Of course most of it is taste – one of my favorite movies to watch on sick days is Surf Ninjas. (Er, let’s not talk about it. ;))
But when you want to talk about/see/attend something that your peers don’t understand, that’s where the rub lies.
Always preview before posting, always preview before posting…
It is a hard line to walk between genuine regret for a problem and snotty condescension/compliment fishing. (And isn’t that sentence itself a little snotty? Ah, dilemma. Poolboy, bring me my Etiquette Fan!)
Er, anyway, I think it’s a judgement call about how far you’re willing to censor your vocabulary/references for the sake of relating to other people.
???
Ms. Lord, didn’t you intend your post for the thread on friends w/no taste?
I am so lost.
And I was the absolute last kid in my kindergarten to learn to tie shoes.
This is why I love my friends. I have a 10 month old, my friend also has a 10 month old and another has a 18 month old. All boys. We get together about once a week and we are always amazed at the range of development among them, and we joke about it but no one feels threatened when one boy is doing something the others are not. I enjoy having the other 10 month old over who is walking already while my son is just learning to crawl. (Taking care of a walking child is a lot more work!) Now I am not so anxious to have my son walk at all, in fact when he does get up I trip him (I kid, I kid.) I like that he sits and plays happily in one spot! I enjoy the stages as they come and I am sad enough at how quickly he grows and changes, why would I push him to grow up faster? I am amazed every day at the little things he learns to do, he can do them in any order he wants.
Kids will do what they are ready to do. I learned this lesson when my breastfed son refused a bottle. I was desperate when my maternity leave ended, tried everything. Nope. Never did take one, so in desperation after feeding him with a medicine dropper for a while I gave him a sippy cup at 5 months and he took to it happily. So I like to brag to mothers who are into bragging that my son was drinking from a cup at 5 months 
(I leave out the part about him not being able to figure out how to drink from a bottle.) Sometimes when a mom just has to introduce her child as ‘Dakota who was walking at 7 months’ I think yes, he is planning his escape. But that is mean so I don’t say it out loud. But in my head I am saying “go little one, go!”
A lot is just difference in personality, some kids are into everything and go go go, others are laid back and watch the world go by.
I grew up as the middle child with 2 very smart sisters. Both were valedictorian, I was good in school but not the way they were. My parents expected me to do my best but always made sure I knew I had talents that they did not. My older sister had a hard time in school making friends but I think that had more to do with her lack of social grace than her book smarts (sorry sis, you were an insufferable know it all at times!) My younger sister was very shy until college age but always had a close group of friends. I was more of the social butterfly. Kids will be who they are, some smart kids have a very easy time with school and friends, some kids don’t have any friends and may or may not be getting all A’s.
You speaketh the truth, Shirley! Bought my son the cutest Converse Chuck Taylor All-Star sneakers, black hightops. Dumbest move ever! Anybody ever tried lacing up high-tops on a squirmy toddler? They are cute, though; my FIL was so tickled, he said with those sneakers my son could “stop on a dime, and give you 9 cents back”. No idea what that means, but I like to make him laugh.
You can always tell them that learning to walk or talk early isn’t correlated to intelligence (well, as long as it’s within the normal range, I’m assuming).
Hey, I guess all those psychology classes I took were useful after all!
I was a member of an Ivillage Expecting Club when I was pregnant and then when it became a playgroup I started phasing myself out of it because I just couldn’t stand the competitiveness and the downright bitchiness of some mothers as well as the incredible amount of misinformation flying around that they were soooo positive was right because they ‘read it in a book’ so it must be right!
I have to admit though that I do kind of get a thrill or feel a little disappointed if my child is ahead or behind another of the same age and I do have to keep reminding myself that kids develop at different rates. I don’t particularly want my daughter to be a genius, but I do want her to be normal (although with parents like us, there’s not a hope in hell of that LOL). At the moment she is developing right on target (although she’s a little skinny even though she eats like a horse). She’s 15 months and she’s picking up words left right and centre. We really have to watch our language around her now. I had the flu over the weekend and every time I coughed I would say ‘ow’ because it hurt, so now her new favourite word is ‘ow’ :D.
When my daughter was around 9 months old I really hoped she would start walking early because I wanted her to be ‘advanced’. Now, I see my sister in law’s kid who is 9 months and already taking his first steps and am really glad my daughter waited til she was a year to walk because she was more aware of what was going on around her and didn’t fall down nearly as much as he does.
Elza B, I hope and pray for you to have a normal kid! I think normal is easier than any of the extremes :).
Golly I hope not. My 2-yo started talking fairly early and is very verbal, but didn’t walk until 17 months. She did a sort of weird bunny hop thing instead. If that had anything to do with her later life, I don’t want to know what the implications are!
Long Time---- :eek:
That is some story! I have one for you. A couple I knew had a daughter who was born in August. Around here, the cut off for admittance to kindergarten is 5 by Sept. 1. They didn’t want her to be the youngest in her class, so they held her back a year. Nothing wrong with her developementally, was emotionally mature for her age, etc–but they held her back.
This is the same couple who, 3 years later, had their son (emotionally horribly immature, short and small in stature etc) ADVANCED by a whole academic year, because he was “bored”. Hey, he is bright…but now he’s in middle school, teased unmercifully and is an outcast because he is too young for his peers.
I still can’t make sense of it.
Most of the folks around here who home school do to prevent Satan (who resides in every public school) from stealing their little ones away. I realize that not all home school families are that way, but it is the majority here. Sorry, complete tangent.
My daughter did not roll over until she was over 7 months old. I took her to the pediatrician at 6 months-baby’s babbling away, happy and outgoing-has every motor skill appropriate, just no rollover. Me, first time mom, looks at doc and says, “you can tell me–she’s retarded, isn’t she.”
He looked at me like I was nuts and said, “Look at her! she is fine and she will rollover when she wants to!”
Two weeks later, she rolls over, and starts crawling right away.
Whatever.
Kid #2-son: no words at 2. None. Understands stuff, but no words. Again to the pediatrician…guess who is doing all the talking for little brother? That’s right-#1 kid. Son starting talking soon enough.
#3 kid–no worries, except about the shoe tying and bike riding.
What’s a mother to do? They are all different and will learn in their own way.
Well, maybe not only to win the prize. I suspect that as an adult, this kid is going to have a lot of “political capital” to pay back.
This all sounds too damn much like my mom. I hate - absolutely hate - to have personal “achievements” of mine brought up outside of context. However, my mom loves it, because she is that type of person. Since I like learning and whatever, and “do ok” in school, she has an endless source of gems to pick from. My personal favorite is when she told someone, a stranger in a store for no particular reason, that I “was taking courses from MIT online.” In actuality, I was just using their open-source system to get some notes.
She also tries to control and oversee my academics, although I have done quite well without her. With her being a non-intellectual 3rd grade teacher and my dad being a non-intellectual college drop-out, I have kind of worked stuff out on my own. Now, with being a year away from being a senior in highschool, she won’t quit talking, asking, and blabbering on about stuff I have more-than under control. It’s good to be a concerned parent, but it’s also annoying to have a suffocating parent.
Needless to say, I try not to engage in conversation too much with her.
As I’m reading this I find myself wondering if some of this comes from families having fewer children. When there’s only one the stakes are higher for that one to be perfect and special and wonderful. And when parents have more children it’s easier to see the range of development in them and realize that they all end up in the same places, even if they don’t get there at the same rates.
I was reading this thread and went to check an email that came in.
It was a birth announcement and they listed the kid’s length, weight…and Apgar scores.
elanorigby, my parents did pretty much the same thing for me. I was born in late August, so I could be either always one of the youngest boys in the class or one of the oldest boys in the class. Guess which one my parents picked? That’s right, the oldest. It never really came up like being the youngest might have.
Reminds me of that old joke about the gunner staying home to study for a blood test.
Here’s another competitive mom story (Guess I know a lot of loonies). This Mom is more crazy than competitive, but when her kids were infants and toddlers she was one of those milestone obsessors. It was very important that her kids wree first to cut teeth, crawl, string words together, etc.
She has two sons, and her youngest took longer than average to toilet train. Not too long, mind you, but somewhere in the 3 - 4 years old range. One day in play group she announced that she had figured out the reason why her little darling was taking so long to master the potty. Seems his penis was SO LARGE he couldn’t control it with his normal sized hands.
I almost bit my tongue in two trying not to laugh out loud, and stopped going to play group right after that. …
First off, my user name consists of one word, not two.
Second, what exactly is ironic about pointing out the fact that some of the concerns raised were valid? That sure is ironic, aint it?
Maybe instead of giving out awards for irony we should give out awards for snarky zero content posts?
Yeah, no shit . I still sometimes wonder if my parents are pissed that I didn’t live up to all of the ‘potential’ I was supposed to have as a kid. I have a happy life with a great husband, good friends, and a good career, but I’m not a rocket scientist or a lawyer. But they went to extreme lengths to make sure that I had all kinds of advantages academically, skipping me from kindergarten to first grade, and being sure my teachers gave me plenty of enrichment work - but now I write resumes for a living (although with luck, I’ll sell a book at some point…). My brother, on the other hand, was diagnosed with a learning disability as a kid, made so-so grades and wasn’t expected to work hard. Yet he’s a great guy who’s now married and owns his own restaurant - and has gotten all kinds of acclaim for his abilities as a chef. We both turned out happy, healthy and successful, but when we were kids, no one would have imagined that he’d be as successful as he is.
I know, I know :smack: - I try! But hell, I’ve been planning to be a mom since I was a kid (I baby-sat a LOT and loved being around the kids), so I can’t help but plan what I want to do. I did laugh at a friend of mine who, in college, SWORE she would never have children. She called them ankle-biters and couldn’t stand being around them at the Smithsonian when we went every year. We actually ASKED her not to have kids - we were afraid for them!
Now she has two kids, and she is one of the BEST moms I’ve ever seen - her two year old is the sweetest, most well-behaved little guy, and she’s got the utmost patience, which she had NONE of before having her kids.
Now whenever we discuss parenting, she reminds me to ‘Never say never’, and points to her kids. It’s a good lesson for me.
E.
Just wait. When my daughter was about three and my son was crawling and generally getting in the way, she was watching something on TV and he crawled in front and blocked her view. So she said “Fuck off, Baby!”
Of course Mrs. Shibb looked at me with that “You are in SO MUCH TROUBLE” look that only wives know how to give. I’ve never really cursed again since then, for the most part, and certainly never at home. It’s been six years now, at least. In my defense I don’t ever recall using that phrase in her presence although I’m sure a few F-bombs had slipped out. But at least she used the word correctly. :o
Maybe I should go to that parenting site and brag about how my little angel was only three when she correctly dropped her first F-bomb!
I have a standard answer now for anyone who starts bragging about how early their baby walked. I tut-tut and say “isn’t a shame they just don’t stay babies very long. You already have a toddler! See how time flies.”
They look at me like they’ve just taken a bite of lemon. But I don’t understand why people get so excited over early walkers. Are we all so happy to loose our babies to toddlerhood, our toddlers to preschoolerhood, our little kids to kindergarten…and eventually have them go off to college (at the age of sixteen!). The day my kids learned to walk was very happy and bittersweet. I’m certainly glad they learned to walk, its a shame to have a kid who doesn’t hit normal developmental milestones, but they could have given me two more weeks as babies without causing me phone calls to the peditrician with worry.
(Now potty training, they didn’t have to stay in diapers as long as they did. Getting rid of them early would have been fine by me!)
Oh yeah?? Well, my kid was still in utero when she flipped off the sonographer. The lady was pointing out her arm, and just when she got to the hand, that middle finger just flew right up. Her Dad pipes right up and says “I guess we won’t be needing that paternity test”
At 12 years old, she also may win the prize for oldest non shoe tying kid. We’re pretty sure that she actually knows how, but she finds ways around it with slip ons or permanently tied up shoes.