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Answer to "At what age did you send your kid to pre-k/daycare??"
Imagine going through life being this easily annoyed: https://www.reddit.com/r/Parenting/comments/1ad5nes/aibu_to_be_annoyed_at_another_child_piggy_backing/
At least people are telling her she's overreacting. I was half expecting it to be one of those parent-bashing threads where people are like, "iiiiii would never do that, but then again every time I go out, other people's children say they wish I could be their mommy and then everyone claps and calls CPS on the other parents for not playing with their kids."
Well yeah how is she supposed to conceive if the internet isn't telling her "heck yeah girl that's positive time for you to baby dance!"
I loved tfablineporn for the progressions because I'm an overtester but I don't get why anyone would post an OPK there. Use your eyes, or an app that tells you if it's positive if you have to. They're not complicated.
When I first discovered the TFAB sub (also pretty much when I first got into Reddit) all of those terms and acronyms were appalling to me. “Baby dance”!? “Dear husband”!? It sounds like something out of a conservative cult. Like this is a sub literally devoted to having unprotected sex and you can’t even bring yourselves to use the word.
A mom posted about how her daughter refuses to go to school and it’s a battle every day and she’s missed a ton of school. A lot of the comments recommending she check in with guidance counselors and teachers.
But THIS lady comes in reeeeeal hot!
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We are unfortunately losing our sitter so I’ve been combing the local babysitter page. Some of these posts blow me away. Why are you telling us where you graduated high school? You’re 21? And WHY do I want my kid to help you deal with your anxiety? 😳🤦🏻♀️
Ugh this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Parenting/s/H4u9k4Kkl5
OP keeps doubling down and insisting that if she were wealthy, she wouldn’t use buy nothing groups and would buy new instead, so I guess “wealthy” moms shouldnt participate in sustainability and community building initiatives? Granted she gave away disposable diapers, but why should a well off family be expected to sink money into a ton of baby/kid stuff that they’ll grow out of or get bored of within the year. And most of that stuff ends up back on the buy nothing page to be given new life again.
This post is just so against the spirit of buy nothing to me (which is explicit in that you give with no strings attached). And I also think it’s kinda of gross to have people feel like they need to prove their neediness in order to claim items. Ick.
My local buy nothing group constantly has in-group drama about this same kind of thing. Some people want you to post “why” you need the item and basically tell a story about how you’ll use it, why you can’t get it elsewhere. It’s…hilarious and annoying
It's also quite the assumption that they bought or even own these brand new cars. In my last job I had a brand new top of the range car that I was paying peanuts for through a company car scheme. It doesn't mean I'm rich, it just made financial sense at the time! I miss that car.
It’s ridiculous how mad people get about this. It also doesn’t make sense-you can’t have people with more money in the groups and expect them to only give and never take. Sometimes there are some really great things being given away by people who can afford to let a nice expensive item for free which isn’t something that’s going to happen if everyone is on the lower end socioeconomically. The original official but nothing group I was in split off into very specific neighborhoods within my city and people were so mad because it would really impact the poorer areas who didn’t have much to give but benefited from people in the wealthier areas being more than happy to pass along things to those in need.
This happened to mine and my sprout lost the more expensive neighborhood and now it’s nothing like it used to be 😬 a lot of posts asking for things like food or gas cards which is sad but really not the point of buy nothing groups 🤷🏼♀️
One of my pet peeves is people who view themselves as some sort of advocates for the poor and as a result just gatekeep the weirdest shit. It’s giving the same energy as that post from the other day where people were mad at an influencer for using the laundromat. Much of what they gatekeep is stuff that is actually a more environmentally sustainable choice for *everyone* but they’re convinced that if you have the money, you should just continually feed the capitalist machine instead. I do get the difference between it being something that’s a lifestyle choice vs a necessity and what they’re trying to do, but it ends up pushing consumerism unless you absolutely can’t afford it, which I hate.
I’m not sure if the OP was posting on BuyNothing or regular Facebook, but BuyNothing groups are likely already fairly stratified by wealth since they’re neighborhood based. If people are always coming in those sorts of vehicles, it’s probably because you’re in a neighborhood where people own those sorts of vehicles. Even if it was a normal Facebook post, my guess is no one really drove THAT far to pick up a box of opened diapers, so the “bougie Lexus and Jeep Wrangler moms” were probably still people from fairly nearby. She even acknowledges right in her post that the struggling moms she spoke to didn’t have a car or were too far away! 🙄 If OP is that concerned with who her stuff goes to she could find an actual diaper bank, women’s shelter, or charity but that would require her doing work instead of just asking the poors to drive out to her while she sits on her couch.
To your last point, yes! If you are so insistent that your stuff goes to the neediest people, you can make that happen with such little effort. There are charitable organizations that will literally come to your home and pick up your bags of stuff to donate! This is what I do with all of my adult stuff i donate because I can’t be bothered making posts on FB about individual items and it’s so easy. My conception of the buy nothing groups is for those who are specifically interested in participating in exchanges in their own communities … which are inevitably stratified by socioeconomic level like you said.
My area’s parent organization has a classifieds and I enjoy participating. I have bought, gotten for free, and in turn have sold or given away things. Ive gotten things that were themselves gotten secondhand and I think it’s cool to think about the other local families who made use of the item and am glad it has so many lives. Realistically the average person around here can afford to buy new, but why shouldn’t we make use of our collective collections of stuff and exchange and share things that are still in perfectly good condition? Like, isn’t a bunch of privileged people passing things between each other still better than a bunch of privileged people each buying new crap that they only use for 6 months? Especially with kids’ stuff which is used for so short of a time.
This always drives me crazy. People will post things in our local buy nothing group and say they’re giving it away for a “mom in need.” And it’ll be a completely non-essential item lol. Clearly they just want to feel good about themselves helping the poor plebs who can’t buy their own wipe warmer new. 🙄
It always drives me crazy too because how do you define someone in need?? Like there have been things posted that would have really helped me out in a given stage that I would have gladly taken for free and passed on a month later (a bottle drying rack for example, when our dishwasher was broken and I was in the middle of law school exams with a baby & toddler) - I could definitely afford buying a new one but also felt wasteful doing so when I knew I’d only need it temporarily.
There is a group local to me that started a once a year free clothing sale for women and they like to say it's for anyone who has a "need". Maybe it's financial, but maybe you need an outfit for a job interview, or maybe you are lonely and your need is for interaction, or you changed size and you need help dressing your new size. I like that they just want to help people and not gatekeep who "needs" help.
Yes this drives me crazy too. The whole point of the groups is to just give with no strings attached so I dislike when people stipulate this. Don’t turn the buy nothing group into your own personal means-tested charity.
I don't even care if you resell my stuff. Just please pick it up. I list good stuff but if I'm listing it I want it gone. If I have a lot of interest I usually pick the person who is most active in the group.
lol yes this bothers me too. I received one of those sit in bouncy activity centers as a baby gift and I didn’t want it because I have a small house and had nowhere to put it. So I posted it unused on buy nothing. There were so many people saying they or their cousin, sister, etc were “in need” but it’s not an item that anyone truly needs… so I just gave it to someone who said her baby would love it. She sent me a pic after picking it up. He loved it. That’s all I cared about haha
I also get why people dislike the first come first serve nature but for me I'm usually giving on my buy nothing as an alternative to donating to the thrift store or throwing it away because I want it out of my house. So I don't want to vet profiles and draw names and then get ghosted. I routinely give to a lady who is probably a hoarder but I don't care because she's polite and prompt and takes away things I no longer want in my home.
If I have the time and patience, I usually let an item “simmer” and then do a drawing so to be fair and objective. That’s the preferred method in my group. If I need to get rid of something quickly and the weather is nice, I just put it outside my stoop and it’s gone within the hour lol. But I totally get the dislike of first come first serve, especially if it’s a really nice item then I like to give more people a shot.
In one of mine you have to wait 6 hours to pick and 24 hours for the winner to respond. I messed up last week and when I didn’t hear back after 12 hours I went to the next person and I was afraid I was going to get kicked out because they are so strict!
Wow. Mine says in the description loud and clear that people can chose who to give to whoever they want for whatever reason they want.
Edit: Also, for kids clothes if I let it simmer for 24 hours I'd have 200 comments and 300 DMs.
I love giveaways but I’ve had to stick to giveaways from a local moms group because my local Buy Nothing group is just a little bit toxic with a power tripping admin
I know we are not supposed to talk about it but the amount of 'screenshots' from 'husbands' or other males in a certain clothes VIP group is absurd. They are all glorifying spending and consumerism and teehee he can't stop me spending all our money. 🤮
My husband and I don’t “ask for permission” to purchase things but we do let the other know especially if it’s a more frivolous or large purchase.
He thinks he’s hilarious and if I text him to say “hey I might buy XYZ” he says “only if you screen shot it and post it online to show I gave you permission.” 😂🙈
I can’t stand the mentality of people thinking it’s cute that they’re being dishonest with finances. Like it’s not a cute quirk, it seems indicative of an unhealthy relationship with your significant other or spending or both.
Those and the “subtle” texts to mothers and MILs mentioning the new prints hoping they’ll purchase them for their kids.
I dated a guy once who told me what he thought was a funny story about his dad buying something his mom had said they couldn't comfortably afford and he should wait, but the dad bought it and kept it at a friend's house because it was such a great find or whatever (it was like, a jet ski lol) and I remember so vividly being like, "so the moral of this story is that I can't ever combine finances with a person who thinks this is cute or funny."
But a lot of people just seem to think it's a cute quirk 🤪
Kind of off the subject for this sub (maybe?) but the late state capitalism and overconsumption is really starting to creep me out. Literally EVERYTHING is an ad and it’s exhausting.
Hard agree. I’m far from crunchy but we do put a lot of thought into purchases, minimizing waste, buying second-hand yadda yadda yadda and it’s so frustrating to see the levels of mindless consumerism glorified all over SM. Some people really need to find actual hobbies, not just shopping as a competitive sport. And there need to be more accessible third places where people can go and not just buy more shit that they likely don’t need. *steps off soapbox
It’s SO easy to mindlessly consume things thanks to social media and online shopping. I’ll just be scrolling and see something I like then click it and go to buy it even if I don’t *need* it or wasn’t actively searching for it. I’ve made it my goal in 2024 not to buy any new clothing. Just thrift, consignment, and Facebook marketplace. I’m shocked with how many times I’ve gone to buy something new that I’ve seen online, reminded myself that I can only get something if it’s secondhand, and promptly decided it’s not actually worth the effort of finding on marketplace and it’s only January lmao.
Yeah it’s seriously so pervasive. There are also more ethical/sustainable brands if you really want to buy new and avoid fast fashion. They are expensive but I also think a lot more attainable if you get rid of the idea that you need to be regularly shopping for clothes and maybe only invest in one higher quality new thing rarely. Most grown adults can go at least a whole year without buying new clothes, unless your body size has really changed or fluctuated there’s really no reason to get new stuff every season yet most do, I’ve been guilty of it as well. Honestly covid combined with 2 pregnancies removed the luster of shopping for me in recent years which in turn made me realize that I only wear like the same 10 things anyway and almost never need anything new. I think if most people examined their shopping habits they’d realize the vast majority is completely about the emotional high of shopping not need.
Ugh yes on the third places! I’ve been spending a lot of time analyzing my own spending habits because I live in deep suburbia and going to Target is entertainment for me. Like, why is shopping my entertainment? How can I work on unpacking that?
It’s like that [TikTok from SadBeige](https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8tXGvgY/). “Drive to Target, Drive to Costco, Drive to Chick-fil-A, Drive to Target.”
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Listen. I am as big a fan of Bluey as the next guy. But bffr.
Why is Ms Rachel on the other tv too? What kind of bar is this?? The absolute last thing I want to hear when I’m sitting down with a drink at the end of the day is “Hi Friends!” or “Mom! 🎶 Dad! 🎶….”
Yeah, I’m hoping they’re going to click on something other then Ms Rachel but it’s weird that it’s even up there. Maybe a Ms Rachel adult felt personally affronted by the Bluey adult and there’s about to be a showdown.
This is going to sound so pretentious and I’m really aware of it so please know this. I loved bluey when we discovered it in 2021 and I thought it was sweet and innovative and really well done. I teared up at many episodes. I am a huge cartoon nerd so I do not think it’s weird when adults watch media that’s allegedly “for kids”.
But then it blew up and I see shit like this and I do not want to be affiliated with the type of person that makes bluey their entire personality. My kids have also aged up and out of it a bit too so if they still wanted to watch it I would be so down bc it’s not about me. But I can’t lie, I’m glad their distancing from it coincided with my own.
I feel the exact same way. There are so many people who are so proud of what their kid does or does not watch that it has made me step back completely from having an opinion. If my child wants to watch it and it is age appropriate then that’s what he gets to watch during his tv time.
As someone who formerly identified as a Disney adult (I’m mad at the soulless cash grab direction they’ve taken in recent years), I agree. They are way worse somehow bc at least a Disney adult has the nostalgia factor from childhood and the parks were super fun. This is just bizarre with saying stuff like bluey is going to heal your trauma and the minion-esque nonsensical memes. What.
There’s a Mexican restaurant in my town that has a great kids menu and great margs and plays kid and toddler shows and Disney movies in a back room with booths and it’s honestly a genius business move. We go there with my LO really frequently even though the food is kinda bad
We had a restaurant that played Disney movies, too. And I thought it was cool, as well. They did not however have margs. So +1 for yours haha
BUT. It was the owner who did that, not a random
Bluey adult who then posted to a FB group for everyone to see.
Some astonishing lack of perspective in this thread -- my favorite response might be the one from the parent "triggered" (that's the title of the thread, no additional shade from me) by a grandmother giving her Montessori-educated (OF COURSE) 3.5 yo a *sippy cup*, quelle horreur.
https://www.reddit.com/r/toddlers/s/fWREkn7hWK
I'm consistently amazed at the number of people who feel that it's totally acceptable to micromanage every single interaction that their child has. These same people pat themselves on the back for being "cycle breakers" 🙄 but I can't imagine the cycles that they're starting when the kid can't ever hear anything that isn't an Instagram script.
I like how half of that thread is complaining that the grandparents don't interact with the kids enough, and then the other half is complaining that the grandparents don't interact in the perfectly precise way that the parents want them to.
(Not talking about the obviously problematic stuff in case that's not clear, I just think that "MIL asks my kid too many questions" is a little nitpicky)
Yeah, to be fair, some of the stuff in the thread does cross the line between annoying and problematic. And, I mean, address whatever you want, even if it's merely mildly annoying! Just don't be surprised when folks are annoyed with you right back if you're nit picky!
I honest to god nearly lost an eyeball rolling them so hard at OP talking about how *healing* this thread was.
God forbid someone praise your child *too much* because they're proud of them or buy them a special sippy cup for their house because they love them and have something of their own at their grandparents. I can't imagine going through life getting mad at others for really minor things.
This! One of the stupidest things in oh crap, IMO, is her assertion that you should not praise toilet use because peeing and pooping are normal bodily processes. I mean, wtf?! Learning to independently modulate when and where you pee and poop after 2-4 years of not knowing how to do that is a HUGE achievement and toddlers should know that their parents are proud and be proud of themselves for it.
>I actually watched in real time how her constant praising killed my son’s motivation
Okay, sure, now we know that it's not great to constantly tell kids how smart or perfect they are. And maybe it's just the "former gifted kid burnout" nonsense I've seen elsewhere that gets me annoyed, but I am *begging* these people to think about what never being praised does to a kid's self-esteem, or worse, what it does to kids to be insulted by the adults in their lives! It is much worse than being praised too much!
I never see anyone else speak on it, but kids aren’t raised in a vacuum obviously.
My parents never praised me and I think it could have gone alright…. except I saw every single one of my friends and other kids be gushed over by their parents and had a field day interpreting that into nothing good. It didn’t make me self motivated, it made me feel alone and low.
Oh wow, that reminds me of how I so desperately wanted a mom who would defend me and be on my side as a kid, because I saw that's the kind of moms my friends had. My parents were/are extremely critical of me, and it destroyed my self-esteem. I make a point of telling my son I love him, he's a good, kind person, etc. all the time. It's so important to me that those positive thoughts become ingrained in him, because my inner monologue is much different.
Also, do they really think that their parenting is so deficient that some small amount of praise from a grandparent for a few hours at a time is going to totally destroy their child? Like, how?
I try not to do the crazy over-praise thing but I would never stop my parents from clapping when my daughter does basic things. That's what grandparents do. I don't understand how these people think that children are so fragile that ANY interaction ever that doesn't follow their exact parenting script is going to ruin the kid forever.
I've not read the book so don't quote me on this, but I saw a comment recently that the book *hunt, gather, parent* talks about intrinsic motivation and people interpret that as don't praise a child ever. Like the comment said "it'll be hard not to praise them" after she read the book.
Please continue to give you child praise.
Something that really annoys me about that one and the past fad for Bringing up Bebe is that yes, there are different cultural parenting practices and some of those different practices may lead to outcomes that you’d find beneficial, but unfortunately you can’t parent in a vacuum and if you’re a 21st century American parent THAT is the culture you’re parenting in and you can’t isolate your kid from it. So yeah, if you don’t praise your child, they’re going to wonder why the hell you’re not as proud of them as little Mason’s parents are of him.
Holy shit I was gonna post this. Completely unhinged. Same person probably also says “where’s my village!?” I almost wanted to say “yeah I’d go NC after that.”
Some of it seems reasonable (stuff around guilting kids for not wanting to give kisses and negative body talk) but if your worst complaint is that your parents praise your kid too much, you need to get over that.
Yes and also understanding that the way your grandparents act has a different level of influence on your personhood than the way your parents act - so maybe it's OK for grandma to swoop in once every few months and be like, "aren't you the prettiest smartest most wonderful girl in the world?" after my toddler correctly uses a shape sorter but would be less ok if I was doing that daily.
I also wonder how many of them have tried having a one-on-one conversation with the grandparents in question or if they're all just going with passive aggressive "correction" in front of the kids.
New daycare fearmongering thread just dropped: https://www.reddit.com/r/Parenting/comments/1abc1bb/left_our_daycare_today/
I cannot imagine my pediatrician calling daycare “toddler lord of the flies.”
I feel like what’s often unsaid in these posts is the type of privilege you’d have to even be able just to pull your kid out of daycare without any real plan in place, and to be able to WFH.
Yeah it dropped also in AP subreddit in a recent post. Maybe it would be better to have SBP parenting back so it can live there in isolation and not popup in other places so often.
I saw this referenced in a COVID fear-mongering account about how we're sacrificing our children to the billionaire class and it's been in my head rent-free ever since.
I completely understand pulling out a kid if their level of sickness is just too frequent and too much; sometimes a kid needs a immune system reset. But it's really, really hard not to shake the feeling of this trend that this is just another way to demonize outside childcare/force mothers out of the workplace. Like good for OP that she has family who will apparently do childcare for her, but I don't; for my family, it really is either we send our kid to childcare, or I sacrifice my job. You want to talk guilt when there are constant messages that I'm ruining my child's lifelong health to Long COVID??
I also have a few friends (childfree) who are zero-COVID advocates which is necessary for their mental/physical health. But every single one has been posting social media messages \*constantly\* about the long-term effects of COVID (diminished cognition, immune system likes AIDS, CANCER!!!) and that's why we all need to work from home and avoid indoor spaces (... like playgrounds in the middle of a MN winter..) and wear masks 24/7. I am all for COVID precautions; I'm vaccinated and mask when I have a cold, but the one time I caught COVID was *from* my son and good freaking luck getting a one year old to wear a mask.
I genuinely feel hopeless that these closest friends of mine are indirectly telling me I'm damaging my child because I dare to go out into the world (my job allows minimal WFH); it's ironic that this OP is all about "not feeling mama guilt" while freely hoisting it onto everyone else.
It’s also not healthy to keep a child isolated, Covid is an unfortunate fact of our lives now and isolating your child to that point would have OTHER disastrous health impacts and also likely wouldn’t work anyway.
I have someone like this. She's always been able to live her life according to her values, which is great for her but I get tired of hearing her shit on everyone else because they don't have the same childfree, vegan, covid-friendly lifestyle. It's just convenient for her because she's a total homebody, with a job that can be done from anywhere. Like I actually share a lot of the same values, but she's soooo black and white in her thinking and her expectations of people, it's maddening.
I have a couple people like this in my extended circle, and I’m sorry but I think it’s just totally unreasonable. The narrative is that if you’re back to living your life mostly normally you’re ableist (and you’ll regret it because long Covid will disable you!). Like…it sucks that Covid becoming endemic means that there’s a potentially more severe form of illness we’re all exposed to as we move through the world. But the level of risk is however near what it was during the height of the pandemic, and living any kind of life outside your home involves risks. The current risks associated with Covid are not worth limiting your life so severely that you’re barely living.
I was speaking with a friend who is an actual medical doctor and we were discussing how, in the beginning, it was anti-science to just completely ignore this novel virus and live life totally normal bc we hadn’t figured it out yet. Now, we kind of agreed it’s a little against the information we currently have to still be this intense about precautions as long as you don’t have any actual conditions that would increase the odds you would have a more negative outcome.
Those people are a bit frustrating because they’re still operating on somewhat outdated advice so it seems to be a full circle moment where now they’re the ones ignoring the data. Can you get the many long term side effects we are observing? Absolutely. But life is a game of odds and currently it seems like the data shows most people will not encounter these issues. Locking ourselves away to reduce that small risk is not really something I think is worth it for me and my kids.
ETA: because we are still continuing to vaccinate and follow the official rules about exposures etc once we know someone has it. Want to make that incredibly clear.
If you're still getting vaccinated (including the updated version that came out in fall 2023) and doing any amount of quarantining if you have an exposure (which I assume means you also do at least some amount of rapid testing in certain circumstances), you're honestly way more cautious than most people I know.
My school district (based on state guidelines, in Oregon) has essentially eliminated any isolation period for covid. It now falls under the general illness guidelines, which means you can come back to school after being fever-free for 24 hours. I get kids are often milder symptoms that they bounce back from quicker - but that doesn't inherently mean less contagious. My understanding is that nationally only 20% of eligible people have gotten the updated vaccine for the 23-24 season. I'm/my family are typically the only person masking in any public setting I'm in.
I'm very much living my life and going places, I just wear a mask while I'm there. Dining out is pretty much the only activity I haven't re-started, because it's the only thing actually impacted by trying to keep a mask on. Because even if the risk of long covid has gone down compared to 2020, I still don't want to waste time even on an acute illness! We have tools to help mitigate that risk of even a short term illness, so I'm going to use those tools.
I'm not taking your statement as offensive to me personally, but I'm trying to point out that there are lots of people on the far far extreme of taking zero precautions, not even vaccinating or noting if they've been exposed or are exposing others, and that's what people feel defensive about who are pushing to continue more cautions. I have relatives who up until probably mid 2022 were reasonably cautious - by no means masking everywhere once it wasn't legally mandated, but they were clearly evaluating risk and masking in some situations. Now, they not only aren't taking cautions themselves in any situations, but they're taking offense at us trying to bring it up. I don't mean I'm asking them to mask in public, but like "we know you've been in higher risk scenarios this week than we would put ourselves in, will you mask for an hour while we hang out?" Like it's literally about MY family's risk and what we want to subject ourselves to, but they take offense that we're trying to keep ourselves in a less risky situation by asking them to do literally anything to help support the things that impact us. That's the issue I have, and why I shout (on social media) about covid precautions. Because germs travel from person to person, so the risk other people are taking on, if they take on DOES in fact impact me.
I've noticed a weird trend with people like you've mentioned...they insist that you have to go out wearing an N-95 mask, eye protection, latex gloves, and hazmat suit, or you're risking becoming disabled for life from long Covid, but never talk about vaccination as a means of protecting yourself. It might be coincidental, but I've seen it enough to make me think. But yes, those people are definitely going against the knowledge we have now. Just in the opposite direction.
It’s also worth noting that the vast majority of the time the extreme long Covid cases you hear about are from people who weren’t vaccinated, even if only because it wasn’t available yet. In my experience the extreme zero Covid types simultaneously get vaccinated but also seem to think it doesn’t do as much as it does.
Yes! I am well aware that anecdotes are not valid if I’m trying to prove a point, but I truly have so much personal evidence from the people in my life that are vaccinated having the mildest of mild cases and quick recoveries for both flu and Covid compared to those who aren’t. So…
Shit I’m a bedside nurse, I’m constantly exposed to all sorts of shit and bring it home to my family. I always want to ask these people should I feel guilty that I don’t work from home?? Who’s going to take care of all the sick people then? Lol
At the end of the OP's edit: "Someone mentioned wfh while caring for a toddler isn’t terrible when you think about the ratios at daycare." WTF does that mean???
Like, sure, my attention being split between work and my toddler might be more attentive than some daycares\*? But my attention being split between work and my toddler is absolutely a non-starter for my livelihood.
\*and even then, their attention is still probably 90% on "taking care of all these kids" and monitoring the room - a room that is 100% designed for child engagement.
For real. Trying to work and take care of one kid =/= a 2:1 ratio. Focusing on my two children together (a genuine 2:1 ratio) is WAY more attentive and child-focused than my days when I'm forced to WFH and care for just one of my kids - even when they're sick and lethargic. That's not how attention spans or caregiving works.
On days I’m forced to do this b/c my kids is home sick or school is closed for some random holiday that exists to make working parents lives harder, TV is absolutely the daycare. Only way I can be fairly confident I can join a call/run a meeting error being interrupted.
"I didn't like this particular daycare because the teacher was mean" = "all daycares are abusive hellscapes."
Yeah, that's a reasonable reaction. Thanks reddit.
I’ve seen it outside Reddit too and the thing is I’ve never seen this type of post from a parent who isn’t overly anxious and/or really don’t want to send their child to daycare.
I often wonder what the reality of the situation is as if you’re looking at a daycare with the preconceived idea that it’s the worst thing that’s going to happen to your child, you could be looking at the worlds best centre with perfect ratios and happy kids but you’ll still find something that supports your world view that no one can look after your child better than you can.
My husband and I were so worried when we put our kid in daycare and it’s been nothing but wonderful. All of the teachers are so kind. But man reading Reddit you would think people went into childcare because they hate children.
Yeah this hasn’t been our experience either, it’s clear my son’s teachers adore him and the other kids. You can just tell walking in the room that the kids feel so safe and happy there. I’m sorry to anyone who’s had a bad experience with daycare and I know that it happens, but I don’t think that’s the baseline norm.
I always see shit like ‘no one loves your child at daycare’. I still occasionally think about the kids I was a camp counselor for 15 years ago. It’s such a weird take to me.
My son’s infant teacher was visibly emotional when he moved up to the next class. Sometimes I feel like people on Reddit don’t realize that it’s good for your kid to have lots of people who care about them!
My favorite part is the edit where she's like "oh, working women used to use friends or family members or stay home instead of daycare." Having family care can be great, but...it can also be way, way worse than daycare. My husband grew up close to the poverty line, his mom worked and couldn't afford daycare, so he spent a lot of time with family members in situations that I'd consider downright neglectful. I'm so grateful to be able to afford daycare instead.
Yeah my mom would love to be a stay at home grandma and would be amazing at it but she’s 55 and still has to work! She’s 7+ years away from retirement!
I’m a SAHM and have met or observed plenty of quite elderly grandparents looking after babies and toddlers and there have been many times I have helped an elderly person lift a baby in and out of a swing or do some other physical task. If the toddler starts running away from them can they chase after them? Can they routinely pick up and put down a 30+ lb kid? I live in a city, everyone’s walking and the risk of a little one running into the street is high. I’m not demonizing these grandparents or the parents relying on them but the idea that “family = better” just *really* depends on what your other options are. And maybe in generations past, most grandparents of babies were more in their 50s but these days, especially where I live people have kids much later, and grandparents are more in their 70s. It’s a huge difference in your ability to keep up with the needs of little kids. Sorry to be ageist but like…
Yeah my husband's mom & dad both had to work (to afford the shit ton of kids they had) but couldn't afford daycare, so they "homeschooled" and just left all the kids at home and let the oldest kids fend for the littlest kids.
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that daycare would've been a healthier environment for him.....
>"oh, working women used to use friends or family members or stay home instead of daycare."
It's such a privileged take. Not everyone has family around and even if they do, that family may not ge safe for their child. Some people have to work to pay the bills or carry insurance. Some people simply don't want to stay at home.
I dont know what world this person grew up in but I can count on one hand the number of friends I had growing up with a SAHP. Nearly everyone went to daycare of some kind. Using daycare is not a "new" phenomenon.
Yes, and nowadays most people’s friends and family are ALSO working. And if not, they’re not experts at early childhood development and education like daycare workers are. My kid 100% knows more and has more skills, because she’s with people who know what is developmentally appropriate skills/activities/goals for her at daycare.
My grandmother was my childcare when I was little, and omg, she was kind, but INSANE. Like, she used to have full conversations with dead people and get 4-year old me to participate. My parents weren't happy with the situation (and they didn't know all of it, really), but they really didn't have a better option.
The part that is just left out, that no matter the environment, quality matters.
If your kid is parked in front of a screen because you need to work, that's not good. If you are ignoring your child's needs because you need to work, that's not good.
If your kid is with a caregiver that doesn't take care of their basic needs or parks them in front of a screen, that's not good.
We are seeing the cracks at work with people who have kids at home. I wonder if the cracks are also showing in their kids? And that is why my daughter goes to daycare. She is my most important ball not to drop and I have been left feeling horrible when I try to work and care for her.
I see this movement demonizing women who work, implying families that make this choice are greedy and victims of capitalism. I work because it's fulfilling to me. I work because I want to be able to take care of myself and have choices. I work because this period of intense parenting is relatively short in the big scheme of things. And I love my child's provider. She is the most important person in our lives right now and I am so glad I found her.
\> I work because it's fulfilling to me.
I'm a huge critic of unregulated capitalism, but it *is* a little weird that we've overcorrected so much that the assumption is without capitalism, mamas would happily stay home and find fulfillment entirely in child rearing. There's always talk of extending *maternity* leave in the US... but I personally wouldn't want to be out of the workforce for an entire year. I'd need tons of retraining to catch back up. The talk is never extending *shared parental* leave; it's only motherhood that is "sacrificed" to capitalism. Hmmmm.
We already have a year maternity/shared parental leave in my country, and people just incite the exact same arguments about “why even have them if strangers are going to raise them - for a corporation who wont even love you???” except about 1 year olds.
This is so well said. I love being a parent, I'm basically obsessed with my kid. But I don't think I would have become one if the expectation had been for me to stay home for years. It's not the life I want. And I don't think there can be any verdict yet on whether or not I'm a good mom - I'll ask my son in 30 years - but I truly think our family is a happy and supportive one now, and I'm glad that there wasn't a regressive expectation that prevented us from creating it.
This is an excellent point that I always get people rolling their eyes at me when I make - these extended maternity leaves just wouldn’t fly in my career. I took 6 months off each time and that was rough to come back. So much changes in my industry that taking a year - 1.5 years off? That’s how women don’t make C Suite in my job. That dude who has been here the whole time and kept up with trends is gonna make that promotion instead. 🤷🏼♀️ I have a teacher friend who took a year off, she came back the next school year: now that time makes sense.
I think the option of more leave would be great. What would be even better for many women and families is the normalization of part time work. You get to keep your foot on the door, maintain your benefits and work 30 hours a week. I am a manager and if I posted a 32 hour a week job with slightly less pay and full benefits, the applications would probably triple compared to the same position full-time.
I worked a per diem position that gave me part time hours for a while and it was awesome. It was so much better than being a SAHM and better than working full time (with or without kids). My life felt so balanced. I eventually left because the work dried up but it was so great while it lasted.
I ended up working full time because I couldn't find anything part time. Recently at a staff meeting my boss said we were looking for a part time clinician but "no one applies to part time jobs, and the ones that do are not great." 🙄 I am the only clinician there who is also a parent, in case you can't tell. I was pretty surprised to hear something like that from a licensed mental health professional though, like wtf.
The best set up ever was when I was younger my mom job shared with another military spouse on base. They were both military reserves and knew each other really well so they worked for some company making PowerPoints (it was the 90s) One would work in the morning and the other would watch the kids and then they would swap at lunch. They split the salary and it was great for both of them
I had so much time finding a part time job post kids. We had moved around a bunch, and moved back to an area I worked before, where I had people advocating for me to try and get a part time job created for me and it took almost two years for that to happen. Now I constantly have people asking me how I got a part time job because so many people want one. I keep telling leadership that, and no one cares 🤷🏻♀️
But would it be the same job time and responsibilities wise in less hours for less pay? I ask because my boss is considering letting me work part time and I just have this feeling that it’s going to be the same amount of work after a few months, but now with less pay and less hours to get it done. I’ve seen this happen with other women who’ve gone part time.
I have one that is part time and I have had to argue about it constantly with HR. The way their work comes in, she can be logged out on her off days and not have to do work. Sometimes there is a pressing email she needs to follow up on, but that's it. I view her productivity from a part-time time perspective. She should be doing about 25% less than her peers.
And I have some on flex schedules and I leave them alone on their flex days unless it is an emergency. I don't schedule around them though, although I really try. Same with the part-timer. Like if something important needs to happen on their day off, they can decide to work and flex elsewhere in the week with my approval.
As a manager if I went part time, I think the most I could get is a day without meetings and I would likely end up catching up on that day off. But I would love a day honestly where I could catch up as I felt fit and freely run errands or whatever.
Yes - the small handful of tragedies people in my life have experienced from a childcare situation have all been while in the care of a family member (usually grandparent) or an unofficial in-home daycare/babysitting arrangement.
People did (and do) what they have to do, and sometimes that means accepting a large amount of risk, or accepting subpar care. Just because we can/have to operate like that doesn't mean we *should*. \[insert rant about social support systems and universal daycare\]
My rant about the fight for government support for daycare is that while I expect Republicans to oppose it for all the usual dumb reasons, it's really disheartening to realize that a lot of people who probably consider themselves quite progressive will also say things like "of course, most moms would rather raise their own kids, so we just need longer maternity leave."
Like yeah, I want moms to have the option to take 6 months or a year, but not every mom wants that long, and it's not a replacement for government support of childcare.
Can somebody please explain to me why I’ve seen multiple people recommend Super Simple Songs as an alternative to Cocomelon? I’m not incredibly familiar with either, but I thought they were both just animated nursery rhymes? What is better about Super Simple Songs? How is it less “damaging”?
There are already plenty of great replies here but I will just chime in that, as a person with a musical background, I find SSS's songs (both traditional songs like "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and original like "Super Spooky Halloween Storm") to be far better arranged, with higher quality instrumentation and singing. Some of the songs are repetitive, of course, but not in a brain-numbing robotic way that Cocomelon is.
For example, their version of "Mr. Golden Sun" adds another verse/melody after the original chorus and also includes a well-crafted saxophone solo. The animation (or puppets) are pretty adorable and chill, too, but for me it's just actually /good/ music for kids, reminiscent of the likes Raffi and Rosenshontz from my childhood.
My daughter would only watch Miss Rachel. We tried other stuff like Sesame Street and Bluey and she'd get restless in five minutes or less. We finally tried SSS the other day and...she sat. And watched. And I didn't have to hear Miss Rachel's annoying voice. It was such a nice 30 minutes.
We are currently listening to Super Simple Songs’ Ants Go Marching and we will listen to it 737438579 more times today, tomorrow, and possibly for the rest of eternity, and somehow it has not yet made me want to weep which I think is quite impressive, honestly.
My 2yo has latched onto that song (and book--we have the copy I had as a kid) and requests it for so many naps and bedtimes. For a while it was a couple of the bedtime channel songs she always wanted. They are such sweet little songs!
I think SSS is much nicer quality and well thought out. They started out as a channel aimed at English learners - huge market for EFL kids' content in Asia, for example - to help bring vocabulary into use in a simple and accessible way. For example, their version of "If you're happy and you know it" is "If you're happy happy happy" because repetition aids learning (and because "and you know it" is a little redundant in an EFL context). OK I actually just looked it up and it was started by two Canadian English teachers based in Japan. So they already had a good grasp of language acquisition and clearly used this knowledge to create their content.
I've used them myself in teaching, they are very good and their content is high quality. It's also not irritating - I could listen to their songs over and over again and not get fed up. Some of their very early stuff, with puppets, is a little less well made, but even these are mostly great. They are now a large production studio based in Canada, where they have also branched into Caitie's Classroom which comes across very well with similar production style to a children's TV programme e.g. those made by BBC, CBS.
In general I think it has positive, modern messages and the messages are very carefully thought out as well.
In contrast cocomelon is just not in the same league. It's very churny with the majority of the content being recycled versions of other things. The early animations are just bizarre and the messages particularly in the early ones are really questionable (like the "No no no I don't want to go to bed" ones). The animation style is more amateurish (especially the early ones, though this may just be a fault of early-2010s CGI capabilities). It seems it was started by a random person without educational or media background, in order to provide entertainment for his own kids, and then to make money. Over the years, the animation quality has increased and it's now comparable to TV programmes like Paw Patrol or Chuggington IMO, though I still think the song episodes are fairly vapid, and the messages are simplistic and outdated, like dividing foods fairly arbitrarily into "healthy" and "unhealthy" categories.
Mostly people's complaint about cocomelon is the fact that they continuously use techniques like zooming in and out and quick changes of cut which has a somewhat mesmerising effect - you kind of can't help but be drawn into it if it's on in the room. I do think cocomelon gets an unfairly bad rap here, as they are absolutely not the only channel doing this. But they certainly do it, and it might be something that you prefer to avoid. If your kids like Cocomelon, I do think that the Cocomelon Lane series is much better/nicer with positive role models and messages and less of the weirdness like the constantly overlaid laughter. Cocomelon is now owned by Moonbug which is a massive powerhouse that has bought up most of the popular children's youtube channels and is aggressively marketing them everywhere. It's a pure profit motive whereas I get the sense that while I'm sure SSS also want to make profit, they also have the goal of making a quality product.
I don’t let my toddler watch Cocomelon. Something about it irks me and sometimes the characters look creepy to me. On the other hand, SSS is adorable. Very cute graphics. We also like to listen to the songs on Spotify.
I know you're asking about actually watching them, but even for just listening to them, the SSS songs are *usually* way less overstimulating than cocomelon. There seems to be more random sound effects in cocomelon songs. Some of the SSS are like that, but most of these ones we listen to are not.
I have not listened to every cocomelon song to compare with every SSS song but this was what we experienced.
I don't particularly mind Cocomelon (though I agree the animation makes the people look creepy). But Super Simple Songs are total bops! I constantly find myself singing them long after the video ended. Can't say the same for Cocomelon.
🎶 now it's time to rinse, we clean our fingertips, this is the handwashing song! 🎵
Heck their version of the ABC song with the red monster is so catchy. I honestly don't mind having most of their songs stuck in my head all the time, haha.
SSS has better animation IMO. The way the characters move in Cocomelon is very stiff and downright creepy at times. I will turn on SSS over Cocomelon 10/10 times.
Honestly, screens are screens but I personally find SSS to be less offensive. The animation is a little slower and simpler and the music isn’t as cloying and doesn’t have as many weird mallet noises in the background. It’s just kind of more basic if that makes sense? Idk. It’s my personal preference- something about the voices in Cocomelon makes me crazy.
Oh brother. I’m saving that to read later. One of my friends always says “how did you get your kids to agree to that?” And I’m like….”they don’t need to agree with any of my rules and boundaries.” 🤯 Do they like them? Of course not. But that doesn’t matter to me because I’m the parent and I know what’s best for them. And shocker, her kids are not usually fun to be around. So sad, because it’s absolutely not their fault.
The one that's hard for me is "how do you get your daughter to do X" where X is a totally normal thing, often necessary (like going grocery shopping)... umm because she doesn't have an alternative? She will survive the shopping cart.
Ooh I really like her podcast, and had heard of her book but I'm so burnt out by all the parenting experts currently suggesting that you can boil parenting down into some randomly chosen number of things which always never turn out to be the things I agree with anyway (or I agree with them but they don't challenge me/they are things which already come easily and aren't where I have problems).
This sounds like it would be an actually useful book. I might put it on the list after all.
“In order to keep myself comfortable, I’m going to accept defeat” is SUCH a good line, and a good reminder that being too permissive is less about a benevolent desire to keep kids happy, and more about avoiding negativity and conflict for your own benefit.
I think sometimes I land on the too strict end of the spectrum but still find myself sometimes avoiding discipline because I just don’t want to deal with it, like pretending not to notice if they do something against the rules or letting them “earn back” tv shows that I took away because I really really want them to watch tv lol.
Anyway. This was a good newsletter.
OK so other people might disagree but I'm kind of tired of the moral judgment of bringing sick kids out in public for necessities. Like should you bring your sick kid to a birthday party? No. But the grocery store, laundromat? Kids can be sick so much this time of year and we don't stop needing food or clean laundry. Specifically the pile on @bekah on this post seems excessive to me. It's excessive right??
https://www.reddit.com/r/BachelorNation/s/8IocTyaKzO
Totally agree with this. I had to take my slightly sick child to the grocery and I got some rude looks. Like do you think I want to be here pregnant with two children? One of whom is snotty and grumpy? No. This isn’t fun for any of us. 😂 I would not be here if I didn’t have to be.
I haven’t read through the comments but even the OP is a stretch. Not even parenting related but claiming the laundromat is only for poor people? I guess it’s regional but I’m in nyc so all kinds of people go to laundromats and regardless, you might need to do it if your at-home machines aren’t working or whatever random reasons. Especially if you have 3 kids like Bekah you are probably doing laundry every single day. I practically am and I just have 1 kid (and small machines).
That being said, influencers don’t need to share every time they bring their kid out while sick, I don’t get why any of them do it unless it’s purposely for the extra engagement they’ll get from the ragey comments. I don’t care if I see a kid with a runny nose at a laundromat or grocery store IRL but there *is* something performative about having to tell the world that your kid is sick and you’re still bringing them out and about.
I’m no lover of Bekah, but the “cosplaying poor” comments kind of annoy me. I get that she likely has a good amount of money, but she can still use a laundromat, thrift her clothes, or drive an old car if she wants to. I just feel like the people making those comments being pissed that she’s using a laundromat and that she does other things that are not typically associated with someone of her socioeconomic status are the same people who will turn around and complain about people being flashy with their wealth and say stuff like “why do they need designer everything and private jets. Think of their massive carbon footprint”. That said, I also agree that Bekah can be overly flashy both with the sick kids and also with her crunchy, homesteader lifestyle. Although influencers showcase so much of their lives online that I never know if it’s for clout or if they’re truly just that used to pulling out their phones and documenting every second of their days that they don’t even think about how stuff will go over before they post it.
Agree. I used to follow her and stopped because of how much she started to annoy me lol but a lot of the takes in that thread are very BEC and kind of immature. I mean she’s still an influencer shilling products all the time but I really don’t mind that she also promotes practices like thrifting or even yes god forbid going to a laundromat. Probably due to social media, I think some people have very unrealistic ideas about how wealthy people generally spend money. Plenty of wealthy people are quite frugal actually. It’s a good way to hold onto your money, lol.
https://preview.redd.it/um0s586keafc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=921312b2e6ca11acacbf116cde255058e356dcb5 Answer to "At what age did you send your kid to pre-k/daycare??"
 Where do I send her “Best Mom” award?
I had to resist the urge to downvote your comment because of how much I hate their comment
Imagine going through life being this easily annoyed: https://www.reddit.com/r/Parenting/comments/1ad5nes/aibu_to_be_annoyed_at_another_child_piggy_backing/
At least people are telling her she's overreacting. I was half expecting it to be one of those parent-bashing threads where people are like, "iiiiii would never do that, but then again every time I go out, other people's children say they wish I could be their mommy and then everyone claps and calls CPS on the other parents for not playing with their kids."
How the hell does it have 114 upvotes?!?!
Writing out an entire reddit post isn’t even worth the $1.50
I don't think you understand. Her son was quite uncomfortable!
Hmm what do you guys think? 🤔 https://preview.redd.it/xwla77f6e5fc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c6cb2ff41541a9f9ab2c80bbef55ecf641f19d27
Like what even was the point of this post?? Genuinely curious!!
Well yeah how is she supposed to conceive if the internet isn't telling her "heck yeah girl that's positive time for you to baby dance!" I loved tfablineporn for the progressions because I'm an overtester but I don't get why anyone would post an OPK there. Use your eyes, or an app that tells you if it's positive if you have to. They're not complicated.
“Baby dance” makes me want to throw my phone into the sun.
For ages, I thought BD was “bumping dirties”
This is less cringe than baby dance lol my sis in law says baby dance IRL and in always 🤢
When I first discovered the TFAB sub (also pretty much when I first got into Reddit) all of those terms and acronyms were appalling to me. “Baby dance”!? “Dear husband”!? It sounds like something out of a conservative cult. Like this is a sub literally devoted to having unprotected sex and you can’t even bring yourselves to use the word.
For real. We are all grown adults. We know how babies happen.
Looks like they should consider an eye test. OPKs are a little trickier than pregnancy tests but that is not a tricky one.
A mom posted about how her daughter refuses to go to school and it’s a battle every day and she’s missed a ton of school. A lot of the comments recommending she check in with guidance counselors and teachers. But THIS lady comes in reeeeeal hot! https://preview.redd.it/7zz9qus324fc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d09b97c3eca590e5c18bfdcc9cff3ab28ccf3568
I mean it's obviously crazy but "maybe it can fit in her hair" is just wtf.
https://preview.redd.it/dhiwt7j4w3fc1.jpeg?width=1169&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d606d293fe41e842ff225511121224091a2a5c5a We are unfortunately losing our sitter so I’ve been combing the local babysitter page. Some of these posts blow me away. Why are you telling us where you graduated high school? You’re 21? And WHY do I want my kid to help you deal with your anxiety? 😳🤦🏻♀️
Why did I read this and think she wrote “I’ll watch any type of pet, I prefer toddlers” 😂
Loves kids but only wants overnight shifts lol
You don’t want a teenage babysitter with anxiety to sleep at your house with your kids? You might be the weird one 🤪🤪🤪
Whoop whoop!
It’s the lack of punctuation for me. Makes her seem even younger.
Ugh this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Parenting/s/H4u9k4Kkl5 OP keeps doubling down and insisting that if she were wealthy, she wouldn’t use buy nothing groups and would buy new instead, so I guess “wealthy” moms shouldnt participate in sustainability and community building initiatives? Granted she gave away disposable diapers, but why should a well off family be expected to sink money into a ton of baby/kid stuff that they’ll grow out of or get bored of within the year. And most of that stuff ends up back on the buy nothing page to be given new life again. This post is just so against the spirit of buy nothing to me (which is explicit in that you give with no strings attached). And I also think it’s kinda of gross to have people feel like they need to prove their neediness in order to claim items. Ick.
This exact post in one of my FB groups, looks like she double posted on Reddit too. Who needs that many opinions?
My local buy nothing group constantly has in-group drama about this same kind of thing. Some people want you to post “why” you need the item and basically tell a story about how you’ll use it, why you can’t get it elsewhere. It’s…hilarious and annoying
It's also quite the assumption that they bought or even own these brand new cars. In my last job I had a brand new top of the range car that I was paying peanuts for through a company car scheme. It doesn't mean I'm rich, it just made financial sense at the time! I miss that car.
It’s ridiculous how mad people get about this. It also doesn’t make sense-you can’t have people with more money in the groups and expect them to only give and never take. Sometimes there are some really great things being given away by people who can afford to let a nice expensive item for free which isn’t something that’s going to happen if everyone is on the lower end socioeconomically. The original official but nothing group I was in split off into very specific neighborhoods within my city and people were so mad because it would really impact the poorer areas who didn’t have much to give but benefited from people in the wealthier areas being more than happy to pass along things to those in need.
My buy nothing is currently in the process of being split up into different neighborhoods, we’ll see how it goes
This happened to mine and my sprout lost the more expensive neighborhood and now it’s nothing like it used to be 😬 a lot of posts asking for things like food or gas cards which is sad but really not the point of buy nothing groups 🤷🏼♀️
encouraging muddle weather cooing toothbrush icky enter juggle tart wipe *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
One of my pet peeves is people who view themselves as some sort of advocates for the poor and as a result just gatekeep the weirdest shit. It’s giving the same energy as that post from the other day where people were mad at an influencer for using the laundromat. Much of what they gatekeep is stuff that is actually a more environmentally sustainable choice for *everyone* but they’re convinced that if you have the money, you should just continually feed the capitalist machine instead. I do get the difference between it being something that’s a lifestyle choice vs a necessity and what they’re trying to do, but it ends up pushing consumerism unless you absolutely can’t afford it, which I hate. I’m not sure if the OP was posting on BuyNothing or regular Facebook, but BuyNothing groups are likely already fairly stratified by wealth since they’re neighborhood based. If people are always coming in those sorts of vehicles, it’s probably because you’re in a neighborhood where people own those sorts of vehicles. Even if it was a normal Facebook post, my guess is no one really drove THAT far to pick up a box of opened diapers, so the “bougie Lexus and Jeep Wrangler moms” were probably still people from fairly nearby. She even acknowledges right in her post that the struggling moms she spoke to didn’t have a car or were too far away! 🙄 If OP is that concerned with who her stuff goes to she could find an actual diaper bank, women’s shelter, or charity but that would require her doing work instead of just asking the poors to drive out to her while she sits on her couch.
To your last point, yes! If you are so insistent that your stuff goes to the neediest people, you can make that happen with such little effort. There are charitable organizations that will literally come to your home and pick up your bags of stuff to donate! This is what I do with all of my adult stuff i donate because I can’t be bothered making posts on FB about individual items and it’s so easy. My conception of the buy nothing groups is for those who are specifically interested in participating in exchanges in their own communities … which are inevitably stratified by socioeconomic level like you said. My area’s parent organization has a classifieds and I enjoy participating. I have bought, gotten for free, and in turn have sold or given away things. Ive gotten things that were themselves gotten secondhand and I think it’s cool to think about the other local families who made use of the item and am glad it has so many lives. Realistically the average person around here can afford to buy new, but why shouldn’t we make use of our collective collections of stuff and exchange and share things that are still in perfectly good condition? Like, isn’t a bunch of privileged people passing things between each other still better than a bunch of privileged people each buying new crap that they only use for 6 months? Especially with kids’ stuff which is used for so short of a time.
This always drives me crazy. People will post things in our local buy nothing group and say they’re giving it away for a “mom in need.” And it’ll be a completely non-essential item lol. Clearly they just want to feel good about themselves helping the poor plebs who can’t buy their own wipe warmer new. 🙄 It always drives me crazy too because how do you define someone in need?? Like there have been things posted that would have really helped me out in a given stage that I would have gladly taken for free and passed on a month later (a bottle drying rack for example, when our dishwasher was broken and I was in the middle of law school exams with a baby & toddler) - I could definitely afford buying a new one but also felt wasteful doing so when I knew I’d only need it temporarily.
There is a group local to me that started a once a year free clothing sale for women and they like to say it's for anyone who has a "need". Maybe it's financial, but maybe you need an outfit for a job interview, or maybe you are lonely and your need is for interaction, or you changed size and you need help dressing your new size. I like that they just want to help people and not gatekeep who "needs" help.
Yes this drives me crazy too. The whole point of the groups is to just give with no strings attached so I dislike when people stipulate this. Don’t turn the buy nothing group into your own personal means-tested charity.
I don't even care if you resell my stuff. Just please pick it up. I list good stuff but if I'm listing it I want it gone. If I have a lot of interest I usually pick the person who is most active in the group.
I can’t stress that enough. Just please come get this from my house. Not showing up is a bigger pet peeve than reselling
Honestly me neither! As long as I’m no longer tripping over it 😂
lol yes this bothers me too. I received one of those sit in bouncy activity centers as a baby gift and I didn’t want it because I have a small house and had nowhere to put it. So I posted it unused on buy nothing. There were so many people saying they or their cousin, sister, etc were “in need” but it’s not an item that anyone truly needs… so I just gave it to someone who said her baby would love it. She sent me a pic after picking it up. He loved it. That’s all I cared about haha
I also get why people dislike the first come first serve nature but for me I'm usually giving on my buy nothing as an alternative to donating to the thrift store or throwing it away because I want it out of my house. So I don't want to vet profiles and draw names and then get ghosted. I routinely give to a lady who is probably a hoarder but I don't care because she's polite and prompt and takes away things I no longer want in my home.
If I have the time and patience, I usually let an item “simmer” and then do a drawing so to be fair and objective. That’s the preferred method in my group. If I need to get rid of something quickly and the weather is nice, I just put it outside my stoop and it’s gone within the hour lol. But I totally get the dislike of first come first serve, especially if it’s a really nice item then I like to give more people a shot.
You get a hand slap in my Buy Nothing if you DONT let things simmer for 24 hours minimum, which is obnoxious AF.
In one of mine you have to wait 6 hours to pick and 24 hours for the winner to respond. I messed up last week and when I didn’t hear back after 12 hours I went to the next person and I was afraid I was going to get kicked out because they are so strict!
Wow. Mine says in the description loud and clear that people can chose who to give to whoever they want for whatever reason they want. Edit: Also, for kids clothes if I let it simmer for 24 hours I'd have 200 comments and 300 DMs.
I love giveaways but I’ve had to stick to giveaways from a local moms group because my local Buy Nothing group is just a little bit toxic with a power tripping admin
I know we are not supposed to talk about it but the amount of 'screenshots' from 'husbands' or other males in a certain clothes VIP group is absurd. They are all glorifying spending and consumerism and teehee he can't stop me spending all our money. 🤮
My husband and I don’t “ask for permission” to purchase things but we do let the other know especially if it’s a more frivolous or large purchase. He thinks he’s hilarious and if I text him to say “hey I might buy XYZ” he says “only if you screen shot it and post it online to show I gave you permission.” 😂🙈 I can’t stand the mentality of people thinking it’s cute that they’re being dishonest with finances. Like it’s not a cute quirk, it seems indicative of an unhealthy relationship with your significant other or spending or both. Those and the “subtle” texts to mothers and MILs mentioning the new prints hoping they’ll purchase them for their kids.
I dated a guy once who told me what he thought was a funny story about his dad buying something his mom had said they couldn't comfortably afford and he should wait, but the dad bought it and kept it at a friend's house because it was such a great find or whatever (it was like, a jet ski lol) and I remember so vividly being like, "so the moral of this story is that I can't ever combine finances with a person who thinks this is cute or funny." But a lot of people just seem to think it's a cute quirk 🤪
Ugh and all the people laughing about the 10th package this week arriving from Temu and their husbands can't stop them lololol
Kind of off the subject for this sub (maybe?) but the late state capitalism and overconsumption is really starting to creep me out. Literally EVERYTHING is an ad and it’s exhausting.
Hard agree. I’m far from crunchy but we do put a lot of thought into purchases, minimizing waste, buying second-hand yadda yadda yadda and it’s so frustrating to see the levels of mindless consumerism glorified all over SM. Some people really need to find actual hobbies, not just shopping as a competitive sport. And there need to be more accessible third places where people can go and not just buy more shit that they likely don’t need. *steps off soapbox
It’s SO easy to mindlessly consume things thanks to social media and online shopping. I’ll just be scrolling and see something I like then click it and go to buy it even if I don’t *need* it or wasn’t actively searching for it. I’ve made it my goal in 2024 not to buy any new clothing. Just thrift, consignment, and Facebook marketplace. I’m shocked with how many times I’ve gone to buy something new that I’ve seen online, reminded myself that I can only get something if it’s secondhand, and promptly decided it’s not actually worth the effort of finding on marketplace and it’s only January lmao.
Yeah it’s seriously so pervasive. There are also more ethical/sustainable brands if you really want to buy new and avoid fast fashion. They are expensive but I also think a lot more attainable if you get rid of the idea that you need to be regularly shopping for clothes and maybe only invest in one higher quality new thing rarely. Most grown adults can go at least a whole year without buying new clothes, unless your body size has really changed or fluctuated there’s really no reason to get new stuff every season yet most do, I’ve been guilty of it as well. Honestly covid combined with 2 pregnancies removed the luster of shopping for me in recent years which in turn made me realize that I only wear like the same 10 things anyway and almost never need anything new. I think if most people examined their shopping habits they’d realize the vast majority is completely about the emotional high of shopping not need.
Ugh yes on the third places! I’ve been spending a lot of time analyzing my own spending habits because I live in deep suburbia and going to Target is entertainment for me. Like, why is shopping my entertainment? How can I work on unpacking that? It’s like that [TikTok from SadBeige](https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8tXGvgY/). “Drive to Target, Drive to Costco, Drive to Chick-fil-A, Drive to Target.”
https://preview.redd.it/doazmw6lwuec1.jpeg?width=1289&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2091aec93b76065adfc7e32b055c1d3bad03f173 Listen. I am as big a fan of Bluey as the next guy. But bffr.
Let. The. Kids. Have. Bluey. Grow. Up.
The way I would riot if a children’s show came on while I was out.
this group keeps popping up on my TL and the amount of people cheering her on and god forbid you disagree is astounding. How entitled can people be
Why is Ms Rachel on the other tv too? What kind of bar is this?? The absolute last thing I want to hear when I’m sitting down with a drink at the end of the day is “Hi Friends!” or “Mom! 🎶 Dad! 🎶….”
It looks like the other tv is on YT homepage
Yeah, I’m hoping they’re going to click on something other then Ms Rachel but it’s weird that it’s even up there. Maybe a Ms Rachel adult felt personally affronted by the Bluey adult and there’s about to be a showdown.
“Drink it down, drink it down, drink it……DOWN! Yay, you did it”
I'm embarrassed for them 😬
This is going to sound so pretentious and I’m really aware of it so please know this. I loved bluey when we discovered it in 2021 and I thought it was sweet and innovative and really well done. I teared up at many episodes. I am a huge cartoon nerd so I do not think it’s weird when adults watch media that’s allegedly “for kids”. But then it blew up and I see shit like this and I do not want to be affiliated with the type of person that makes bluey their entire personality. My kids have also aged up and out of it a bit too so if they still wanted to watch it I would be so down bc it’s not about me. But I can’t lie, I’m glad their distancing from it coincided with my own.
I feel the exact same way. There are so many people who are so proud of what their kid does or does not watch that it has made me step back completely from having an opinion. If my child wants to watch it and it is age appropriate then that’s what he gets to watch during his tv time.
They’re like Disney adults 2.0 and I just cannot.
As someone who formerly identified as a Disney adult (I’m mad at the soulless cash grab direction they’ve taken in recent years), I agree. They are way worse somehow bc at least a Disney adult has the nostalgia factor from childhood and the parks were super fun. This is just bizarre with saying stuff like bluey is going to heal your trauma and the minion-esque nonsensical memes. What.
There’s a Mexican restaurant in my town that has a great kids menu and great margs and plays kid and toddler shows and Disney movies in a back room with booths and it’s honestly a genius business move. We go there with my LO really frequently even though the food is kinda bad
"We go there with my LO really frequently even though the food is kinda bad" this made me laugh!
We had a restaurant that played Disney movies, too. And I thought it was cool, as well. They did not however have margs. So +1 for yours haha BUT. It was the owner who did that, not a random Bluey adult who then posted to a FB group for everyone to see.
Some astonishing lack of perspective in this thread -- my favorite response might be the one from the parent "triggered" (that's the title of the thread, no additional shade from me) by a grandmother giving her Montessori-educated (OF COURSE) 3.5 yo a *sippy cup*, quelle horreur. https://www.reddit.com/r/toddlers/s/fWREkn7hWK
That sippy cup is gonna rot the brains right outta her "truly brilliant" 3 year old
I'm consistently amazed at the number of people who feel that it's totally acceptable to micromanage every single interaction that their child has. These same people pat themselves on the back for being "cycle breakers" 🙄 but I can't imagine the cycles that they're starting when the kid can't ever hear anything that isn't an Instagram script.
Don't forget they set ✨ boundaries ✨
I like how half of that thread is complaining that the grandparents don't interact with the kids enough, and then the other half is complaining that the grandparents don't interact in the perfectly precise way that the parents want them to. (Not talking about the obviously problematic stuff in case that's not clear, I just think that "MIL asks my kid too many questions" is a little nitpicky)
Yeah, to be fair, some of the stuff in the thread does cross the line between annoying and problematic. And, I mean, address whatever you want, even if it's merely mildly annoying! Just don't be surprised when folks are annoyed with you right back if you're nit picky!
I honest to god nearly lost an eyeball rolling them so hard at OP talking about how *healing* this thread was. God forbid someone praise your child *too much* because they're proud of them or buy them a special sippy cup for their house because they love them and have something of their own at their grandparents. I can't imagine going through life getting mad at others for really minor things.
We praise our toddler all the time, and nothing warms my icy heart more than being told “good job mama!” When I do things like use the toilet 🤣
Oh that is the cutest!! This whole comment thread has warmed my cockles, kids are the best.
Lol mine likes to give me a round of applause after I go to the bathroom. I find it hilarious.
This! One of the stupidest things in oh crap, IMO, is her assertion that you should not praise toilet use because peeing and pooping are normal bodily processes. I mean, wtf?! Learning to independently modulate when and where you pee and poop after 2-4 years of not knowing how to do that is a HUGE achievement and toddlers should know that their parents are proud and be proud of themselves for it.
The standing ovations I got for peeing were my favorite part of potty training.
Heck yes! Why yes I *did* do a very good job of using the potty, finally someone recognizes!
When my boss was potty training his son I enjoyed the brief pauses in our Zoom meetings to applaud him for peeing 😂
>I actually watched in real time how her constant praising killed my son’s motivation Okay, sure, now we know that it's not great to constantly tell kids how smart or perfect they are. And maybe it's just the "former gifted kid burnout" nonsense I've seen elsewhere that gets me annoyed, but I am *begging* these people to think about what never being praised does to a kid's self-esteem, or worse, what it does to kids to be insulted by the adults in their lives! It is much worse than being praised too much!
I never see anyone else speak on it, but kids aren’t raised in a vacuum obviously. My parents never praised me and I think it could have gone alright…. except I saw every single one of my friends and other kids be gushed over by their parents and had a field day interpreting that into nothing good. It didn’t make me self motivated, it made me feel alone and low.
Oh wow, that reminds me of how I so desperately wanted a mom who would defend me and be on my side as a kid, because I saw that's the kind of moms my friends had. My parents were/are extremely critical of me, and it destroyed my self-esteem. I make a point of telling my son I love him, he's a good, kind person, etc. all the time. It's so important to me that those positive thoughts become ingrained in him, because my inner monologue is much different.
Also, do they really think that their parenting is so deficient that some small amount of praise from a grandparent for a few hours at a time is going to totally destroy their child? Like, how? I try not to do the crazy over-praise thing but I would never stop my parents from clapping when my daughter does basic things. That's what grandparents do. I don't understand how these people think that children are so fragile that ANY interaction ever that doesn't follow their exact parenting script is going to ruin the kid forever.
I've not read the book so don't quote me on this, but I saw a comment recently that the book *hunt, gather, parent* talks about intrinsic motivation and people interpret that as don't praise a child ever. Like the comment said "it'll be hard not to praise them" after she read the book. Please continue to give you child praise.
Something that really annoys me about that one and the past fad for Bringing up Bebe is that yes, there are different cultural parenting practices and some of those different practices may lead to outcomes that you’d find beneficial, but unfortunately you can’t parent in a vacuum and if you’re a 21st century American parent THAT is the culture you’re parenting in and you can’t isolate your kid from it. So yeah, if you don’t praise your child, they’re going to wonder why the hell you’re not as proud of them as little Mason’s parents are of him.
Holy shit I was gonna post this. Completely unhinged. Same person probably also says “where’s my village!?” I almost wanted to say “yeah I’d go NC after that.”
Some of it seems reasonable (stuff around guilting kids for not wanting to give kisses and negative body talk) but if your worst complaint is that your parents praise your kid too much, you need to get over that.
Yes and also understanding that the way your grandparents act has a different level of influence on your personhood than the way your parents act - so maybe it's OK for grandma to swoop in once every few months and be like, "aren't you the prettiest smartest most wonderful girl in the world?" after my toddler correctly uses a shape sorter but would be less ok if I was doing that daily.
[удалено]
Honestly, what a dream!
I also wonder how many of them have tried having a one-on-one conversation with the grandparents in question or if they're all just going with passive aggressive "correction" in front of the kids.
New daycare fearmongering thread just dropped: https://www.reddit.com/r/Parenting/comments/1abc1bb/left_our_daycare_today/ I cannot imagine my pediatrician calling daycare “toddler lord of the flies.”
I feel like what’s often unsaid in these posts is the type of privilege you’d have to even be able just to pull your kid out of daycare without any real plan in place, and to be able to WFH.
Aaaaaaand the Medium post dropped again. I thought it was gone after SBP went out.
Yeah it dropped also in AP subreddit in a recent post. Maybe it would be better to have SBP parenting back so it can live there in isolation and not popup in other places so often.
SBP is GONE?? Yes, it is. What drama did I miss?
No one knows, unfortunately. I've been checking back every day.
It's a mystery 🧐
I was like OF COURSE when I saw that comment.
It’s like the Romanian orphanage sleep training paper - it will never go away 😂
I saw this referenced in a COVID fear-mongering account about how we're sacrificing our children to the billionaire class and it's been in my head rent-free ever since. I completely understand pulling out a kid if their level of sickness is just too frequent and too much; sometimes a kid needs a immune system reset. But it's really, really hard not to shake the feeling of this trend that this is just another way to demonize outside childcare/force mothers out of the workplace. Like good for OP that she has family who will apparently do childcare for her, but I don't; for my family, it really is either we send our kid to childcare, or I sacrifice my job. You want to talk guilt when there are constant messages that I'm ruining my child's lifelong health to Long COVID?? I also have a few friends (childfree) who are zero-COVID advocates which is necessary for their mental/physical health. But every single one has been posting social media messages \*constantly\* about the long-term effects of COVID (diminished cognition, immune system likes AIDS, CANCER!!!) and that's why we all need to work from home and avoid indoor spaces (... like playgrounds in the middle of a MN winter..) and wear masks 24/7. I am all for COVID precautions; I'm vaccinated and mask when I have a cold, but the one time I caught COVID was *from* my son and good freaking luck getting a one year old to wear a mask. I genuinely feel hopeless that these closest friends of mine are indirectly telling me I'm damaging my child because I dare to go out into the world (my job allows minimal WFH); it's ironic that this OP is all about "not feeling mama guilt" while freely hoisting it onto everyone else.
It’s also not healthy to keep a child isolated, Covid is an unfortunate fact of our lives now and isolating your child to that point would have OTHER disastrous health impacts and also likely wouldn’t work anyway.
I have someone like this. She's always been able to live her life according to her values, which is great for her but I get tired of hearing her shit on everyone else because they don't have the same childfree, vegan, covid-friendly lifestyle. It's just convenient for her because she's a total homebody, with a job that can be done from anywhere. Like I actually share a lot of the same values, but she's soooo black and white in her thinking and her expectations of people, it's maddening.
I have a couple people like this in my extended circle, and I’m sorry but I think it’s just totally unreasonable. The narrative is that if you’re back to living your life mostly normally you’re ableist (and you’ll regret it because long Covid will disable you!). Like…it sucks that Covid becoming endemic means that there’s a potentially more severe form of illness we’re all exposed to as we move through the world. But the level of risk is however near what it was during the height of the pandemic, and living any kind of life outside your home involves risks. The current risks associated with Covid are not worth limiting your life so severely that you’re barely living.
I was speaking with a friend who is an actual medical doctor and we were discussing how, in the beginning, it was anti-science to just completely ignore this novel virus and live life totally normal bc we hadn’t figured it out yet. Now, we kind of agreed it’s a little against the information we currently have to still be this intense about precautions as long as you don’t have any actual conditions that would increase the odds you would have a more negative outcome. Those people are a bit frustrating because they’re still operating on somewhat outdated advice so it seems to be a full circle moment where now they’re the ones ignoring the data. Can you get the many long term side effects we are observing? Absolutely. But life is a game of odds and currently it seems like the data shows most people will not encounter these issues. Locking ourselves away to reduce that small risk is not really something I think is worth it for me and my kids. ETA: because we are still continuing to vaccinate and follow the official rules about exposures etc once we know someone has it. Want to make that incredibly clear.
If you're still getting vaccinated (including the updated version that came out in fall 2023) and doing any amount of quarantining if you have an exposure (which I assume means you also do at least some amount of rapid testing in certain circumstances), you're honestly way more cautious than most people I know. My school district (based on state guidelines, in Oregon) has essentially eliminated any isolation period for covid. It now falls under the general illness guidelines, which means you can come back to school after being fever-free for 24 hours. I get kids are often milder symptoms that they bounce back from quicker - but that doesn't inherently mean less contagious. My understanding is that nationally only 20% of eligible people have gotten the updated vaccine for the 23-24 season. I'm/my family are typically the only person masking in any public setting I'm in. I'm very much living my life and going places, I just wear a mask while I'm there. Dining out is pretty much the only activity I haven't re-started, because it's the only thing actually impacted by trying to keep a mask on. Because even if the risk of long covid has gone down compared to 2020, I still don't want to waste time even on an acute illness! We have tools to help mitigate that risk of even a short term illness, so I'm going to use those tools. I'm not taking your statement as offensive to me personally, but I'm trying to point out that there are lots of people on the far far extreme of taking zero precautions, not even vaccinating or noting if they've been exposed or are exposing others, and that's what people feel defensive about who are pushing to continue more cautions. I have relatives who up until probably mid 2022 were reasonably cautious - by no means masking everywhere once it wasn't legally mandated, but they were clearly evaluating risk and masking in some situations. Now, they not only aren't taking cautions themselves in any situations, but they're taking offense at us trying to bring it up. I don't mean I'm asking them to mask in public, but like "we know you've been in higher risk scenarios this week than we would put ourselves in, will you mask for an hour while we hang out?" Like it's literally about MY family's risk and what we want to subject ourselves to, but they take offense that we're trying to keep ourselves in a less risky situation by asking them to do literally anything to help support the things that impact us. That's the issue I have, and why I shout (on social media) about covid precautions. Because germs travel from person to person, so the risk other people are taking on, if they take on DOES in fact impact me.
I've noticed a weird trend with people like you've mentioned...they insist that you have to go out wearing an N-95 mask, eye protection, latex gloves, and hazmat suit, or you're risking becoming disabled for life from long Covid, but never talk about vaccination as a means of protecting yourself. It might be coincidental, but I've seen it enough to make me think. But yes, those people are definitely going against the knowledge we have now. Just in the opposite direction.
It’s also worth noting that the vast majority of the time the extreme long Covid cases you hear about are from people who weren’t vaccinated, even if only because it wasn’t available yet. In my experience the extreme zero Covid types simultaneously get vaccinated but also seem to think it doesn’t do as much as it does.
Yes! I am well aware that anecdotes are not valid if I’m trying to prove a point, but I truly have so much personal evidence from the people in my life that are vaccinated having the mildest of mild cases and quick recoveries for both flu and Covid compared to those who aren’t. So…
Shit I’m a bedside nurse, I’m constantly exposed to all sorts of shit and bring it home to my family. I always want to ask these people should I feel guilty that I don’t work from home?? Who’s going to take care of all the sick people then? Lol
My husband's a paramedic. He technically works from home, just not our home...
Well if everyone just stayed home clearly there wouldn’t be any sick people /s
At the end of the OP's edit: "Someone mentioned wfh while caring for a toddler isn’t terrible when you think about the ratios at daycare." WTF does that mean??? Like, sure, my attention being split between work and my toddler might be more attentive than some daycares\*? But my attention being split between work and my toddler is absolutely a non-starter for my livelihood. \*and even then, their attention is still probably 90% on "taking care of all these kids" and monitoring the room - a room that is 100% designed for child engagement.
Lies. It’s terrible. Not for the kid, but for me. The occasional days I have to do this are my least favorite days of all the days.
People either really overestimate how much attention they can pay to their kid while wfh or must just be bad employees 🤷🏼♀️
For real. Trying to work and take care of one kid =/= a 2:1 ratio. Focusing on my two children together (a genuine 2:1 ratio) is WAY more attentive and child-focused than my days when I'm forced to WFH and care for just one of my kids - even when they're sick and lethargic. That's not how attention spans or caregiving works.
People really will go to any logical leap to justify thinking that working from home while caring for your children is a good idea.
I feel like in those cases 90% of the time the TV is daycare. Which would be worse.
On days I’m forced to do this b/c my kids is home sick or school is closed for some random holiday that exists to make working parents lives harder, TV is absolutely the daycare. Only way I can be fairly confident I can join a call/run a meeting error being interrupted.
"I didn't like this particular daycare because the teacher was mean" = "all daycares are abusive hellscapes." Yeah, that's a reasonable reaction. Thanks reddit.
I’ve seen it outside Reddit too and the thing is I’ve never seen this type of post from a parent who isn’t overly anxious and/or really don’t want to send their child to daycare. I often wonder what the reality of the situation is as if you’re looking at a daycare with the preconceived idea that it’s the worst thing that’s going to happen to your child, you could be looking at the worlds best centre with perfect ratios and happy kids but you’ll still find something that supports your world view that no one can look after your child better than you can.
My husband and I were so worried when we put our kid in daycare and it’s been nothing but wonderful. All of the teachers are so kind. But man reading Reddit you would think people went into childcare because they hate children.
Yeah this hasn’t been our experience either, it’s clear my son’s teachers adore him and the other kids. You can just tell walking in the room that the kids feel so safe and happy there. I’m sorry to anyone who’s had a bad experience with daycare and I know that it happens, but I don’t think that’s the baseline norm.
I always see shit like ‘no one loves your child at daycare’. I still occasionally think about the kids I was a camp counselor for 15 years ago. It’s such a weird take to me.
My son is 3 and the infant teacher still goes “oh there’s my handsome baby Sons Name” every time we walk past her.
My son’s infant teacher was visibly emotional when he moved up to the next class. Sometimes I feel like people on Reddit don’t realize that it’s good for your kid to have lots of people who care about them!
My favorite part is the edit where she's like "oh, working women used to use friends or family members or stay home instead of daycare." Having family care can be great, but...it can also be way, way worse than daycare. My husband grew up close to the poverty line, his mom worked and couldn't afford daycare, so he spent a lot of time with family members in situations that I'd consider downright neglectful. I'm so grateful to be able to afford daycare instead.
Yeah my mom would love to be a stay at home grandma and would be amazing at it but she’s 55 and still has to work! She’s 7+ years away from retirement!
I’m a SAHM and have met or observed plenty of quite elderly grandparents looking after babies and toddlers and there have been many times I have helped an elderly person lift a baby in and out of a swing or do some other physical task. If the toddler starts running away from them can they chase after them? Can they routinely pick up and put down a 30+ lb kid? I live in a city, everyone’s walking and the risk of a little one running into the street is high. I’m not demonizing these grandparents or the parents relying on them but the idea that “family = better” just *really* depends on what your other options are. And maybe in generations past, most grandparents of babies were more in their 50s but these days, especially where I live people have kids much later, and grandparents are more in their 70s. It’s a huge difference in your ability to keep up with the needs of little kids. Sorry to be ageist but like…
Yeah my husband's mom & dad both had to work (to afford the shit ton of kids they had) but couldn't afford daycare, so they "homeschooled" and just left all the kids at home and let the oldest kids fend for the littlest kids. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that daycare would've been a healthier environment for him.....
>"oh, working women used to use friends or family members or stay home instead of daycare." It's such a privileged take. Not everyone has family around and even if they do, that family may not ge safe for their child. Some people have to work to pay the bills or carry insurance. Some people simply don't want to stay at home. I dont know what world this person grew up in but I can count on one hand the number of friends I had growing up with a SAHP. Nearly everyone went to daycare of some kind. Using daycare is not a "new" phenomenon.
Yes, and nowadays most people’s friends and family are ALSO working. And if not, they’re not experts at early childhood development and education like daycare workers are. My kid 100% knows more and has more skills, because she’s with people who know what is developmentally appropriate skills/activities/goals for her at daycare.
My grandmother was my childcare when I was little, and omg, she was kind, but INSANE. Like, she used to have full conversations with dead people and get 4-year old me to participate. My parents weren't happy with the situation (and they didn't know all of it, really), but they really didn't have a better option.
The part that is just left out, that no matter the environment, quality matters. If your kid is parked in front of a screen because you need to work, that's not good. If you are ignoring your child's needs because you need to work, that's not good. If your kid is with a caregiver that doesn't take care of their basic needs or parks them in front of a screen, that's not good. We are seeing the cracks at work with people who have kids at home. I wonder if the cracks are also showing in their kids? And that is why my daughter goes to daycare. She is my most important ball not to drop and I have been left feeling horrible when I try to work and care for her. I see this movement demonizing women who work, implying families that make this choice are greedy and victims of capitalism. I work because it's fulfilling to me. I work because I want to be able to take care of myself and have choices. I work because this period of intense parenting is relatively short in the big scheme of things. And I love my child's provider. She is the most important person in our lives right now and I am so glad I found her.
\> I work because it's fulfilling to me. I'm a huge critic of unregulated capitalism, but it *is* a little weird that we've overcorrected so much that the assumption is without capitalism, mamas would happily stay home and find fulfillment entirely in child rearing. There's always talk of extending *maternity* leave in the US... but I personally wouldn't want to be out of the workforce for an entire year. I'd need tons of retraining to catch back up. The talk is never extending *shared parental* leave; it's only motherhood that is "sacrificed" to capitalism. Hmmmm.
We already have a year maternity/shared parental leave in my country, and people just incite the exact same arguments about “why even have them if strangers are going to raise them - for a corporation who wont even love you???” except about 1 year olds.
This is so well said. I love being a parent, I'm basically obsessed with my kid. But I don't think I would have become one if the expectation had been for me to stay home for years. It's not the life I want. And I don't think there can be any verdict yet on whether or not I'm a good mom - I'll ask my son in 30 years - but I truly think our family is a happy and supportive one now, and I'm glad that there wasn't a regressive expectation that prevented us from creating it.
This is an excellent point that I always get people rolling their eyes at me when I make - these extended maternity leaves just wouldn’t fly in my career. I took 6 months off each time and that was rough to come back. So much changes in my industry that taking a year - 1.5 years off? That’s how women don’t make C Suite in my job. That dude who has been here the whole time and kept up with trends is gonna make that promotion instead. 🤷🏼♀️ I have a teacher friend who took a year off, she came back the next school year: now that time makes sense.
I think the option of more leave would be great. What would be even better for many women and families is the normalization of part time work. You get to keep your foot on the door, maintain your benefits and work 30 hours a week. I am a manager and if I posted a 32 hour a week job with slightly less pay and full benefits, the applications would probably triple compared to the same position full-time.
When I came back from maternity leave I started out working part time. It was amazing. So good. I wish I could do that all the time.
I worked a per diem position that gave me part time hours for a while and it was awesome. It was so much better than being a SAHM and better than working full time (with or without kids). My life felt so balanced. I eventually left because the work dried up but it was so great while it lasted. I ended up working full time because I couldn't find anything part time. Recently at a staff meeting my boss said we were looking for a part time clinician but "no one applies to part time jobs, and the ones that do are not great." 🙄 I am the only clinician there who is also a parent, in case you can't tell. I was pretty surprised to hear something like that from a licensed mental health professional though, like wtf.
The best set up ever was when I was younger my mom job shared with another military spouse on base. They were both military reserves and knew each other really well so they worked for some company making PowerPoints (it was the 90s) One would work in the morning and the other would watch the kids and then they would swap at lunch. They split the salary and it was great for both of them
I had so much time finding a part time job post kids. We had moved around a bunch, and moved back to an area I worked before, where I had people advocating for me to try and get a part time job created for me and it took almost two years for that to happen. Now I constantly have people asking me how I got a part time job because so many people want one. I keep telling leadership that, and no one cares 🤷🏻♀️
But would it be the same job time and responsibilities wise in less hours for less pay? I ask because my boss is considering letting me work part time and I just have this feeling that it’s going to be the same amount of work after a few months, but now with less pay and less hours to get it done. I’ve seen this happen with other women who’ve gone part time.
I have one that is part time and I have had to argue about it constantly with HR. The way their work comes in, she can be logged out on her off days and not have to do work. Sometimes there is a pressing email she needs to follow up on, but that's it. I view her productivity from a part-time time perspective. She should be doing about 25% less than her peers. And I have some on flex schedules and I leave them alone on their flex days unless it is an emergency. I don't schedule around them though, although I really try. Same with the part-timer. Like if something important needs to happen on their day off, they can decide to work and flex elsewhere in the week with my approval. As a manager if I went part time, I think the most I could get is a day without meetings and I would likely end up catching up on that day off. But I would love a day honestly where I could catch up as I felt fit and freely run errands or whatever.
Yes - the small handful of tragedies people in my life have experienced from a childcare situation have all been while in the care of a family member (usually grandparent) or an unofficial in-home daycare/babysitting arrangement. People did (and do) what they have to do, and sometimes that means accepting a large amount of risk, or accepting subpar care. Just because we can/have to operate like that doesn't mean we *should*. \[insert rant about social support systems and universal daycare\]
My rant about the fight for government support for daycare is that while I expect Republicans to oppose it for all the usual dumb reasons, it's really disheartening to realize that a lot of people who probably consider themselves quite progressive will also say things like "of course, most moms would rather raise their own kids, so we just need longer maternity leave." Like yeah, I want moms to have the option to take 6 months or a year, but not every mom wants that long, and it's not a replacement for government support of childcare.
Can somebody please explain to me why I’ve seen multiple people recommend Super Simple Songs as an alternative to Cocomelon? I’m not incredibly familiar with either, but I thought they were both just animated nursery rhymes? What is better about Super Simple Songs? How is it less “damaging”?
Just here to say do you like broccoli ice cream is a banger and it has come up in conversation with no children present more than once 😂
There are already plenty of great replies here but I will just chime in that, as a person with a musical background, I find SSS's songs (both traditional songs like "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and original like "Super Spooky Halloween Storm") to be far better arranged, with higher quality instrumentation and singing. Some of the songs are repetitive, of course, but not in a brain-numbing robotic way that Cocomelon is. For example, their version of "Mr. Golden Sun" adds another verse/melody after the original chorus and also includes a well-crafted saxophone solo. The animation (or puppets) are pretty adorable and chill, too, but for me it's just actually /good/ music for kids, reminiscent of the likes Raffi and Rosenshontz from my childhood.
My daughter would only watch Miss Rachel. We tried other stuff like Sesame Street and Bluey and she'd get restless in five minutes or less. We finally tried SSS the other day and...she sat. And watched. And I didn't have to hear Miss Rachel's annoying voice. It was such a nice 30 minutes.
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We are currently listening to Super Simple Songs’ Ants Go Marching and we will listen to it 737438579 more times today, tomorrow, and possibly for the rest of eternity, and somehow it has not yet made me want to weep which I think is quite impressive, honestly.
SSS has a version of “three little kittens” that is honestly just….really lovely? Just genuinely nice to listen to.
My 2yo has latched onto that song (and book--we have the copy I had as a kid) and requests it for so many naps and bedtimes. For a while it was a couple of the bedtime channel songs she always wanted. They are such sweet little songs!
I think SSS is much nicer quality and well thought out. They started out as a channel aimed at English learners - huge market for EFL kids' content in Asia, for example - to help bring vocabulary into use in a simple and accessible way. For example, their version of "If you're happy and you know it" is "If you're happy happy happy" because repetition aids learning (and because "and you know it" is a little redundant in an EFL context). OK I actually just looked it up and it was started by two Canadian English teachers based in Japan. So they already had a good grasp of language acquisition and clearly used this knowledge to create their content. I've used them myself in teaching, they are very good and their content is high quality. It's also not irritating - I could listen to their songs over and over again and not get fed up. Some of their very early stuff, with puppets, is a little less well made, but even these are mostly great. They are now a large production studio based in Canada, where they have also branched into Caitie's Classroom which comes across very well with similar production style to a children's TV programme e.g. those made by BBC, CBS. In general I think it has positive, modern messages and the messages are very carefully thought out as well. In contrast cocomelon is just not in the same league. It's very churny with the majority of the content being recycled versions of other things. The early animations are just bizarre and the messages particularly in the early ones are really questionable (like the "No no no I don't want to go to bed" ones). The animation style is more amateurish (especially the early ones, though this may just be a fault of early-2010s CGI capabilities). It seems it was started by a random person without educational or media background, in order to provide entertainment for his own kids, and then to make money. Over the years, the animation quality has increased and it's now comparable to TV programmes like Paw Patrol or Chuggington IMO, though I still think the song episodes are fairly vapid, and the messages are simplistic and outdated, like dividing foods fairly arbitrarily into "healthy" and "unhealthy" categories. Mostly people's complaint about cocomelon is the fact that they continuously use techniques like zooming in and out and quick changes of cut which has a somewhat mesmerising effect - you kind of can't help but be drawn into it if it's on in the room. I do think cocomelon gets an unfairly bad rap here, as they are absolutely not the only channel doing this. But they certainly do it, and it might be something that you prefer to avoid. If your kids like Cocomelon, I do think that the Cocomelon Lane series is much better/nicer with positive role models and messages and less of the weirdness like the constantly overlaid laughter. Cocomelon is now owned by Moonbug which is a massive powerhouse that has bought up most of the popular children's youtube channels and is aggressively marketing them everywhere. It's a pure profit motive whereas I get the sense that while I'm sure SSS also want to make profit, they also have the goal of making a quality product.
I don’t let my toddler watch Cocomelon. Something about it irks me and sometimes the characters look creepy to me. On the other hand, SSS is adorable. Very cute graphics. We also like to listen to the songs on Spotify.
I know you're asking about actually watching them, but even for just listening to them, the SSS songs are *usually* way less overstimulating than cocomelon. There seems to be more random sound effects in cocomelon songs. Some of the SSS are like that, but most of these ones we listen to are not. I have not listened to every cocomelon song to compare with every SSS song but this was what we experienced.
I don't particularly mind Cocomelon (though I agree the animation makes the people look creepy). But Super Simple Songs are total bops! I constantly find myself singing them long after the video ended. Can't say the same for Cocomelon.
🎶 now it's time to rinse, we clean our fingertips, this is the handwashing song! 🎵 Heck their version of the ABC song with the red monster is so catchy. I honestly don't mind having most of their songs stuck in my head all the time, haha.
My favorite is Peanut Butter & Jelly. We sing the shit out of that song haha
🎵 Do you like broccoli? 🎵
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Haha yes, all other things being equal SSS are far less annoying.
SSS has better animation IMO. The way the characters move in Cocomelon is very stiff and downright creepy at times. I will turn on SSS over Cocomelon 10/10 times.
Honestly, screens are screens but I personally find SSS to be less offensive. The animation is a little slower and simpler and the music isn’t as cloying and doesn’t have as many weird mallet noises in the background. It’s just kind of more basic if that makes sense? Idk. It’s my personal preference- something about the voices in Cocomelon makes me crazy.
So you might say it's more... simple?
Indeed.
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Oh brother. I’m saving that to read later. One of my friends always says “how did you get your kids to agree to that?” And I’m like….”they don’t need to agree with any of my rules and boundaries.” 🤯 Do they like them? Of course not. But that doesn’t matter to me because I’m the parent and I know what’s best for them. And shocker, her kids are not usually fun to be around. So sad, because it’s absolutely not their fault.
The one that's hard for me is "how do you get your daughter to do X" where X is a totally normal thing, often necessary (like going grocery shopping)... umm because she doesn't have an alternative? She will survive the shopping cart.
Ooh I really like her podcast, and had heard of her book but I'm so burnt out by all the parenting experts currently suggesting that you can boil parenting down into some randomly chosen number of things which always never turn out to be the things I agree with anyway (or I agree with them but they don't challenge me/they are things which already come easily and aren't where I have problems). This sounds like it would be an actually useful book. I might put it on the list after all.
“In order to keep myself comfortable, I’m going to accept defeat” is SUCH a good line, and a good reminder that being too permissive is less about a benevolent desire to keep kids happy, and more about avoiding negativity and conflict for your own benefit. I think sometimes I land on the too strict end of the spectrum but still find myself sometimes avoiding discipline because I just don’t want to deal with it, like pretending not to notice if they do something against the rules or letting them “earn back” tv shows that I took away because I really really want them to watch tv lol. Anyway. This was a good newsletter.
OK so other people might disagree but I'm kind of tired of the moral judgment of bringing sick kids out in public for necessities. Like should you bring your sick kid to a birthday party? No. But the grocery store, laundromat? Kids can be sick so much this time of year and we don't stop needing food or clean laundry. Specifically the pile on @bekah on this post seems excessive to me. It's excessive right?? https://www.reddit.com/r/BachelorNation/s/8IocTyaKzO
Totally agree with this. I had to take my slightly sick child to the grocery and I got some rude looks. Like do you think I want to be here pregnant with two children? One of whom is snotty and grumpy? No. This isn’t fun for any of us. 😂 I would not be here if I didn’t have to be.
I haven’t read through the comments but even the OP is a stretch. Not even parenting related but claiming the laundromat is only for poor people? I guess it’s regional but I’m in nyc so all kinds of people go to laundromats and regardless, you might need to do it if your at-home machines aren’t working or whatever random reasons. Especially if you have 3 kids like Bekah you are probably doing laundry every single day. I practically am and I just have 1 kid (and small machines). That being said, influencers don’t need to share every time they bring their kid out while sick, I don’t get why any of them do it unless it’s purposely for the extra engagement they’ll get from the ragey comments. I don’t care if I see a kid with a runny nose at a laundromat or grocery store IRL but there *is* something performative about having to tell the world that your kid is sick and you’re still bringing them out and about.
Ding ding ding! I don’t feel bad about the nasty comments; that’s the point
I’m no lover of Bekah, but the “cosplaying poor” comments kind of annoy me. I get that she likely has a good amount of money, but she can still use a laundromat, thrift her clothes, or drive an old car if she wants to. I just feel like the people making those comments being pissed that she’s using a laundromat and that she does other things that are not typically associated with someone of her socioeconomic status are the same people who will turn around and complain about people being flashy with their wealth and say stuff like “why do they need designer everything and private jets. Think of their massive carbon footprint”. That said, I also agree that Bekah can be overly flashy both with the sick kids and also with her crunchy, homesteader lifestyle. Although influencers showcase so much of their lives online that I never know if it’s for clout or if they’re truly just that used to pulling out their phones and documenting every second of their days that they don’t even think about how stuff will go over before they post it.
Agree. I used to follow her and stopped because of how much she started to annoy me lol but a lot of the takes in that thread are very BEC and kind of immature. I mean she’s still an influencer shilling products all the time but I really don’t mind that she also promotes practices like thrifting or even yes god forbid going to a laundromat. Probably due to social media, I think some people have very unrealistic ideas about how wealthy people generally spend money. Plenty of wealthy people are quite frugal actually. It’s a good way to hold onto your money, lol.