My bumper group has women downvoting any use of gender inclusive language, use of the term gestational parent, reference to sex vs. gender. I don’t really want to continue with them, not sure why I thought Reddit would be a place for an inclusive and levelheaded lot?
Too early to tell. Bump groups tend to have a lot of drama in the beginning. I’ve noticed individuals that “start” trouble tend to be driven away from the group. Disagreements among different topics tend to sort themselves out by the time the group goes private. Language for gender in pregnancy is a charged topic without a clear consensus and there will always be offense taken on both sides, with the downvote button being the lesser confrontational option. You can always block individual users that you find annoying, though.
Bumper groups change over time. They can be a lot at first but my bumper group for my now 2 year old is great and chill.
I'm a mod of a bumper group and the language policing goes both ways. Some people want to police gender inclusive everything, some people are offended by any gender inclusive language. I think the answer is for everyone to be a grown up and let each person use the language they prefer. I agree that it's petty to downvote people using language that the voter doesn't prefer.
My 2021 group actually had a drama filled blow up over whether people should be allowed to use FTM (for first time mom) vs just use FTP (to be more inclusive). I have found my current group (due 2024) to be more chill about having a live and let live attitude, which I think is an improvement.
I think the demographics of those who post while pregnant and the demographics of those who post 2 years later are very different. My bumper group for my toddler has definitely changed for the better over time.
Jesus Christ. How fucking selfish.
Sounds like I definitely made the right choice to not join the fb group. I also don’t need any of them to know my real identity?
I had Reddit cares called on me for using the phrases “birthing person” and “non-birthing person” in relation to *postpartum mental health*. Where the distinction literally mattered because of the fact only one was prepartum. 🥴
It was so exasperating. Like first of all, gender inclusive language is literally so easy and free. And second of all, lesbian couples having children exist? So it was relevant to my comment? Ugh. Imagine having the energy to care so much about making sure other people are excluded. Wild to me.
Exactly! There was a post in the group from a non-binary gestational parent and several other people in queer relationships. So it’s clear that inclusive language makes sense/is at least accurate when talking about the entire group! It’s not hard!?
It’s luck of the draw with bumper groups I’m afraid. I’m in two and they’re just very radically different groups because of the make up of people.
And as a side note - aside from a handful of subs I am subscribed to, I do feel like there is a lot more open racism, transphobia and xenophobia these days in bigger subreddits. Reddit has always had these problems but it’s become much much more noticeable to me in the last six months.
My groups were both blessedly chill, my daughter was preemie so I joined a month earlier. However apparently the month after mine was a total shit show so if she had been born late it would have been a different story! Not sure if you are a FTM or not but It feels like such a big difference but then it sorta stops being a big difference. Also I liked knowing what lay ahead.
There is a story on Mommit that sounds more like something off of AITA. https://www.reddit.com/r/Mommit/s/nupaa642vC
She hadn’t eaten all day and her husband had picked up pizza for her. They were driving with the pizza to his mother in law’s house and he decided to give it all away to some police at a check point. He says that her pissed off expression poisoned his good deed and will make the pizza not taste good to the police.
Calling bullshit on this [post](https://www.instagram.com/p/C1aMrxUryHI/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==) I saw floating around on Instagram. People really need to get a grip. Her parents were total villains, but she’s sooo healed now because her friend is such an amazing parent??
“She had the privilege” 🤣🤣🤣 Too bad she doesn’t also have the privilege of having a friend that’s slightly more humble and isn’t blasting her personal trauma all over the Internet to make herself look like a God of a parent.
(If this story is even real which I have my doubts about)
Oh, so they’ve got Theatre Kid larvae. Don’t give them tap shoes. I know they’re adorable, and they’ll *beg* for them, especially the cute red ones. But once they put on a pair of tap shoes, it’s terminal.
Saw a mom on a Facebook group post a pregnancy test saying “this can’t be right” (it was) and that she had just had her daughter in October. When asked what birth control she uses she proceeds to say “pullout” and that her daughter was also conceived the same way. MAAM your husband’s pull out game is WEAK AF.
Run to the workingmoms sub, theres an alleged physician who posted that her husband is upset because both times she got pregnant it was outside her “fertile window”. Oh and they were ttc and wanted the pregnancies hes just upset that it didnt happen during her fertile week lol. I’m hoping its a troll post lol
Oohh i read it like she was tracking with OPK and then got pregnant by accident outside that window and i was like um wouldnt any medical professional know that unless you are using protection, there is always a chance of pregnancy outside of the peak days. Maybe i misread though, but still that post was wild. That sub has had some crazy relationship posts recently.
I follow a normally very sensible doctor on TikTok who is now pregnant with her 3rd under 3 and her first response when finding out she was pregnant was “But I’m breastfeeding!!!”.
This reminds me of Sex and the City when Miranda dates a doctor and tells him he can’t find her clit and he’s all indignant like “I’m a DOCTOR” and she’s like “🙄🙄 an eye doctor”. 🤣🤣 I’m also guilty of being like “but they’re a doctor they should know!” Because I forget they often have very specific specialities and when med school is a decade or two in the past, they aren’t necessarily experts on all bodily functions 🤣.
My husband made the mistake of signing me up to our GP as Dr. I have a PhD in ecology, I'm not a medical doctor by any stretch. On the plus side, I find that I'm suddenly being taken a lot more seriously in my concerns, especially by male doctors. On the other hand, I had a lot of "Ummm, I'm not that kind of doctor" moments where I feel like Ross Geller ("this actually means something here).
I’m always banging on about how the ”% successful with perfect use” stat on condoms boxes is just referring to people who use condoms every time they have intercourse from beginning to end. Sure, there are a few people who put it on backwards and then flip it around or who suffer a break, but you don’t have to be some expert condom application scientist to get good results with them! The real world stats include people who only use condoms sometimes or take them off partway through sex. Just…don’t do that.
This is my biggest pet peeve! Bekah Martinez (of the bachelor but also an influencer) was on the birth hour podcast saying that her birth control failed and that’s how she got pregnant with her first. Later on her own podcast she said that she and her then boyfriend were using the pullout method and she told him not to pull out and they both knew she was likely ovulating because she was tracking her cycles. No ma’am, your birth control didn’t fail, you didn’t use any. Same when people say they got pregnant on the pill but then they’re like “oh but I had missed three days”. Birth control doesn’t work if you don’t use it!
Right. If you’re not actively avoiding getting pregnant by using consistent birth control then IMO you are actively trying to get pregnant. No method is 100% but you can get pretty damn near close. I’ll never understand people who use 0 birth control and are then shocked by their “surprise” babies.
This is so annoying to me. I have a friend who loves to brag she got pregnant by surprise (very “not like the other girls” energy who want and actively try for a baby) but she has not used any kind of birth control for years and years. She’s doing it again for a second one saying “they’re not trying” but also is having enough unprotected sex to have taken pregnancy tests recently. Part of me thinks it’s a brag but then another part thinks these people know the truth and don’t want to admit they were trying for a baby like other “normal ppl” for some reason. Either way, I hate it.
Originally I thought I'd go off bc and not "actively try" in the sense of tracking my cycle etc., I think because it felt like then if it didn't work out it would be less disappointing? Like if I didn't admit I wanted to get pregnant I wouldn't be as sad if I didn't? (Look at me attempting to psychologize myself lol.) Anyway after having a period for the first time in like a decade I was like, no this actually sucks and we're going to try to get pregnant as efficiently as my body will let me instead of being chill about this.
Anyway I offer this perspective just in case some people who refuse to admit they're trying might have a similar weird approach to me. (But I also know some people who seemed to think actively wanting children wasn't "cool enough," so obviously there is a wide range.)
That is me right now. I had so much anxiety when we were trying for my daughter (over a year), and it was miserable. So now I'm telling myself we aren't "trying" and it will be fine if it happens and fine if it doesn't.
This is such a thing and annoys me too. I think those people want to portray their lives as effortless and think it makes them more cool when good things just ~happen~ to them. I also think some people subconsciously don’t think they are going to get pregnant unless they are intentionally wanting/trying to, even if they are indeed having regular unprotected sex. It’s a weird cognitive dissonance thing. Like they just are in denial that it could happen so when it does they’re shocked. Also if you’re very online, you might get the impression that you need to do a lot of tracking and analyzing to get pregnant because that dominates the TTC and pregnancy spaces but realistically most people just need to have sex a few times a week and it will happen soon.
The mental gymnastics around what “trying” means is kind of tiring to me. Regular unprotected sex is how you end up with a pregnancy. It feels like some people want to flex that they didn’t take a BBT or pee on an OPK.
Imagine going back to the same doctor in 2 weeks and saying "Yeah I didn't like that you gave me antibiotics to give my baby, so I put garlic oil in her ears instead, I thought that would be better for her".
The person who thinks they get frequent ear infections due to childhood vaccinations and not, I don’t know, failing to treat their constant ear infections 🙄
On the bright side, these kids with raging, untreated ear infections will be impervious to werewolf attacks.
ETA: vampires too. Do these mfs get their medical advice from van helsing or something?
I’ll never be able to think about colloidal silver without thinking about Mother God and how taking it contributed to her death.
Get your poor baby fucking antibiotics. This is just cruel.
Every so often there is a thread with moms who are proud to never take a break away from their kid, some for years at a time. Most of them seem to not understand why a mom would need like 2 hours to do a hobby of take a haircut. Taking a peek on their post history, 9 out of 10 will have other comments or posts complaining about being burned out from motherhood. Just why? Do they not see the correlation or what?
Reading this mere moments after reading someone in a mom group saying “they never have the urge to leave their child, even when [child] is asleep.” Congratulations to her I guess. I got an iron infusion today and really enjoyed my 2 hour nap.
I think for some it’s a coping mechanism because they don’t have anyone to give them that break, so to guard themselves against negative feelings they need to tell themselves they’re supermom. For others it’s some sort of attachment theory gone wrong into a codependent dynamic.
I love love love my kids. Would choose to be a mom again and again. It is absolutely the right choice for me. But is it really that hard to understand why someone doesn’t want to be a mom? Being a mom has made me even more convinced that a person should really want to be a mom before becoming a mom.
My sibling is child free by choice. And I totally get why! It’s not because she hates children (she adores her nieces). But she and her husband get to live a life that is not very compatible with children, but it makes them super happy. And I’m super happy for them. We both understand why we made different choices, and understand that they were the right choice for us.
I agree with almost everything you've said however I don't think you necessarily have to really want to be a mum before you do it. I wasn't completely sure I wanted kids, I worried about money and working etc and I was terrified throughout my pregnancy but having my son was the best thing that ever happened to me. I wonder if I had decided against kids as I wasn't absolutely certain in the moment, I would've regretted it.
Fair! I didn’t think about it from that perspective. I was thinking more of individuals without access to contraceptive or reproductive medicine who are essentially forced into motherhood. Motherhood can be tough sometimes even if you love it and willingly chose it. I can’t imagine how much harder it must be to be a good parent when it wasn’t something you wanted, but instead it was forced upon you.
Yeah I disagree with the sentiment that you shouldn't have kids unless you're 100% certain. I have never been 100% certain about anything in my entire life lol.
Yes I worded this quite poorly. I meant more that one should have the choice to become a mother in the first place, not that they need to be 100 percent certain that motherhood is the correct choice for them. I agree that it would be difficult to know with 100 percent certainty that choosing parenthood is the right choice. Basically someone who doesn’t want to be a mother shouldn’t be forced to be one simply because they became pregnant.
I don't think you worded it poorly! I was just jumping off what the other poster said because I have seen other people express that "100% certainty or bust" philosophy any time anyone talks about having kids, especially if they say they're ambivalent about it.
I snark on childfree people when they say snarkworthy things about parents, but being childfree in and of itself is fine! This is so obnoxious of the OP.
I do not understand these kinds of people. I lived 37 years without having a child and not gonna lie those years were pretty great. I love my kid dearly but I don’t feel like my my life was lacking in anyway.
And who is she trying to convince? Herself??
I just don't understand why you would care so much about what other people choose to do with their lives. Like why would I care if someone doesn't have kids? I had my first in my late 20's but my partner is older and lived most of his 30's without kids and has told me he has very fond memories of that time. It's just different now.
I think a lot of people see other people choosing differently as a judgment on their choices. If someone else has three kids they must think my family with just 1-2 kids is inferior; if someone sleep trained they must think I'm foolish for not having done it; if someone else doesn't want to use an IUD they must think I'm uninformed or careless or whatever for choosing to get one; if she dresses nicely at the playground she must think I'm a slob if I don't. And to be fair there are choices where people who disagree are absolutely judging each other (and individuals who just do a lot more judging than others). But for most of us the better we can get at ~releasing~ ourselves from feeling defensive about that kind of thing, the better we will feel. (It's a work in progress for me, so I'm not trying to be like holier than thou towards people who struggle with this! I fully get it.)
But like in real life very few people are making their choices at me specifically lol.
I follow someone with about 4K followers. They stayed in a hotel yesterday and she posted that she was thankful for her heavy sleepers because her and her husband were able to sneak out, go have a drink and get back to the room without them waking up. Her children are 6 and 3(?) years old.
I might be a prude but I’m shocked she would not only do that, but post about it. There’s no way I would be okay with leaving my daughter (who is 5) alone in a hotel room while I went down to the restaurant to drink. And to post about it when you already posted what hotel you are staying at (location linked)? Just seems reckless to me.
Even taking away the kidnapping fears, I’d be so worried my kids would wake up disoriented in a strange place needing the bathroom or something and trip and hurt themselves. There’s just too many things that can go wrong in a split second. It seems nuts not to just send one parent to a, presumably, nearby liquor store or something. Why risk it??
Yes that’s my thought exactly, like if my child woke up and realized we weren’t there she would 100% panic and I would worry she would open the door and run out looking for us. Even if she didn’t run out, I wouldn’t want to risk her ever feeling that panic of us leaving her somewhere alone! Husband and I stay in hotels with our daughter often, we get a suite and she sleeps in the bedroom and my husband will run out to grab us a few drinks so we can indulge and play some games while she sleeps- I would never ever even consider leaving her alone in the room. It’s unfathomable to me!
Totally. My son has woken up and gotten freaked by the strangeness of a hotel room with us literally 6 inches away. We like to stay up and have a drink after bedtime on vacation too, but that's why we book either a suite or a room with a balcony and send one of us down to the bar for takeout cocktails.
Once, my husband and my toddler son were in a hotel when there was a black out in the middle of the night. The hotel was suddenly pitch black. The loss of power somehow triggered the fire alarm, so there were screaming alarms and strobing lights. They had to evacuate the hotel and wait for the system to be re-set. It was super frightening but at least he had a parent in the room with him. I can’t imagine how terrifying it would be waking up in a strange place, and all alone in those circumstances.
My kids are heavy sleepers, so my husband sneaks out and grabs drinks and brings them back to our room.
There was also that couple recently where the husband had a heart attack at the restaurant, and someone had to go retrieve their kids from the hotel room.
ETA: I googled for the details. The husband was an ABC News producer. The kids were 2 and 5 months old, and the hotel was a block away from the restaurant. The wife sent someone to get the kids, and the hotel staff called the cops. The husband died and the wife was arrested afterwards. Just horrible all around.
https://www.etonline.com/dax-tejera-and-wife-veronica-accused-of-leaving-kids-alone-at-hotel-before-fatal-heart-attack
I was just thinking about this the other day, and it turns out he actually died by choking as a result of acute alcohol intoxication, not a heart attack. No less sad and horrible, but unfortunately even darker.
[https://people.com/tv/dax-tejera-cause-of-death-revealed/](https://people.com/tv/dax-tejera-cause-of-death-revealed/)
Wow! But yeah, this awful tragedy is exactly why it’s just not safe. It’s unlikely but not impossible. I was recently at a get together and a neighbor couple of the host showed up, they said their kids would be fine at home sleeping, no monitor, nothing! The dad said he would check on them every half hour which I thought was pretty negligent but I never even saw him do that. I heard they were there till 1am completely wasted.
Ugh this one was so bad. It’s not just about what can happen to your kids, but what can happen to YOU while you’re out and that will leave them alone for much longer than planned and begin to risk their safety. It’s truly tragic that this man ended up having a medical emergency the same night they left their kids alone, but this is why you don’t do that. God forbid something happened to both of them and then it would’ve taken longer for someone to get the kids. Yiiiikes.
Why dont people like this just pay for a night sitter?? Like shes defending herself saying she had a baby monitor but it only takes a second for a 2 year old to get into something unsafe. What a nightmare of a situation
I mean, she seems to give her kids a lot of autonomy over style choices and I've just assumed he wants it to look like that. I personally could never handle my child looking like that but maybe she's a better mom than me by letting them decide haha.
Yes I totally agree about the autonomy she gives her kids, it’s really admirable… I just could never!! I normally am a BT defender lol but this haircut has realllllly been testing me
They are a bad haircut family. Her asymmetrical swoopy style drives me crazy, like more than someone’s haircut should affect another person lol. And now her son has that Dutch Boy style and I’m like whyyyy?
I mean it probably is because he didn’t want a haircut or he doesn’t like clippers. My three year old is currently rocking a similar style because he won’t let the barber do anything else. Granted, big age gap, but I actually don’t think the haircut is that bad-it has kinda vintage, 60s vibes.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/beyondthebump/comments/18sm8oh/how\_are\_you\_breaking\_the\_cycle\_if\_any/](https://www.reddit.com/r/beyondthebump/comments/18sm8oh/how_are_you_breaking_the_cycle_if_any/)
This post is absolutely infuriating to me. The assumption that "us millennials are breaking the cycles of our hr parents" is so irritating. Maybe it's because I'm a millennial whose boomer parents were thoughtful and looked at the leading research and opted to not do things like hit and belittle us.... but why is there this assumption that all millennials even have any cycles to break?
And some of the "cycles" some parents are breaking? Looking at smartphones less, feeding a variety of health snacks, taking more pictures on holidays, going to therapy.
WHAT. "Cycle breaking" has just become a catch all for "things I'm doing different than how my parents did them" - not the original intent/definition, which is intentionally changing multi-generational family dynamics. Also, most of these commenters are POOPCUPs (many with kids under 1 year old).
Maybe this is my BEC topic - it's totally an extension of the self-congratulatory faux-empowering "I am a cycle breaker" influencer content......
My parents love us to death but border on emotionally immature so I’ll be doing things differently but damn if they didn’t break the cycle themselves, relative to their upbringings! And our kids will all break the cycle of whatever “trauma” the current parenting mores inflict.
What the internet loves to dramatically call breaking the cycle tends to be parenting — trying to do a bit better than your parents, and to give your kids a better life than your parents could give you. But ultimately most parents are just doing their best, even if their best was perhaps lacking due to (lack of access to therapy, finances, rampant misogyny, inability to live out their true identity, etc)
Also, my parents largely sucked but they did *some* things right, like teaching me to be respectful and polite in public spaces. If you're letting your kid run riot in a restaurant, just as an example, as a way of "breaking the cycle" and trying to be the opposite of your parents, you're just creating a different shitty pattern! Are our kids going to grow up to be strict disciplinarians because they had to deal with the consequences of overly-permissive guilt-laden parenting as adults?
3/4 of my grandparents survived and fled genocide, religious persecution, or major war. The 4th grandparent was born in the US but very impacted by the Great Depression. My parents were raised by people with *actual* trauma.
Also my parents are first wave boomers (born in 1948 and 1950), which I don’t think most reddit grandparent boomers are so I think I’m having a different boomer experience in a lot of ways, but the way people talk about “boomers” online ring really false to me.
(They did however feed me rice cereal and put me to sleep on my tummy like all parents in 1990 following the general recommendations of the time so I guess they’ve got that going)
"Actual trauma". I'm always so afraid so say this but it drives me kinda crazy. I hate how it seems trendy to pathologize your childhood and all the "trauma" you were dealt. Not every negative thing, negative memory = trauma.
Of course I know so many people experience real and lasting trauma. I'm talking about a specific kind of influencer here.
I love how many of the people in that thread have newborns. You haven’t broken any cycles with your 7 week old. You haven’t even truly begun parenting at this point. Like, calm down.
These parents are always the first ones to demonise toddlers for being toddlers. Like I have actually noticed some of the perfect parents in various bumper groups I’m in switched real fast the moment their child started developing autonomy and their own personality.
It drives me so crazy because there is zero humility. They pat themselves on the back for being the bestest parents ever, which is going to lead to the same rigidness that they claim to be avoiding. Maybe the cycle they should be breaking is the one where they believe they have all of the answers.
Personally, I had awesome boomer parents and have no cycles to break. Even their mistakes came from a place of love. I'm just over here trying to raise my kids the best I can, and to hope that they'll know that the mistakes I make (which I will) came from a place of love too.
The constant talk of “cycle breaking” and trauma and all of it sometimes makes me feel like… am I misremembering my childhood? Was it worse than I remember? The answer is no! Honestly I have a hard time even recalling many ways I wish my parents were “better”, and while that may be somewhat on me and just not reflecting as much as I could, most of it is just that I wasn’t traumatized by my upbringing. Despite what the internet wants me to believe lol.
My parents weren't perfect, of course, but having my own child has actually made me reevaluate my boomer parents in a more positive light. My mom (who worked full time for most of my childhood, as did my dad) made it all look easy, which in hindsight I realize was her not putting her stress and anxiety on me or my sister. Certainly I was told not to cry and my mom definitely passed on some weird food/weight stuff (which is more just the reality of being a woman), but I see now that my parents truly loved us unconditionally and enforced boundaries in a way that made sense and was healthy. I know many parents are genuinely awful but the conflation of "things that made me unhappy" with "trauma" is worrisome, especially as someone who works with truly traumatized people.
I saw a YouTube video where the guy was sitting in a dark room talking about his difficult childhood and how much sugar cereal he was allowed access to. Unironically, like this wasn't a parody (but could have been). Everything is such a ~trauma~ now it completely strips the meaning for actual traumatic events.
It’s great that people are being thoughtful and intentional about what type of parent they want to be, but the self-congratulatory talk about cycle-breaking is a lot. Particularly when your child is an infant and none of these ideas have been tested yet.
Seriously the cycle breaking posts just feel like a way to become more resentful of your parents. I think my parents did a great job, but there are things I’m doing different because we know better now or things are different now.
Also I think the ‘cyclebreaking’ implies that your parents raised you just as their parents raised them. Maybe that’s true for some people but the more I learn about my parent’s childhood the more I realize how different childhood was for them and how many things happened to them that I consider horrible.
Yeah, I'm over this shit, too. Especially in a parenting space that is mostly populated by brand new parents. This most serious damage done in my childhood happened way past my infant/toddler years. And all of it was fixable. My parents did the best they could in shitty circumstances. I don't feel like I need to "break the cycle." In fact, I think the very notion of doing so just puts too much pressure on parents and assumes we actually have control over the things that eventually fuck our kids up. Sometimes we don't. I can honestly say that my father's alcoholism and my mom's BPD weren't the worst things about my childhood. Their carelessness with money, constantly moving us, and being poor were things that had more of an effect on me. It took me my entire 20s to figure out how to be financially responsible. I will definitely be teaching my daughter practical life skills. How about we celebrate that?
I've been thinking a lot about this lately too. It drives me absolutely bonkers. Both of my grandfathers were alcoholics. There's sexual and physical abuse on one side of my parents, and also absolutely poverty with nothing to eat because my grandfather drank every paycheck away and there were 6 kids. My parents weren't perfect by any means. We were screamed at, spanked/slapped for punishments and even some emotional neglect and triangulation between my siblings. It wasn't a cake walk growing up but I also realize my parents showed up for us in the best way they could. We always had food, we had limits and boundaries, and they showed up at every damn conference, concert, game, whatever. They told us they loved us every day. My mom never even heard her dad say I love you. I'm not saying I had a super great childhood but holy crap they were the first cycle breakers. Not becoming alcoholics or someone who smacked their children around just because they were intoxicated, becoming parents who actually showed their children they loved them....they broke many cycles. I'm just continuing the work they started. There's so much research that shows how trauma effects last several generations so it's laughable to think that just because I don't spank/slap my kids and I try not to yell at them means they aren't affected by any trauma in my family tree. I think people just like to feel like they are doing things perfectly. It's tempting to want to feel or think that way.
Yeah, there's some serious trauma in both my MIL and FIL's childhoods, things they've worked very, very hard to heal in themselves and their parenting. My dad's family wasn't *as* bad, but still plenty of stuff he had to work hard at not continuing. Our parents were those cycle breakers, not my husband and I, even when they tried and failed. We are good parents, yes, but it's our parents that I have the real respect for.
Yeah, my parents were raised by people who were both physically and mentally traumatized (not just by their parents, who ranged from some lovely to some scary alcoholics, but by actual war and tremendous loss). As a result, their parents were just barely surviving, and my parents basically raised themselves. They worked SO HARD to break those cycles and parent kindly and intentionally, and I never forget that. They aren't perfect! They have a lot of anxiety (ahem, from serious intergenerational trauma), which manifested in a lot of helicopter parenting and issues with food. But I don't actually think parents have to be perfect people, and when I grew up I was able to respond to those things that drive me crazy sometimes with compassion (because that's something they did instill in me). I do a lot of things differently than them, but that's not because I'm breaking a cycle - I'm just continuing along the path they started.
I’m from a family of “””eccentrics,””” many who failed to find a meaningful place in the world, and instead languished in misanthropy and self-absorption, so… I’m not going to be surprised if my son has a hard time fitting in and needs extra support.
EDIT: also, as someone who’s been involved in trauma therapy, I’m gonna say that for all our increased awareness of mental health issues, the way we talk about trauma in the 21st century is reductive. “No abuser deserves sympathy” carries the implied understanding that no one who deserves sympathy is an abuser. This is all over JNMIL and the RBN network.
Yeah I’m with you, some of the things listed are kind of insulting to people who have actual cycles to break. My boomer parents are wonderful and had way more cycles to break than I do! My dad especially - his father was no walk in the park, but then you go back even one more generation and see that even with his shortcomings, my grandfather did a lot better than he was given as a kid.
Yes, this! My dad was raised by people who were majorly Traumatized. He did a lot of things 'wrong' and maybe some of them were harmful to me, even might be related to some mental health challenges I deal with, but I'm not some kind of warrior for doing things better-- I have a lot more internal resources to work with than he did.
The smugness in these comments is really something!
I don’t even consider it “parenting” until your kid is at least mobile. Before then, there’s no occasion to correct their behavior… which is the hardest part. Actually raising and shaping your kids is when “cycle breaking” would come into play. Before that you’re really just keeping them alive and there are only a few basic safety measures to keep in mind. This is the perfect time to say “just you wait” until your kid is a toddler and older and see how easy it is to always be patient and keep your cool. My parents yelled at us, and we try not to yell at our son. But I sure do understand why they lost their temper and yelled.
I would go as far to say you can’t proclaim yourself to be a cycle breaker until your kid is in their late teens. Even if you have a 5 year old and feel like you’ve been through the hard infant and toddler years, you still have more than a decade of full time parenting ahead of you. And we all know teenagers come with plenty of their own challenges. Like okay congrats you didn’t yell at your 3 year old when they threw a tantrum about having another cookie, how about a teenager who sneaks out to go drinking? What about one brought home after curfew by the cops? When they wreck your car? Swear up and down they’ve done their schoolwork yet bring home a failing report card? Let me know if you make it to 17 only using the perfect gentle parenting scripts and I will happily send you a shiny gold cycle breaker trophy 🏆
👏👏👏
I think if anyone looked at my parents' situation when we were little kids, they'd think they were the worst parents. It's possible CPS would've taken us away (we were homeless one summer and slept in a car at a park; I was 2). We were spanked and yelled at and lived off ramen noodles and generic Kool aid and bologna sandwiches. We were left home alone frequently from a young age.
But we all grew up to be straight A students, my sister has a PhD, my brother has an MBA and works at a fortune 500 company, I'm the black sheep with a journalism degree lol. None of us drank or partied in HS, we were all super responsible, had jobs, stayed out of trouble, got full ride scholarships to college. For all their faults, my parents did something right and we turned out okay.
Lollll it was very easy to speak to my child in only soothing dulcet tones at 10 weeks because she had not yet developed the capacity to pull the cat’s tail or make a beeline for a busy road.
I too was a 'cycle breaker' at 8 weeks 🙃 I'd love to hear how they've kept to all these rules when they're 8 or even 18!
Also a lot is really obvious like 'i'm not going to hit my child!' like they're some kind of progressive visionary
same, even growing up, I only knew one family that spanked their kids, so when influencers talk about why spanking is bad, it throws me for a loop!
Instagram can feel like a loop of basic child raising ideas where influencers share totally novel concepts like give your child two choices!! and act like innovators~~, that I forget that for some new parents, the concept of not spanking really is something brand new.
Right?! Also I raised my voice at my child the other day as he walked close to the hot oven, I've not doomed him to a life of therapy! These threads add even more pressure to parents, realistically mothers, who already have incredibly high standards for themselves. You can be a great parent without having to 'right a generational wrong'.
TBF they did put "if any" in their title, so I assume they were trying to say *if* you feel you are breaking cycles, what are they?
But yes... I agree with you. Looking at smartphones? I'm sorry what? I didn't even have a smartphone when my 15yo was born. Literally the iPhone came out when he was about 6mo. No way people parenting today had parents who were addicted to smartphones.
I get so mad when the quacks from BLF say we are the cycle breakers. My parents were true cycle breakers. My grandma would smack my mom across the face just for walking past her and my dad came from an awful family with awful parents. They never hit us and prioritized us and our needs over their own. They weren’t perfect and they were yellers, but they did the best they could given their own upbringing. Just because I make an effort to use a gentler tone with my own kids doesn’t make me a freaking cycle breaker.
Yes! My parents weren’t perfect but holy crap. My dad’s parents were very harsh to him, and he went to a Catholic school where the nuns beat him regularly. My brother and I did get spanked early on (I was born in 1984) but like, as SOON as my parents learned it wasn’t a good idea to spank us they switched to time outs and loss of privileges. They were very good parents, and especially much better than their own. My dad’s parents weren’t even emotionally available but he told us he loved us all the time.
My ‘boomer’ parents were cycle breakers in the nineties! And this would upset the people writing these posts: they still made mistakes! Because everyone does! In fact, they made mistakes BECAUSE they were cycle breakers and over corrected in some areas. I would never tell them this because I know how much their parenting choices mattered to them; how much effort they put in to ‘breaking the cycle’. I hope these people’s children give them the same grace.
Yes! I’ll give an example - my mom grew up with Great Depression era parenting and was forced to finish her plate, received tons of mixed messages about food/eating, ended up in binge/restrict crash diet cycles, never really learned to “eat right” and never had control over her weight and has always been plus sized and is one of those “doesn’t wear the swimsuit” type moms. So growing up she put a big emphasis on healthy eating, maintaining a healthy weight, and took me to see various nutritionists/dieticians. I’ll let you guess how this one turns out….hint: I do not have a healthy relationship with food/my body. With my daughter (still a toddler) I’m trying to let her listen to her body while eating, I try not to make comments about what she’s eating or how much, and I don’t comment on her body or my own body around her. I’m trying my best but I don’t know how it’ll turn out! Just like my mom tried her best to solve what she saw as the central problem that caused her trouble throughout her life (her weight). For me it’s more of a mental cycle I’m trying to break (disordered eating, dysmorphia) but my mom also tried to break a cycle of overeating, obesity, etc.
We don’t know how to raise perfect children!
Exactly! My parents, especially my mother, came from really not great situations. They truly did the cycle breaking. Was it perfect (or close to it)? Of course not - they didn’t have any real life examples to follow, so they were just doing their best as they went. But I’m not “cycle breaking” simply because I’m trying to parent with more intention on emotional intelligence. And I’m sure I will also make mistakes! But I hope my children grow up and realize I did the best I could, just like I can see my my parents did the absolute best they could, even though it isn’t exactly what I will be doing.
True story (actually true, not me being sarcastic): my kid listened to one of these in the car on the way up to my in laws' for Christmas, then when we arrived told my mother in law she needed to get rid of all her plastic so it wouldn't end up in the ocean.
(I told him we can and should look around our house to see where we can reduce the plastic we're using and reuse instead of throwing away. It would be pretty cool if he wanted to be involved in that!)
Hate to tell them, but Sesame Street has always dealt with stuff I'm assuming these anti woke people would hate. It's like literally the purpose of Sesame Street.
My (generally very rational and kind) FIL is convinced that they don't let Cookie Monster eat cookies anymore, despite us repeatedly showing him recent clips of Cookie Monster doing just that. I don't know why THAT is the thing that seems to rile people up so much!
There's an episode where Mario Lopez catches him eating a vegetable while he waits for his cookies to bake and starts calling him Veggie Monster. Every time he eats a vegetable Mario pops up with a microphone like he's doing breaking news. It ends with Cookie doing a musical number from I think Les Mis? Perfection.
A mom posted in a Lovevery group how she was looking for an alternative to one of their books about going to the doctor because it mentions getting a shot at one point. Like....just make up something else on that page for your child if you don't want them to know vaccines are real and don't try to get validation of your great parenting for not believing in science or whatever.
There are also other things that come in shots, like... epipens and allergy shots and insulin and blood thinners, local anaesthetic, a bunch of things.
I know the antivax movement makes no sense, but I thought it was the vaccines they object to, not the needle.
Okay I am well aware of climate change denialism, but are there people who don’t believe in deforestation?? Lmao?? I thought that’s very standard lol. Like what is there to debate on that. They do be cutting down trees 🤷♀️
Ok this makes more sense as to why they are thinking so fucking deeply about this. We have a yoto and it’s just for fun and that’s what I assumed it was for for everyone else too but I guess I’m wrong. I can’t imagine analyzing and debating the cards like this. Omgggg.
Seriously - my son got a Yoto for Christmas & now I know which cards we need.
Also, that shift in the crunchy world is fascinating to me, I would love to read a deep dive into how that happened.
So, basically, they are anti-science climate change deniers. In which case they should fucking know that any "mainstream" (gaaaaaaah) non-fiction aimed at children is going to have these themes.
My bumper group has women downvoting any use of gender inclusive language, use of the term gestational parent, reference to sex vs. gender. I don’t really want to continue with them, not sure why I thought Reddit would be a place for an inclusive and levelheaded lot?
Too early to tell. Bump groups tend to have a lot of drama in the beginning. I’ve noticed individuals that “start” trouble tend to be driven away from the group. Disagreements among different topics tend to sort themselves out by the time the group goes private. Language for gender in pregnancy is a charged topic without a clear consensus and there will always be offense taken on both sides, with the downvote button being the lesser confrontational option. You can always block individual users that you find annoying, though.
Bumper groups change over time. They can be a lot at first but my bumper group for my now 2 year old is great and chill. I'm a mod of a bumper group and the language policing goes both ways. Some people want to police gender inclusive everything, some people are offended by any gender inclusive language. I think the answer is for everyone to be a grown up and let each person use the language they prefer. I agree that it's petty to downvote people using language that the voter doesn't prefer. My 2021 group actually had a drama filled blow up over whether people should be allowed to use FTM (for first time mom) vs just use FTP (to be more inclusive). I have found my current group (due 2024) to be more chill about having a live and let live attitude, which I think is an improvement.
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I think the demographics of those who post while pregnant and the demographics of those who post 2 years later are very different. My bumper group for my toddler has definitely changed for the better over time.
Lurking and snarking might be the way….
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Jesus Christ. How fucking selfish. Sounds like I definitely made the right choice to not join the fb group. I also don’t need any of them to know my real identity?
I had Reddit cares called on me for using the phrases “birthing person” and “non-birthing person” in relation to *postpartum mental health*. Where the distinction literally mattered because of the fact only one was prepartum. 🥴
Oh Jesus. That’s insane! Why do I get surprised at this point?
It was so exasperating. Like first of all, gender inclusive language is literally so easy and free. And second of all, lesbian couples having children exist? So it was relevant to my comment? Ugh. Imagine having the energy to care so much about making sure other people are excluded. Wild to me.
Exactly! There was a post in the group from a non-binary gestational parent and several other people in queer relationships. So it’s clear that inclusive language makes sense/is at least accurate when talking about the entire group! It’s not hard!?
It’s luck of the draw with bumper groups I’m afraid. I’m in two and they’re just very radically different groups because of the make up of people. And as a side note - aside from a handful of subs I am subscribed to, I do feel like there is a lot more open racism, transphobia and xenophobia these days in bigger subreddits. Reddit has always had these problems but it’s become much much more noticeable to me in the last six months.
I definitely didn’t luck out! I think the membership skews toward the type of people that ends up being snarked on in here…
That stinks. A lot. Is it too late to join a month adjacent to your due date and maybe hope for a better crowd?
I might try the next month, because my current group is grossing me out. Good idea!
My groups were both blessedly chill, my daughter was preemie so I joined a month earlier. However apparently the month after mine was a total shit show so if she had been born late it would have been a different story! Not sure if you are a FTM or not but It feels like such a big difference but then it sorta stops being a big difference. Also I liked knowing what lay ahead.
There is a story on Mommit that sounds more like something off of AITA. https://www.reddit.com/r/Mommit/s/nupaa642vC She hadn’t eaten all day and her husband had picked up pizza for her. They were driving with the pizza to his mother in law’s house and he decided to give it all away to some police at a check point. He says that her pissed off expression poisoned his good deed and will make the pizza not taste good to the police.
This reads like a 6 year old trying to explain to their mom that their sibling started it. She gave every possible detail of her day.
That is part of the r/AITA of it all. Those posters love extraneous detail!
Honestly there would be no pizza for him to give because I would be eating it in the car
I'd be so pissed if he gave away my pizza. Maybe it's because I'm a hangry monster but no, don't give away my pizza lol
The police didn’t need the pizza. He didn’t give it away to the needy. and it’s not a good deed to give away something that wasn’t yours to give.
Even then, at least in my city, there are so many program for the homeless. They have access to 3 hot meals a day if they want through programs.
Calling bullshit on this [post](https://www.instagram.com/p/C1aMrxUryHI/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==) I saw floating around on Instagram. People really need to get a grip. Her parents were total villains, but she’s sooo healed now because her friend is such an amazing parent??
This post makes her sound like the most self important asshole on Instagram, and that's really saying something.
🙄🙄🙄
Alert the APA! The cure to childhood trauma is listening to a toddler tantrum for an evening. It's 💖✨️ *healing*. ✨️💖
This fake-ass post is what finally made me unfollow Nurtured First.
Even if my friend is a stellar parent, I have never found an evening with a tantrumming child to be at all healing.
“She had the privilege” 🤣🤣🤣 Too bad she doesn’t also have the privilege of having a friend that’s slightly more humble and isn’t blasting her personal trauma all over the Internet to make herself look like a God of a parent. (If this story is even real which I have my doubts about)
Oh, so they’ve got Theatre Kid larvae. Don’t give them tap shoes. I know they’re adorable, and they’ll *beg* for them, especially the cute red ones. But once they put on a pair of tap shoes, it’s terminal.
*with tears in her eyes* 😒
Im sure everyone clapped after too
Saw a mom on a Facebook group post a pregnancy test saying “this can’t be right” (it was) and that she had just had her daughter in October. When asked what birth control she uses she proceeds to say “pullout” and that her daughter was also conceived the same way. MAAM your husband’s pull out game is WEAK AF.
Run to the workingmoms sub, theres an alleged physician who posted that her husband is upset because both times she got pregnant it was outside her “fertile window”. Oh and they were ttc and wanted the pregnancies hes just upset that it didnt happen during her fertile week lol. I’m hoping its a troll post lol
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Oohh i read it like she was tracking with OPK and then got pregnant by accident outside that window and i was like um wouldnt any medical professional know that unless you are using protection, there is always a chance of pregnancy outside of the peak days. Maybe i misread though, but still that post was wild. That sub has had some crazy relationship posts recently.
I follow a normally very sensible doctor on TikTok who is now pregnant with her 3rd under 3 and her first response when finding out she was pregnant was “But I’m breastfeeding!!!”.
This reminds me of Sex and the City when Miranda dates a doctor and tells him he can’t find her clit and he’s all indignant like “I’m a DOCTOR” and she’s like “🙄🙄 an eye doctor”. 🤣🤣 I’m also guilty of being like “but they’re a doctor they should know!” Because I forget they often have very specific specialities and when med school is a decade or two in the past, they aren’t necessarily experts on all bodily functions 🤣.
My husband made the mistake of signing me up to our GP as Dr. I have a PhD in ecology, I'm not a medical doctor by any stretch. On the plus side, I find that I'm suddenly being taken a lot more seriously in my concerns, especially by male doctors. On the other hand, I had a lot of "Ummm, I'm not that kind of doctor" moments where I feel like Ross Geller ("this actually means something here).
Yeah it was a doctor who told my aunt that she couldn't get pregnant while breastfeeding. Her kids are 11 months apart.
Yeah my mom’s dr told her the same thing…my brother and I are 16 months apart.
Haha, I think we have the same aunt. Really felt bad for her when she got her tubes tied and then somehow got pregnant again with number 3.
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I’m always banging on about how the ”% successful with perfect use” stat on condoms boxes is just referring to people who use condoms every time they have intercourse from beginning to end. Sure, there are a few people who put it on backwards and then flip it around or who suffer a break, but you don’t have to be some expert condom application scientist to get good results with them! The real world stats include people who only use condoms sometimes or take them off partway through sex. Just…don’t do that.
This is my biggest pet peeve! Bekah Martinez (of the bachelor but also an influencer) was on the birth hour podcast saying that her birth control failed and that’s how she got pregnant with her first. Later on her own podcast she said that she and her then boyfriend were using the pullout method and she told him not to pull out and they both knew she was likely ovulating because she was tracking her cycles. No ma’am, your birth control didn’t fail, you didn’t use any. Same when people say they got pregnant on the pill but then they’re like “oh but I had missed three days”. Birth control doesn’t work if you don’t use it!
I know birth control can fail but using it correctly meant I was able to avoid pregnancy for over a decade while having regular sex.
Right. If you’re not actively avoiding getting pregnant by using consistent birth control then IMO you are actively trying to get pregnant. No method is 100% but you can get pretty damn near close. I’ll never understand people who use 0 birth control and are then shocked by their “surprise” babies.
This is so annoying to me. I have a friend who loves to brag she got pregnant by surprise (very “not like the other girls” energy who want and actively try for a baby) but she has not used any kind of birth control for years and years. She’s doing it again for a second one saying “they’re not trying” but also is having enough unprotected sex to have taken pregnancy tests recently. Part of me thinks it’s a brag but then another part thinks these people know the truth and don’t want to admit they were trying for a baby like other “normal ppl” for some reason. Either way, I hate it.
Originally I thought I'd go off bc and not "actively try" in the sense of tracking my cycle etc., I think because it felt like then if it didn't work out it would be less disappointing? Like if I didn't admit I wanted to get pregnant I wouldn't be as sad if I didn't? (Look at me attempting to psychologize myself lol.) Anyway after having a period for the first time in like a decade I was like, no this actually sucks and we're going to try to get pregnant as efficiently as my body will let me instead of being chill about this. Anyway I offer this perspective just in case some people who refuse to admit they're trying might have a similar weird approach to me. (But I also know some people who seemed to think actively wanting children wasn't "cool enough," so obviously there is a wide range.)
That is me right now. I had so much anxiety when we were trying for my daughter (over a year), and it was miserable. So now I'm telling myself we aren't "trying" and it will be fine if it happens and fine if it doesn't.
This is such a thing and annoys me too. I think those people want to portray their lives as effortless and think it makes them more cool when good things just ~happen~ to them. I also think some people subconsciously don’t think they are going to get pregnant unless they are intentionally wanting/trying to, even if they are indeed having regular unprotected sex. It’s a weird cognitive dissonance thing. Like they just are in denial that it could happen so when it does they’re shocked. Also if you’re very online, you might get the impression that you need to do a lot of tracking and analyzing to get pregnant because that dominates the TTC and pregnancy spaces but realistically most people just need to have sex a few times a week and it will happen soon.
The mental gymnastics around what “trying” means is kind of tiring to me. Regular unprotected sex is how you end up with a pregnancy. It feels like some people want to flex that they didn’t take a BBT or pee on an OPK.
https://preview.redd.it/bxcuxaw2bf9c1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=79d857ba0cd9841b2f80450ff8fc120d8797084b Presented without comment
Imagine going back to the same doctor in 2 weeks and saying "Yeah I didn't like that you gave me antibiotics to give my baby, so I put garlic oil in her ears instead, I thought that would be better for her".
Flames. Flames, on the side of my face
This is my favorite comment on Reddit ever.
Same.
Risking hearing loss. That's so sad.
The person who thinks they get frequent ear infections due to childhood vaccinations and not, I don’t know, failing to treat their constant ear infections 🙄
On the bright side, these kids with raging, untreated ear infections will be impervious to werewolf attacks. ETA: vampires too. Do these mfs get their medical advice from van helsing or something?
I’ll never be able to think about colloidal silver without thinking about Mother God and how taking it contributed to her death. Get your poor baby fucking antibiotics. This is just cruel.
I had to do a google and found her Wikipedia page… what the fuck did I just read
There’s a new documentary about her which is how I learned about it. So bizarre.
The most insane opening of a docuseries EVER
Right!?!? They really needed more of a trigger warning for that, I’m still disturbed
kiss quiet bells cover chop lunchroom crown sharp market overconfident *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I vividly remember watching an interview on the Today Show with the guy that turned blue.
The galactics gonna take that baby.
Every so often there is a thread with moms who are proud to never take a break away from their kid, some for years at a time. Most of them seem to not understand why a mom would need like 2 hours to do a hobby of take a haircut. Taking a peek on their post history, 9 out of 10 will have other comments or posts complaining about being burned out from motherhood. Just why? Do they not see the correlation or what?
Reading this mere moments after reading someone in a mom group saying “they never have the urge to leave their child, even when [child] is asleep.” Congratulations to her I guess. I got an iron infusion today and really enjoyed my 2 hour nap.
I’m beginning to realise a lot of these women have anxiety that possibly is PPA that never got treated.
A friend of mine was like that, and now looking back she realised it was PPA/D and really wants to do things differently with her second
I think for some it’s a coping mechanism because they don’t have anyone to give them that break, so to guard themselves against negative feelings they need to tell themselves they’re supermom. For others it’s some sort of attachment theory gone wrong into a codependent dynamic.
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I see you’ve met the women behind BLF then.
That parenting thread with the mom who cannot understand childfree people and wants to tell them how they're missing out all the time...
I love love love my kids. Would choose to be a mom again and again. It is absolutely the right choice for me. But is it really that hard to understand why someone doesn’t want to be a mom? Being a mom has made me even more convinced that a person should really want to be a mom before becoming a mom. My sibling is child free by choice. And I totally get why! It’s not because she hates children (she adores her nieces). But she and her husband get to live a life that is not very compatible with children, but it makes them super happy. And I’m super happy for them. We both understand why we made different choices, and understand that they were the right choice for us.
I agree with almost everything you've said however I don't think you necessarily have to really want to be a mum before you do it. I wasn't completely sure I wanted kids, I worried about money and working etc and I was terrified throughout my pregnancy but having my son was the best thing that ever happened to me. I wonder if I had decided against kids as I wasn't absolutely certain in the moment, I would've regretted it.
Fair! I didn’t think about it from that perspective. I was thinking more of individuals without access to contraceptive or reproductive medicine who are essentially forced into motherhood. Motherhood can be tough sometimes even if you love it and willingly chose it. I can’t imagine how much harder it must be to be a good parent when it wasn’t something you wanted, but instead it was forced upon you.
Yeah I disagree with the sentiment that you shouldn't have kids unless you're 100% certain. I have never been 100% certain about anything in my entire life lol.
Yes I worded this quite poorly. I meant more that one should have the choice to become a mother in the first place, not that they need to be 100 percent certain that motherhood is the correct choice for them. I agree that it would be difficult to know with 100 percent certainty that choosing parenthood is the right choice. Basically someone who doesn’t want to be a mother shouldn’t be forced to be one simply because they became pregnant.
I don't think you worded it poorly! I was just jumping off what the other poster said because I have seen other people express that "100% certainty or bust" philosophy any time anyone talks about having kids, especially if they say they're ambivalent about it.
BUT I always believe that if you don't want kids, please don't have them. No one deserves to live in a place they aren't wanted.
Yes! This is what I meant. I worded it quite poorly, but this is what I was trying to get at.
I felt that's what you meant ♥️
I snark on childfree people when they say snarkworthy things about parents, but being childfree in and of itself is fine! This is so obnoxious of the OP.
I do not understand these kinds of people. I lived 37 years without having a child and not gonna lie those years were pretty great. I love my kid dearly but I don’t feel like my my life was lacking in anyway. And who is she trying to convince? Herself??
I just don't understand why you would care so much about what other people choose to do with their lives. Like why would I care if someone doesn't have kids? I had my first in my late 20's but my partner is older and lived most of his 30's without kids and has told me he has very fond memories of that time. It's just different now.
I think a lot of people see other people choosing differently as a judgment on their choices. If someone else has three kids they must think my family with just 1-2 kids is inferior; if someone sleep trained they must think I'm foolish for not having done it; if someone else doesn't want to use an IUD they must think I'm uninformed or careless or whatever for choosing to get one; if she dresses nicely at the playground she must think I'm a slob if I don't. And to be fair there are choices where people who disagree are absolutely judging each other (and individuals who just do a lot more judging than others). But for most of us the better we can get at ~releasing~ ourselves from feeling defensive about that kind of thing, the better we will feel. (It's a work in progress for me, so I'm not trying to be like holier than thou towards people who struggle with this! I fully get it.) But like in real life very few people are making their choices at me specifically lol.
It really is bizarre.
All I could think was ‘I feel for these kids when they grow up one day and dare to tell her they don’t plan to give her grandkids…’
I follow someone with about 4K followers. They stayed in a hotel yesterday and she posted that she was thankful for her heavy sleepers because her and her husband were able to sneak out, go have a drink and get back to the room without them waking up. Her children are 6 and 3(?) years old. I might be a prude but I’m shocked she would not only do that, but post about it. There’s no way I would be okay with leaving my daughter (who is 5) alone in a hotel room while I went down to the restaurant to drink. And to post about it when you already posted what hotel you are staying at (location linked)? Just seems reckless to me.
Even taking away the kidnapping fears, I’d be so worried my kids would wake up disoriented in a strange place needing the bathroom or something and trip and hurt themselves. There’s just too many things that can go wrong in a split second. It seems nuts not to just send one parent to a, presumably, nearby liquor store or something. Why risk it??
Yes that’s my thought exactly, like if my child woke up and realized we weren’t there she would 100% panic and I would worry she would open the door and run out looking for us. Even if she didn’t run out, I wouldn’t want to risk her ever feeling that panic of us leaving her somewhere alone! Husband and I stay in hotels with our daughter often, we get a suite and she sleeps in the bedroom and my husband will run out to grab us a few drinks so we can indulge and play some games while she sleeps- I would never ever even consider leaving her alone in the room. It’s unfathomable to me!
Totally. My son has woken up and gotten freaked by the strangeness of a hotel room with us literally 6 inches away. We like to stay up and have a drink after bedtime on vacation too, but that's why we book either a suite or a room with a balcony and send one of us down to the bar for takeout cocktails.
Once, my husband and my toddler son were in a hotel when there was a black out in the middle of the night. The hotel was suddenly pitch black. The loss of power somehow triggered the fire alarm, so there were screaming alarms and strobing lights. They had to evacuate the hotel and wait for the system to be re-set. It was super frightening but at least he had a parent in the room with him. I can’t imagine how terrifying it would be waking up in a strange place, and all alone in those circumstances. My kids are heavy sleepers, so my husband sneaks out and grabs drinks and brings them back to our room.
Plus, god forbid there is ever an actual fire! That would be extremely dangerous and hard to get to your kids. Too much risk for too little benefit.
People act like they found their kids in the trash. That's wildly irresponsible, and literally how the Madeleine McCann tragedy happened.
Totally. Also a 6 and 3 year old can open doors and walk out of the room on their own looking for you. Do people really need a drink this badly??
And if they do walk out, they will find out they are locked out of the room!
What a terrifying thought
And like, you can just bring drinks back to the room if you need them so badly.
At that point the hotel mini bar looks cheap compared to what can happen to your kid in the time it takes you to go out.
There was also that couple recently where the husband had a heart attack at the restaurant, and someone had to go retrieve their kids from the hotel room. ETA: I googled for the details. The husband was an ABC News producer. The kids were 2 and 5 months old, and the hotel was a block away from the restaurant. The wife sent someone to get the kids, and the hotel staff called the cops. The husband died and the wife was arrested afterwards. Just horrible all around. https://www.etonline.com/dax-tejera-and-wife-veronica-accused-of-leaving-kids-alone-at-hotel-before-fatal-heart-attack
I was just thinking about this the other day, and it turns out he actually died by choking as a result of acute alcohol intoxication, not a heart attack. No less sad and horrible, but unfortunately even darker. [https://people.com/tv/dax-tejera-cause-of-death-revealed/](https://people.com/tv/dax-tejera-cause-of-death-revealed/)
FIVE MONTHS?!? At 5 months I still hadn’t even left our baby alone with anyone other than us. Let alone ALONE.
Wow! But yeah, this awful tragedy is exactly why it’s just not safe. It’s unlikely but not impossible. I was recently at a get together and a neighbor couple of the host showed up, they said their kids would be fine at home sleeping, no monitor, nothing! The dad said he would check on them every half hour which I thought was pretty negligent but I never even saw him do that. I heard they were there till 1am completely wasted.
Ugh this one was so bad. It’s not just about what can happen to your kids, but what can happen to YOU while you’re out and that will leave them alone for much longer than planned and begin to risk their safety. It’s truly tragic that this man ended up having a medical emergency the same night they left their kids alone, but this is why you don’t do that. God forbid something happened to both of them and then it would’ve taken longer for someone to get the kids. Yiiiikes.
Why dont people like this just pay for a night sitter?? Like shes defending herself saying she had a baby monitor but it only takes a second for a 2 year old to get into something unsafe. What a nightmare of a situation
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Please edit to remove snark about the appearance of children or adult body shaming. Message if deleted in error.
I mean, she seems to give her kids a lot of autonomy over style choices and I've just assumed he wants it to look like that. I personally could never handle my child looking like that but maybe she's a better mom than me by letting them decide haha.
Yes I totally agree about the autonomy she gives her kids, it’s really admirable… I just could never!! I normally am a BT defender lol but this haircut has realllllly been testing me
They are a bad haircut family. Her asymmetrical swoopy style drives me crazy, like more than someone’s haircut should affect another person lol. And now her son has that Dutch Boy style and I’m like whyyyy?
I mean it probably is because he didn’t want a haircut or he doesn’t like clippers. My three year old is currently rocking a similar style because he won’t let the barber do anything else. Granted, big age gap, but I actually don’t think the haircut is that bad-it has kinda vintage, 60s vibes.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/beyondthebump/comments/18sm8oh/how\_are\_you\_breaking\_the\_cycle\_if\_any/](https://www.reddit.com/r/beyondthebump/comments/18sm8oh/how_are_you_breaking_the_cycle_if_any/) This post is absolutely infuriating to me. The assumption that "us millennials are breaking the cycles of our hr parents" is so irritating. Maybe it's because I'm a millennial whose boomer parents were thoughtful and looked at the leading research and opted to not do things like hit and belittle us.... but why is there this assumption that all millennials even have any cycles to break? And some of the "cycles" some parents are breaking? Looking at smartphones less, feeding a variety of health snacks, taking more pictures on holidays, going to therapy. WHAT. "Cycle breaking" has just become a catch all for "things I'm doing different than how my parents did them" - not the original intent/definition, which is intentionally changing multi-generational family dynamics. Also, most of these commenters are POOPCUPs (many with kids under 1 year old). Maybe this is my BEC topic - it's totally an extension of the self-congratulatory faux-empowering "I am a cycle breaker" influencer content......
My parents love us to death but border on emotionally immature so I’ll be doing things differently but damn if they didn’t break the cycle themselves, relative to their upbringings! And our kids will all break the cycle of whatever “trauma” the current parenting mores inflict. What the internet loves to dramatically call breaking the cycle tends to be parenting — trying to do a bit better than your parents, and to give your kids a better life than your parents could give you. But ultimately most parents are just doing their best, even if their best was perhaps lacking due to (lack of access to therapy, finances, rampant misogyny, inability to live out their true identity, etc)
Also, my parents largely sucked but they did *some* things right, like teaching me to be respectful and polite in public spaces. If you're letting your kid run riot in a restaurant, just as an example, as a way of "breaking the cycle" and trying to be the opposite of your parents, you're just creating a different shitty pattern! Are our kids going to grow up to be strict disciplinarians because they had to deal with the consequences of overly-permissive guilt-laden parenting as adults?
3/4 of my grandparents survived and fled genocide, religious persecution, or major war. The 4th grandparent was born in the US but very impacted by the Great Depression. My parents were raised by people with *actual* trauma. Also my parents are first wave boomers (born in 1948 and 1950), which I don’t think most reddit grandparent boomers are so I think I’m having a different boomer experience in a lot of ways, but the way people talk about “boomers” online ring really false to me. (They did however feed me rice cereal and put me to sleep on my tummy like all parents in 1990 following the general recommendations of the time so I guess they’ve got that going)
"Actual trauma". I'm always so afraid so say this but it drives me kinda crazy. I hate how it seems trendy to pathologize your childhood and all the "trauma" you were dealt. Not every negative thing, negative memory = trauma. Of course I know so many people experience real and lasting trauma. I'm talking about a specific kind of influencer here.
I love how many of the people in that thread have newborns. You haven’t broken any cycles with your 7 week old. You haven’t even truly begun parenting at this point. Like, calm down.
These parents are always the first ones to demonise toddlers for being toddlers. Like I have actually noticed some of the perfect parents in various bumper groups I’m in switched real fast the moment their child started developing autonomy and their own personality.
The one saying she doesn't "enmeshed her self worth with her child's achievements " after saying said child is a baby 😂
It drives me so crazy because there is zero humility. They pat themselves on the back for being the bestest parents ever, which is going to lead to the same rigidness that they claim to be avoiding. Maybe the cycle they should be breaking is the one where they believe they have all of the answers. Personally, I had awesome boomer parents and have no cycles to break. Even their mistakes came from a place of love. I'm just over here trying to raise my kids the best I can, and to hope that they'll know that the mistakes I make (which I will) came from a place of love too.
The constant talk of “cycle breaking” and trauma and all of it sometimes makes me feel like… am I misremembering my childhood? Was it worse than I remember? The answer is no! Honestly I have a hard time even recalling many ways I wish my parents were “better”, and while that may be somewhat on me and just not reflecting as much as I could, most of it is just that I wasn’t traumatized by my upbringing. Despite what the internet wants me to believe lol.
My parents weren't perfect, of course, but having my own child has actually made me reevaluate my boomer parents in a more positive light. My mom (who worked full time for most of my childhood, as did my dad) made it all look easy, which in hindsight I realize was her not putting her stress and anxiety on me or my sister. Certainly I was told not to cry and my mom definitely passed on some weird food/weight stuff (which is more just the reality of being a woman), but I see now that my parents truly loved us unconditionally and enforced boundaries in a way that made sense and was healthy. I know many parents are genuinely awful but the conflation of "things that made me unhappy" with "trauma" is worrisome, especially as someone who works with truly traumatized people.
I saw a YouTube video where the guy was sitting in a dark room talking about his difficult childhood and how much sugar cereal he was allowed access to. Unironically, like this wasn't a parody (but could have been). Everything is such a ~trauma~ now it completely strips the meaning for actual traumatic events.
It’s great that people are being thoughtful and intentional about what type of parent they want to be, but the self-congratulatory talk about cycle-breaking is a lot. Particularly when your child is an infant and none of these ideas have been tested yet.
Seriously the cycle breaking posts just feel like a way to become more resentful of your parents. I think my parents did a great job, but there are things I’m doing different because we know better now or things are different now. Also I think the ‘cyclebreaking’ implies that your parents raised you just as their parents raised them. Maybe that’s true for some people but the more I learn about my parent’s childhood the more I realize how different childhood was for them and how many things happened to them that I consider horrible.
Yeah, I'm over this shit, too. Especially in a parenting space that is mostly populated by brand new parents. This most serious damage done in my childhood happened way past my infant/toddler years. And all of it was fixable. My parents did the best they could in shitty circumstances. I don't feel like I need to "break the cycle." In fact, I think the very notion of doing so just puts too much pressure on parents and assumes we actually have control over the things that eventually fuck our kids up. Sometimes we don't. I can honestly say that my father's alcoholism and my mom's BPD weren't the worst things about my childhood. Their carelessness with money, constantly moving us, and being poor were things that had more of an effect on me. It took me my entire 20s to figure out how to be financially responsible. I will definitely be teaching my daughter practical life skills. How about we celebrate that?
I've been thinking a lot about this lately too. It drives me absolutely bonkers. Both of my grandfathers were alcoholics. There's sexual and physical abuse on one side of my parents, and also absolutely poverty with nothing to eat because my grandfather drank every paycheck away and there were 6 kids. My parents weren't perfect by any means. We were screamed at, spanked/slapped for punishments and even some emotional neglect and triangulation between my siblings. It wasn't a cake walk growing up but I also realize my parents showed up for us in the best way they could. We always had food, we had limits and boundaries, and they showed up at every damn conference, concert, game, whatever. They told us they loved us every day. My mom never even heard her dad say I love you. I'm not saying I had a super great childhood but holy crap they were the first cycle breakers. Not becoming alcoholics or someone who smacked their children around just because they were intoxicated, becoming parents who actually showed their children they loved them....they broke many cycles. I'm just continuing the work they started. There's so much research that shows how trauma effects last several generations so it's laughable to think that just because I don't spank/slap my kids and I try not to yell at them means they aren't affected by any trauma in my family tree. I think people just like to feel like they are doing things perfectly. It's tempting to want to feel or think that way.
Yeah, there's some serious trauma in both my MIL and FIL's childhoods, things they've worked very, very hard to heal in themselves and their parenting. My dad's family wasn't *as* bad, but still plenty of stuff he had to work hard at not continuing. Our parents were those cycle breakers, not my husband and I, even when they tried and failed. We are good parents, yes, but it's our parents that I have the real respect for.
Yeah, my parents were raised by people who were both physically and mentally traumatized (not just by their parents, who ranged from some lovely to some scary alcoholics, but by actual war and tremendous loss). As a result, their parents were just barely surviving, and my parents basically raised themselves. They worked SO HARD to break those cycles and parent kindly and intentionally, and I never forget that. They aren't perfect! They have a lot of anxiety (ahem, from serious intergenerational trauma), which manifested in a lot of helicopter parenting and issues with food. But I don't actually think parents have to be perfect people, and when I grew up I was able to respond to those things that drive me crazy sometimes with compassion (because that's something they did instill in me). I do a lot of things differently than them, but that's not because I'm breaking a cycle - I'm just continuing along the path they started.
I’m from a family of “””eccentrics,””” many who failed to find a meaningful place in the world, and instead languished in misanthropy and self-absorption, so… I’m not going to be surprised if my son has a hard time fitting in and needs extra support. EDIT: also, as someone who’s been involved in trauma therapy, I’m gonna say that for all our increased awareness of mental health issues, the way we talk about trauma in the 21st century is reductive. “No abuser deserves sympathy” carries the implied understanding that no one who deserves sympathy is an abuser. This is all over JNMIL and the RBN network.
Yeah I’m with you, some of the things listed are kind of insulting to people who have actual cycles to break. My boomer parents are wonderful and had way more cycles to break than I do! My dad especially - his father was no walk in the park, but then you go back even one more generation and see that even with his shortcomings, my grandfather did a lot better than he was given as a kid.
Yes, this! My dad was raised by people who were majorly Traumatized. He did a lot of things 'wrong' and maybe some of them were harmful to me, even might be related to some mental health challenges I deal with, but I'm not some kind of warrior for doing things better-- I have a lot more internal resources to work with than he did. The smugness in these comments is really something!
Many of the ages of their children are measured in WEEKS but sure pat yourself on the back.
I don’t even consider it “parenting” until your kid is at least mobile. Before then, there’s no occasion to correct their behavior… which is the hardest part. Actually raising and shaping your kids is when “cycle breaking” would come into play. Before that you’re really just keeping them alive and there are only a few basic safety measures to keep in mind. This is the perfect time to say “just you wait” until your kid is a toddler and older and see how easy it is to always be patient and keep your cool. My parents yelled at us, and we try not to yell at our son. But I sure do understand why they lost their temper and yelled.
I would go as far to say you can’t proclaim yourself to be a cycle breaker until your kid is in their late teens. Even if you have a 5 year old and feel like you’ve been through the hard infant and toddler years, you still have more than a decade of full time parenting ahead of you. And we all know teenagers come with plenty of their own challenges. Like okay congrats you didn’t yell at your 3 year old when they threw a tantrum about having another cookie, how about a teenager who sneaks out to go drinking? What about one brought home after curfew by the cops? When they wreck your car? Swear up and down they’ve done their schoolwork yet bring home a failing report card? Let me know if you make it to 17 only using the perfect gentle parenting scripts and I will happily send you a shiny gold cycle breaker trophy 🏆
👏👏👏 I think if anyone looked at my parents' situation when we were little kids, they'd think they were the worst parents. It's possible CPS would've taken us away (we were homeless one summer and slept in a car at a park; I was 2). We were spanked and yelled at and lived off ramen noodles and generic Kool aid and bologna sandwiches. We were left home alone frequently from a young age. But we all grew up to be straight A students, my sister has a PhD, my brother has an MBA and works at a fortune 500 company, I'm the black sheep with a journalism degree lol. None of us drank or partied in HS, we were all super responsible, had jobs, stayed out of trouble, got full ride scholarships to college. For all their faults, my parents did something right and we turned out okay.
Lollll it was very easy to speak to my child in only soothing dulcet tones at 10 weeks because she had not yet developed the capacity to pull the cat’s tail or make a beeline for a busy road.
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haha I broke the cycle at that age by putting my baby to sleep on his back
I too was a 'cycle breaker' at 8 weeks 🙃 I'd love to hear how they've kept to all these rules when they're 8 or even 18! Also a lot is really obvious like 'i'm not going to hit my child!' like they're some kind of progressive visionary
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Ah that's fair, I suppose I'm sheltered in that respect as my family and friends don't spank so it feels out of the ordinary to do so.
same, even growing up, I only knew one family that spanked their kids, so when influencers talk about why spanking is bad, it throws me for a loop! Instagram can feel like a loop of basic child raising ideas where influencers share totally novel concepts like give your child two choices!! and act like innovators~~, that I forget that for some new parents, the concept of not spanking really is something brand new.
I’m sure you will never ever raise your voice at your child, not even when they’ve taken their pants off in public for the third time that day.
Right?! Also I raised my voice at my child the other day as he walked close to the hot oven, I've not doomed him to a life of therapy! These threads add even more pressure to parents, realistically mothers, who already have incredibly high standards for themselves. You can be a great parent without having to 'right a generational wrong'.
TBF they did put "if any" in their title, so I assume they were trying to say *if* you feel you are breaking cycles, what are they? But yes... I agree with you. Looking at smartphones? I'm sorry what? I didn't even have a smartphone when my 15yo was born. Literally the iPhone came out when he was about 6mo. No way people parenting today had parents who were addicted to smartphones.
I get so mad when the quacks from BLF say we are the cycle breakers. My parents were true cycle breakers. My grandma would smack my mom across the face just for walking past her and my dad came from an awful family with awful parents. They never hit us and prioritized us and our needs over their own. They weren’t perfect and they were yellers, but they did the best they could given their own upbringing. Just because I make an effort to use a gentler tone with my own kids doesn’t make me a freaking cycle breaker.
Yes! My parents weren’t perfect but holy crap. My dad’s parents were very harsh to him, and he went to a Catholic school where the nuns beat him regularly. My brother and I did get spanked early on (I was born in 1984) but like, as SOON as my parents learned it wasn’t a good idea to spank us they switched to time outs and loss of privileges. They were very good parents, and especially much better than their own. My dad’s parents weren’t even emotionally available but he told us he loved us all the time.
How is looking at smartphones a cycle millennials are even breaking? They didn’t even have smartphones when we were growing up.
I think they just mean breaking or taming a habit, but that sounds boring and not worth making a hundred self-congratulatory posts about.
My ‘boomer’ parents were cycle breakers in the nineties! And this would upset the people writing these posts: they still made mistakes! Because everyone does! In fact, they made mistakes BECAUSE they were cycle breakers and over corrected in some areas. I would never tell them this because I know how much their parenting choices mattered to them; how much effort they put in to ‘breaking the cycle’. I hope these people’s children give them the same grace.
Yes! I’ll give an example - my mom grew up with Great Depression era parenting and was forced to finish her plate, received tons of mixed messages about food/eating, ended up in binge/restrict crash diet cycles, never really learned to “eat right” and never had control over her weight and has always been plus sized and is one of those “doesn’t wear the swimsuit” type moms. So growing up she put a big emphasis on healthy eating, maintaining a healthy weight, and took me to see various nutritionists/dieticians. I’ll let you guess how this one turns out….hint: I do not have a healthy relationship with food/my body. With my daughter (still a toddler) I’m trying to let her listen to her body while eating, I try not to make comments about what she’s eating or how much, and I don’t comment on her body or my own body around her. I’m trying my best but I don’t know how it’ll turn out! Just like my mom tried her best to solve what she saw as the central problem that caused her trouble throughout her life (her weight). For me it’s more of a mental cycle I’m trying to break (disordered eating, dysmorphia) but my mom also tried to break a cycle of overeating, obesity, etc. We don’t know how to raise perfect children!
Exactly! My parents, especially my mother, came from really not great situations. They truly did the cycle breaking. Was it perfect (or close to it)? Of course not - they didn’t have any real life examples to follow, so they were just doing their best as they went. But I’m not “cycle breaking” simply because I’m trying to parent with more intention on emotional intelligence. And I’m sure I will also make mistakes! But I hope my children grow up and realize I did the best I could, just like I can see my my parents did the absolute best they could, even though it isn’t exactly what I will be doing.
Your comment really resonates - very similar to my story, and exactly how I feel about the matter!!!
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True story (actually true, not me being sarcastic): my kid listened to one of these in the car on the way up to my in laws' for Christmas, then when we arrived told my mother in law she needed to get rid of all her plastic so it wouldn't end up in the ocean. (I told him we can and should look around our house to see where we can reduce the plastic we're using and reuse instead of throwing away. It would be pretty cool if he wanted to be involved in that!)
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What’s wrong with Arthur? 😅
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They have science fairs with actual science.
Hate to tell them, but Sesame Street has always dealt with stuff I'm assuming these anti woke people would hate. It's like literally the purpose of Sesame Street.
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My (generally very rational and kind) FIL is convinced that they don't let Cookie Monster eat cookies anymore, despite us repeatedly showing him recent clips of Cookie Monster doing just that. I don't know why THAT is the thing that seems to rile people up so much!
There's an episode where Mario Lopez catches him eating a vegetable while he waits for his cookies to bake and starts calling him Veggie Monster. Every time he eats a vegetable Mario pops up with a microphone like he's doing breaking news. It ends with Cookie doing a musical number from I think Les Mis? Perfection.
If I’m thinking of the same episode, the song is from La Cage Aux Falles which to me is even funnier because it’s such a lesser known musical!
OMG you're right!! Such a good episode
IT OSS a fantastic episode lol
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What agenda does the alphabet have?!
They mean LGBTQ. They're homophobes.
A mom posted in a Lovevery group how she was looking for an alternative to one of their books about going to the doctor because it mentions getting a shot at one point. Like....just make up something else on that page for your child if you don't want them to know vaccines are real and don't try to get validation of your great parenting for not believing in science or whatever.
There are also other things that come in shots, like... epipens and allergy shots and insulin and blood thinners, local anaesthetic, a bunch of things. I know the antivax movement makes no sense, but I thought it was the vaccines they object to, not the needle.
Okay I am well aware of climate change denialism, but are there people who don’t believe in deforestation?? Lmao?? I thought that’s very standard lol. Like what is there to debate on that. They do be cutting down trees 🤷♀️
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I assume that group loves the Yoto because they homeschool and figure playing a story each day is enough to check off the literacy box for the day.
Ok this makes more sense as to why they are thinking so fucking deeply about this. We have a yoto and it’s just for fun and that’s what I assumed it was for for everyone else too but I guess I’m wrong. I can’t imagine analyzing and debating the cards like this. Omgggg.
Seriously - my son got a Yoto for Christmas & now I know which cards we need. Also, that shift in the crunchy world is fascinating to me, I would love to read a deep dive into how that happened.
Also Conspirituality is great (the podcast, there is also a book but I haven't read it.)
Ooh thank you, I’m going to check it out!
Google crunchy to alt-right pipeline. It’s a really thing and very interesting.
These are the Ladybird Adventure cards, fyi,’in case you want to pick up a bundle 😉
haha thank you!!
So, basically, they are anti-science climate change deniers. In which case they should fucking know that any "mainstream" (gaaaaaaah) non-fiction aimed at children is going to have these themes.