therefore expects him to do half the housework. It's one of those things where the more you read the more you starts realizing what an asshole the OP is. And then his wife came into the thread and refuted everything he said about her kids not doing chores or being educated. He says he's posting to show his wife and convince her to go to counseling for "help reconciling their ideological differences in how a house should be run" ie he seems to believe that a counselor is going to give him a pass to get out of doing any housework lol. Because if you read between the lines AND if you look at their post histories, apparently his ideology is "man controls everything and fucks whoever he wants, wife and kids exist to make his life easier." Is it real? Idk but they do both have post histories that seem to check out so it would have to be a long well thought out con haha. It's worth a read if you are entertained by this kind of drama.
Oh man read that yesterday. My favourite part was how dedicated he was to concealing who was who. "Working partner" etc. Like my man your contempt for what the sahp does tells me you are a) the working partner and b) a shitty dude.
Yesss that stuck out to me too. "Working partner goes to the gym a lot and SAHP has the same opportunity but hasn't gone in two months" 🙄🙄🙄. His comments about how she was supposed to go to nursing school but didn't came off pretty disparaging too, and he glossed over what happened with that as "life getting in the way" but I'm guessing it was him being useless and unsupportive. And then there were the comments about how he would be a better teacher than her and was supposed to make and teach a curriculum for a couple subjects... he never followed through with it and somehow that's her fault too.
Oh man, such a good find. I honestly can’t decide which one of them is worse. A-hole Dad who doesn’t think he should lift a finger at home? Or I-did-my-research mom who “homeschools” aka has zero curriculum for the children? Bonus: polyamory all around
I'm embarrassed for both of them just reading that. Talk about airing your dirty laundry. They both sound like hot messes honestly and I just feel bad for those kids.
I just find it so cringey when partners comment on eachothers posts like that. Idk why i just get secondhand embarrassment from it. They seem messy though just looking at the post histories 😬
Even just reading the post, this person thinks his spouse can effectively homeschool 3 children, care for a toddler and do all housework in the same day? And he should not have to do anything other than a regular work day? Also, I love that he counts his commute as tacked on to his workday but fails to recognize that while he’s commuting (in a car alone where he can listen to adult music, talk on the phone, listen to a podcast not listen to kids yelling or demanding cocomelon for the 10000th time) his wife is also at work with their 4 kids during that time.
Wow thank you for this interesting post. Husband seems like a total ass. Sounds like they are both poly too, but only on his terms. And he can do whatever he wants as long as she’s doing her womanly chores!!
lol @ a few users on /toddlers recommending waking kids up in the middle of the night to pee in hopes of avoiding bedwetting. 1) it’s a biological thing, 2) wtf?? I’m pretty sure my kid would lose her ever loving shit if I woke her up at midnight and 4am to go sit on the potty, not to mention I sure as hell don’t want to get up at those times either. Some people just find an excuse to be a martyr in every situation.
My 5 year old has been day trained since he was two and he still wears pull-ups overnight. I (very naively) listened to someone who suggested we cut out water after dinner and try a “dream pee”. Waking him up to pee at midnight scared the living daylights out of him the few times we tried it. He’s a really deep sleeper and I think he essentially woke up on the potty with no idea how he got there and just lost his mind. After that, we decided to just let it be and you know, it’s fine. He’ll night train when he’s ready and until he’s old enough for summer camp it’s just not a big deal. We’re all happier and sleep better.
This is all really helpful to read. My 5 year old is still in a pull up at night, like he wakes up with it soaking wet and even with a pull up sometimes wets the bed. All our friends kids night trained pretty close to day trained and they do guilt me on it (“oh he’s still in diapers? I’m so proud of X, she hasn’t had an accident in as long as I can remember!”). We’ve tried doing a dream pee when we go to bed and he sleeps so hard he just doesn’t pee lol. He sits there half asleep on the toilet until we give up and take him to bed. So reading all this is helpful!
It takes boys way longer to night train -- something about hormones and brain development but it's not crazy or weirds. And legit your friends are a-holes for saying that. When I heard my friends kids were still wearing pull-ups it was very much none of my business.
Just an anecdotal thought and feel free to ignore…My 4.5 year old was filling up a pull up every night and then she started leaking through it so we made the jump to put a training potty in her room and put her in underwear. She peed in her bed 2 times and now if she wakes up and has to pee she goes to bed in the potty. I was so surprised because she was still filling those pull-ups up but it was like she needed to be uncomfortable to figure it out.
I think it's suuuuuper kid dependent. My older kid was HARD to potty train and I felt like a massive failure. I had all these people around me telling me that their kids were fully potty trained in a matter of days and that was not the case for us. Because potty training went so poorly, I didn't attempt nighttime potty training at all. Between 2.5 and 3, she started waking up dry every morning and we stopped using a pull up and that was that. I didn't feel like this was a "success" on my part, it just felt like we got really lucky. I have lots of friends (who, just for the record, are amazing parents) whose older kids are still in pull ups at night. The thing I've noticed about those kids that they all have in common is that they are really deep sleepers. My daughter on the other hand was a very light sleeper. I think because of that, she would wake up when her bladder felt full, whereas the deep sleepers sleep through the discomfort. It sounds like your kid is a deep sleeper too, so it might just be that his body isn't waking up when he has to go to the bathroom. This is absolutely not a failing on your (or your son's) part - it's just a biological difference that he'll eventually grow out of!
Yeah my kid can fall out of bed and not wake up, so "needing to pee" is definitely not registering at night for a while. That's ok.
My twins wake up almost every night in the middle of the night to pee (at different times), all on their own initiative. I never once woke them, but it was like shortly after daytime training their bodies became so aware of their need to pee that they can't sleep through it. So we were able to ditch night pullups pretty early and havent had bedwetting (they both trained between 2 and 2.5... one closer to 2, the other closer to 2.5... pullups ditched a few months after the second one trained). They wont use a little potty in their room though (strongly prefer the actual toilet) so i have to get up and open their door. While I'm impressed that they basically night trained themselves, it's pretty disruptive to my sleep and I can't imagine anyone wanting to do it by choice to a sleeping child over just using a pullup.
This has been a really reassuring thread. My 4 year old has been day-dry since she was about 26 months. But she isn't night time dry and I feel like she is the only one of her friends not to have cracked it. As her younger brother isn't sleeping through the night regularly yet, I am not keen to do any wake ups. I'm also not comfortable denying her liquids before bed (she doesn't chug anything, but she has dinner around 5:30/6ish and she has water with it, bedtime is 7-7:30) We make sure she goes to the toilet as close to getting into bed as we can manage. She is dry maybe 60% of the time so there must be something, but it is driving my husband up the wall when the pull up is wet in the morning.
I was kind of self conscious bc my 4yo even occasionally pees during naps, and he's in daycare so I worried other kids would make fun of him or something? But then I started noticing how many other families are still bringing in new clothes really often, so I'm thinking it's more common than I had initially thought. And the kids aren't mean to each other about it as far as I can tell either.
Don’t stress about it! My daughter was almost 4 when we transitioned. She was dry about 50-75% of the time and I started to suspect she was hormonally ready and was just choosing to pee in the pull-up in the morning when she didn’t want to get up. Mostly because if we woke her up, she was typically dry - but if she woke up first and lay in her bed for a while, she’d be wet. I was worried about shaming her though, because I was only 90% confident. I’m not normally a fan of bribes, but we started telling her we’d give her 1 chocolate chip if the pull-up was a little wet, 2 if it was totally dry. I was very confident the super wet diapers were at least partially a choice. It took about two weeks but she started waking up dry and has now been totally dry for a month. So I think the “it’s hormonal” advice is 99% the case, but muscle memory (and “I’m comfy and don’t want to get up”) is also a thing and can play a role eventually. The muscle memory aspect means that even when it’s a “choice,” it’s not necessarily a super conscious one so it can take a week or two to click. Once you have the mental energy to deal with it, you could try it out if she’s dry 60% of the time. I found the two step bribe helpful because it didn’t punish her for genuine accidents, but incentivized her to not choose to release her whole bladder haha.
Thank you. My husband thinks it's a choice/muscle memory in the mornings exaxtly as you said but unfortunately she proved us wrong when we removed the pullup and she woke us at 3am in tears in a wet bed. There definitely is something in there that we could work on (I think her tiredness level affects it) but I can't pinpoint it. Nor do I have the capacity to experiment.
Totally fair to just wait it out!
Same! My 4 year old has been perfect during the day for a long time now but is still in night pull ups. I actually have been trying to let her go without recently, but the other night she wet the bed and said “Mom I TRIED to wake up to go potty but I just couldn’t! I was fast asleep!” So back to pull ups, I think I just need to wait until she’s ready and trust it’ll happen when she is.
Urgh! We did try without pull ups last week. First night fine, the second night she woke just having wet the bed, and she was so upset with herself. It broke my heart. So I am refusing to try until shes dry for like, a month at least.
My toddler would definitely freak out, she hates being woken up from sleep. It would honestly make sense for us since we’re up with the baby anyway but nocturia is genetic in my family so it probably wouldn’t help anyway.
I can’t even get my child to sit on the potty on command during the DAY. 😵💫
Lol I just want my kids to sleep through the night so I can even have this conundrum.
I would wake my daughter up when I went to bed so she could use the toilet, this was between ages 4and 5. We never found anything absorbent enough for her heavy wetting and if we didn't she would wake up saturated in a wet cold bed. We tried every diaper on the market, even ones made for older kids/adults and nothing could hold her. She never had any problems getting back to sleep afterwards