Yep, you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t. There seems to be two distinct sides of parenting, the “attachment” and the “traditional”. And it seems you are expected to go all one way or all the other.
I am formula feeding, co-sleeping, vaccinating, and feeding only organic solids.
I’m so all over the map that no one likes me. 
I don’t parent based on a book or a philosophy, I parent based on my child.
I got the I think it’s great that you’ve adopted that baby lecture while breastfeeding my daughter - who is my natural child (but a bit different shade):dubious:
I had no problem breast feeding but some people just can’t do it - I even had women coming to spend time with me to try and get the hang on it. One girl’s nipples were small and her breasts so large she couldn’t get the bairn to latch on - it was really heart breaking stuff and it angers me when people make comments on this - they just don’t know.
How dare you?! Don’t you know that if you don’t parent exactly the way I do, your kid wont survive and you will be on the huge “Bad Parent” list!! 
Hey, I got this one, too! My little boy is a brown berry compared to me - I’m also known as Morticia. He’s no longer nursing, but well-meaning people still keep asking me if I’m babysitting or where I got my kid when they see my son. I’ve actually advised someone that I got him at the supermarket - I said they were on sale. I wasn’t trying to be mean, and that comment probably wasn’t necessary coming from me, but sheesh - the way she asked, it was like I went out for ice cream and came back with a kid.
Unfortunately, I recall all 32 hours of labor with stunning clarity.
Hehehehe. I got the same thing from my Dad 29 years ago. He wanted me to go into the bedroom to nurse my son, “so I would be more comfortable.” I told him I was perfectly comfortable but if it would make him feel better he could go into the bedroom until I was done. After a couple of days he ended up sitting and chatting with me during midnight feedings.
You know, considering how touchy I get when even my husband suggests I do something in a different way (i.e. ‘‘These plastic containers go on the top shelf of the dishwasher, dear’’), I imagine I am going to go absolutely apeshit when I become a parent.
JustfuckingletmedothingsMYWAYokay??? twitch
Parenthood sounds painful.
Wow.
I don’t have kids, so I haven’t had to deal with this.
When I was a baby, back in '71, my mom wanted to breastfeed me. I refused. Just wouldn’t latch. So she had to use a bottle. (She was a bit upset by that.)
But if someone had given her crap about it. . . hoo boy. They would gotten The Glare[sup]TM[/sup] if they were lucky. If not, they would gotten an earful about how it wasn’t their business in the first place.
Lost it with my Mother-in-Law regarding formula vs breastfeeding (my wife breastfed). However, I later learned that part of the problem was that my MIL could not breastfeed - so she took the breast feeding bit VERY personally.
This is not to defend all of the blowhards, but when you do something different from them many take it is an assault on how THEY parented. Once I figured that out, I did not take their comments personally. That made it a lot easier.
By the time the second kid came along, I REALLY didn’t give a damn what others said.
Nah. The comments/orders/helpful advice come so fast and thick that you get used to it. It’s a trial by fire.
One of my favorite responses?
Just stare at the person and blink. Say nothing.
People get very uncomfortable when they’re expecting a response and you just =look= at them.
Tee hee. . . my in-laws are polite to a fault. They will never *ever * say anything confrontational or uncomfortable. But they manage to let it be known that they’re thinking it. Politely. I pretend not to notice. I just smile and nod.
My choice of birthing out of hospital with a midwife gave me “crazy mother” credentials early on, so nothing surprised them after that.
AKA “Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about!” So effective. :rolleyes:
This was only vaguely related but I was walking in with a co-worker and making what I thought was harmless small talk “So, your kids are heading back to school?” “No, we haven’t been able to have kids.” <TMI> I thought but just made some sympathetic noise and moved on to some bland comment about work.
But I had to hold myself back from trying to** help**!!!
“You know, there are some great fertility programs at Local Hospital.”
Or lighten the moment:
“So, who’s having the problem? You’re shooting blanks, big guy?” :eek:
I’m always afraid of blurting out unsolicited advice because I want to help!
In my fifty years on this planet, I am proud to say I have never given “Parenting Advice” I will never be a parent(choice) and have no idea how to do it.
as for breastfeeding, a mother needed to feed her child at a store and I asked if I could warm the bottles for her. She told me she breastfed and I rubbed my hands together and smiled. She didn’t slap me.
I would have thought that as the child becomes older and more self sufficient, this crap would end. Nope.
I won’t go into the stuff from my mom (who is a blend of AngryIrishLass’ mom and mil) and other “well meaning” pests when TheKid was a sprout.
Now that she’s a teen I get it from other moms.
I’m pretty sure I posted a few years ago about the mom of a friend who told me that TheKid was destined to die or be in prison at a young ago due to my negligence - I allowed TheKidto look at websites the other mother deemed ‘eeeeevilllll’.
Whatever.
Now she hangs around with a girl who is pretty nice, but her mother is one of the most difficult women I have ever met. Face to face with me she’s all sunlight and rainbows in that faux “We’re in this together/single parent” way. To my daughter, though…
A few months ago she drove TheKid home from their house. Her friend was in the truck also. She told TheKid that if she found out that she “ruined” her daughter, she would be barred from seeing her. TheKid asked what she meant - “You know - drugs, alcohol, sex, cigarettes. If I find out you do those things you’re out”. Pretty harsh, considering she had met TheKid 2x before this, and commented to me what a considerate, respectful girl she is.
Between that drive home and the past few weeks this woman has driven her daughter nutty. Rather than buy school clothes, she got a tummy tuck. She refuses to grocery shop, stating the daughter would just eat everything (erm…) and that the daughter needs to lose weight. The daughter, in rebellion has… done drugs, found out she really likes Malibu, lost her virginity, and carries Newports in her purse.
TheKid was at their house last week. The mom knows some of what her daughter has done (sex, alcohol). She then proceeded to attack TheKid because she doesn’t do that stuff (okay, I wouldn’t be surprised if she smoked pot, but everything else - nope). “You know you’re not THAT good of a kid. Tell me - I won’t tell your mom what you do wrong”. TheKid texted me, asking to come get her ASAP.
When I arrived the mother was her usual faux happy buddy self. For TheKid’s sake I didn’t say anything. I literally didn’t say anything - if I had opened up my mouth it wouldn’t have been pretty.
I hear often how other parents would NEVER let their pwecious angels color their hair freaky colors. What’s it going to do? Rot her brain? I have been told that I’ll never be able to make my child “normal”, since I allow her too much freedom. What freedom? She colors her hair, reads whatever she wants, listens to whatever she wants. That’s about it for freedoms. I’m much more strict than other parents in her group.
After a while you start to second guess your choices… BUT I know I’ve done a damned good job of raising her. Is she an all-star athlete or mathlete? Nope. Does she have her own thoughts and opinions and knows when is the appropriate time to express herself? Yup. Ugh.
No, she’s far too hot with those socks on and she needs a drink:D
No, she’s cold, she needs a blanket. And maybe we should turn off the TV, those mindless cartoon shows will rot her brain.
My youngest sister, with her BA in child development, her MA in early childhood education, and (currently) no children of her own, somehow became the family’s self-appointed parenting expert. Not a day goes by that she does not enlighten me re: What Lucky 13 Is Doing Wrong As A Parent Today. I can’t wait for her to get pregnant and have her own kid. Oh, the possibilities for revenge… 
I had a bad experience with nursing my first boy (wouldn’t latch) and the LLL lady was a harpy.
My MIL is constantly coming out with gems like “that’s a girl job” when I ask one of the boys to do their chores. i.e. load dishwasher, make their bed, put the washer in the dryer. Yah, I can see a lot of examples of her great parenting in her perfect son. :rolleyes:
I have 6 goddaughters, and a fair amount of babysitting experience [including how to take care of a kid on a bradycardia/apnea monitor] and about the only advice I have given tendes to be pretty sane …
Hm, cloth diapers may be better for the environment in the long run, but you should keep disposables on hand for emergencies like needing to go out for more than a few hours or if for some reason all the cloth ones are dirty …
Well, breastfeeding is good, but if you are worried about not being able to produce enough milk, there are both dairy based formulas and soy based formulas and you can ask the pediatrician if they have samples of each kind to try for free …
Sheesh … it isnt my kid, I dont want to give advice, I dont want to ever babysit again in my life and I have absolutely no desire to pop a screaming squirming watermelon out of my hoohaa ever. I really don’t like kids until they are housebroken and coherent.
Gah. You have my sympathies. No kids, so no stories to tell, unfortunately, just intentions. I can’t even trust my MIL not to feed my dogs tablescraps while I’m sitting at the same table, so if I ever pop out a mini-me, there’s not going to be any unsupervised access to the kid.
Jesus. I don’t blame you. I haven’t even finished reading this thread, but you definitely win so far.
My mom is one of those who believes in stuffing a kid like a Thanksgiving turkey and, as a result, fed my sister’s twins (now age 7) Thanksgiving Dinner when they were about 6 months old. Mashed potatoes w/gravy, stuffing, sweet potatoes, – pretty much anything remotely mushy from our T-day feast – and SODA to boot!
When my (poor, exhausted) sister objected, she was told that she “need[ed] to have a sense of adventure - for [her] childrens’ sake.”
And as an added bonus, I just recently learned something interesting . . . I’ve always known that I was not breastfed, but heretofore had just assumed that I got whatever formula was available in 1970.
Nope.
Turns out that as a baby, I subsisted on a mixture of canned milk and Karo syrup.
And soda, I’m sure.
I am not a parent, and I have given hell to many people for interfering with a parent and their child. Unless the parent is beating the crap out of the kid, keep your mouth shut.
The only exception I ever made is forcing food on the child. “Don’t you want to eat a little more?” Makes me nuts. I always tell children “Eating when you are not hungry is like going to the bathroom when you don’t have to.”
I knew someone who told someone their child died of SIDS “because you didn’t breastfeed her.” Of course, the child had been breastfed since she was born, but that didn’t change the idiot’s opinion (Don’t confuse me with facts).
My kids started drinking coffee at about 18 months - my mother would share her Starbuck’s mochas with them.
The funny thing is we went to the ped…they watch too much TV (by a little), drink too much pop (though we were already limiting it, she wanted it limited further), but I mentioned the coffee thing and she said “oh, that isn’t a problem.”