Unsolicited and Crazy Parenting Advice

[Nava]

@Dangerosa

My sister did have to stop breastfeeding when her youngest was about six months old due to breast cancer. A year of mastectomy, chemo, and radiation later she is fine - but the LAST thing she needed during that time was “helpful” advice about how important breastfeeding was.

My paternal aunt’s breast cancer was discovered during and thanks to her third viable pregnancy - the nurse wanted to show off their new machine, used it on her tummy, moved to the boobs and went “uh… doctor? Doctor!”

Aunt chose to continue the pregnancy, induction at 7 months, kidlet stuck into early-model incubator while mom gets sent to the nearest oncology unit 200km away.

Knowing my aunt’s temper, I think anybody who had gone to her and told her she HAD to breastfed that kid would’a been at risk of having her ovaries ripped off in the middle of the street.

[Nava]

@WhyNot

But why should a woman’s self-esteem A) be tied into her milk production more than her insulin production and B) be more important than giving her child normal nutrition?

Why is so much of a woman’s self-worth linked to her tits? It’s completely absurd, but if this absurdity wasn’t real, there would be a lot less breast enhancement, breast enlargement, breast uplifting… surgeries, creams and whatnot.

It’s one of those societal things, I think, one of those glass boxes, ceilings and so forth that people manage to complicate our own lives with, from “you must hate your MIL” (uh, no, I don’t) to “a girl can’t ask a guy to dance” to a zillion other examples.

[kaoswolf]

@overlyverbose

She also added that most young children with eating disorders she’d met had had them induced by well-meaning relatives forcing food on them

my cousin did this to her daughter with the “eat all your vegetables” line. now if her daughter doesnt eat like every 6 hours, she gets seriously i’ll an has to go to hospital.

as far as parenting advice. (when i have kids) im not taking any off either mine or my GF parents…ever.
if i ever need advice, i’ll ask my older sisters.
1st sister - 3 great kids
2nd sister - godmother to like a bazgadzillion kids, tons of babysitting exp and a carer for the elderly

i know through observation and seeing the results that they know what they’re doing.

i never give parenting advice to anybody and i dont plan too, not until ive actually had kids and ONLY when its asked for. but i do like discussing different parenting methods, nothing wrong with an extra idea or technique to try and refine the ones i have.

[WhyNot]

@Nava

Why is so much of a woman’s self-worth linked to her tits? It’s completely absurd, but if this absurdity wasn’t real, there would be a lot less breast enhancement, breast enlargement, breast uplifting… surgeries, creams and whatnot.

True. But, again, making breastfeeding normal instead of extraordinary, making breastmilk average and common instead of “going the extra mile,” makes breasts utilitarian again, instead of tied up with sex and self-esteem. It means that a woman who lost a breast to breast cancer would make arrangements through the local milk bank to get breastmilk, donated by those wonderful hyperlactators, paid for by her health insurance, instead of going down to the megamart for a can of powder.

I’m not saying we’re there, or that we’ll be there by the time my daughter is grown. I’m just saying that changes like this begin small, and they (may) begin with language. The way we speak often alters how we think, not the other way 'round. And if you and I and the 100 or so people reading this thread alter how we speak whenever breastfeeding comes up, slowly, change will happen. It’s a grass-roots thing, not an overnight revolution.

It’s really disengenuous to say “who knows?” re: the drawbacks of formula. Scientists know, doctors know, researchers know, the media knows, the formula companies know. No, as I’ve said it before, formula isn’t rat poison. But it’s not normal nutrition, either. It might not be as bad as Karo syrup and condensed milk, but no one, not even the people who make it, thinks it’s as good as breastmilk.

[Typo]

After reading this discussion, I am more grateful than ever for my kind and helpful healthcare people, and that I have been lucky enough not to run into anyone like some of the people described here (yet).

All of my nurses and doctors have told me the same exact thing: Any and all breast milk you can feed her is great, but don’t feel bad if you have to use formula to supplement. They’ve told me all along that breast milk is better, of course, but they never made me feel like I would be “failing” if I chose not to or couldn’t. They made sure I knew breast milk is better, gave me information on resources, and let me make my own decision.

Do I wish I could breastfeed instead of pumping and bottle-feeding? Sure, and I’m still trying.
Do I wish I was producing enough to feed more breast milk instead of formula? Of course.
Do I feel guilty about the situation? Absolutely not.

[sj2]

I own a kid’s cafe. You’d be surprised how many well-meaning moms offer up advice like this to other moms!

Most times I intervene politely. Some of the time, I can be not so nice. It’s kinda a rule here that we can talk about breastfeeding as the great positive experience it can be – or what a pain it can be – with the understanding that not all women can or want to. This came to a head when a mom of an adopted child was talking about her struggles to find the right formula when another mom chimed in that Nature would have made the right mix…you coulda heard a pin drop!

[eleanorigby]

WhyNot, I think that day is more likely to come once BF is more readily accepted in public and when those who are um, somewhat militant about BF back off a bit. No new mother likes to be put on the defensive re her choices for her baby. We can encourage and educated, but after that, we must not push too hard. There are too many stories re LLL and bad interactions; too many parenting boards where bottle is seen as Teh Evil etc. These women feel marginalized, resentful and angry and rightly so, IMO. It’s sort of like smoking–those who do it, know it’s bad for them, but treating them like common criminals solves nothing. I am not equating formula with smoking, just trying to make a point.

I think most women are willing to try BF (those that can) these days. I am probably out of touch, but I think they at least consider it. That is progress over the past 18 years (when my daughter was born). Even if they only give baby the colostrum, that’s still a step up.

I also am glad to see that the whole “getting pain relief when you’re in labor is a bad, bad thing and you’re a bad mother to even think about it” meme seems to be dying (but of course, now there are too many Csecxns!). I never had an epidural, but I would have taken one, if it had been offered (long story). In my “Lamaze” class (which was useless–I’m sure there are Lamaze classes and teachers who are great and very helpful and do make an impact on labor, mine did not), there was a battle between those who wanted “natural” childbirth and those who wanted to be snowed. As if those were the only 2 choices.

I’m a middle grounder by nature, so I didn’t fit into either camp. BF vs bottle strikes me the same way. It would be nice to have it swing the way you describe, but it will take time–mothers being role models for daughters (my mother, a labor and delivery nurse, bottle fed all 5 of us), consumers demanding better health care education etc. Time will tell.

Other bad advice I got as a young mom included strangers coming up to me to tell me what I could do about Daughter’s left foot that turned in a bit. Our pediatrician had said that by age 7 she’d be fine and no worries. He was right. That didn’t stop another doctor (NOT my doctor) from trying to get me to let her examine Daughter (this while we were in the waiting room for ME to see MY doc–I had brought Daughter because I had an appt and no babysitter. Other doc–the pediatrician in this group practice–saw her left foot and wanted to talk to me about surgery. She had mistaken us for her pts, I guess. Weird. I finally had to tell her we were NOT her pts to get her to leave me alone!)

One of my favorite grandparent stories is from a friend of mine: she got to Grandma’s house to pick up her girls, only to find that her girls were drinking Hershey’s syrup right out of the bottle. Confronting her parents about this, she was told “if we don’t let them, they cry.”

I love that story. Unbelievable.

[Unauthorized_Cinnamon]

I started a GD thread about the breastfeeding issues that have come up in this thread. I think it’s a subject that deserves its own serious discussion, and if I start talking about it here I’ll derail the thread.

[tesseract]

@kaoswolf

my cousin did this to her daughter with the “eat all your vegetables” line. now if her daughter doesnt eat like every 6 hours, she gets seriously i’ll an has to go to hospital.

Every 6?? Who doesn’t eat every 6 hours? I eat something small every 2-3 hours. Going more than 6 hours would at least cause low blood sugar in most people, I would think. How often do you eat?

[irishgirl]

Currently I’m working in an emergency department, if your kids aren’t here on a regular basis, you’re doing something right.

I did feel like shouting at the woman who wanted me to sew up her son’s broken, mangled fingers so they could go on holiday as planned the next day. :smack:
I managed a marginally more polite “he needs plastic surgery if you want him to be able to use those fingers, and I think you’ll agree that’s more important than a holiday” and then left the room.

tesseract I’m someone who has gone a full 24 hours without eating before I’ve realised. I often have to go to work without breakfast, then miss lunch and survive on cups of coffee until I can go home and cook a nice dinner. Most of the time I survive on a mix of caffeine and adrenaline. Not healthy, but nipping out in the middle of a trauma for a spot of lunch just isn’t going to happen.

[lorene]

@Velma

I am convinced that a lot of the grandparent interfering issues are just insecurities - there is a lot of new information out there about raising children, and when some people see that people are doing it differently now, it makes them feel defensive. Like they did it wrong or were bad parents in their time. Whenever I get this kind of ‘help’ from people, I try to keep in mind that this is their issue, not mine.

<snip>

When parents are secure in their own choices, they don’t evangelize. They just do what is best for their children and their family. If someone asks me for advice, I will share with them what worked for me and my children, but I am careful to state just that - that it worked for me.

I think you’re absolutely correct here. The times when I have wanted to give my sister unsolicited parenting advice, I later realized that it was because I felt that her choices were somehow making my choices look bad by comparison. I’m glad I never did pipe up with my brilliant advice (although there are still instances where I think she is absolutely batshit insane for her choices, but again…not my kid).

[vix]

@Cub_Mistress

Maybe something is wrong with me, because I don’t get this. When people make reassuring comments like this, I believe they are trying to be…reassuring. Comforting, even. Supporting you in your time of anxiety.

Oh, they absolutely are trying to be reassuring and comforting, but depending on the context, that can be infuriating.

For example, for a while we thought our son might have a speech disorder called apraxia. A friend would ask how he was doing. I would mention the possible diagnosis and that we were continuing speech therapy. And THEN the friend would say, “My sister’s neighbor’s son didn’t talk until he was four, and now he’s at Harvard!” That’s great for him, but it has fuck all to do with my scenario. After hearing a similarly unrelated anecdote for the thirtieth time, it gets annoying.

[lorene]

I had a similar experience with my mom when my daughter’s pediatrician was running tests to determine why she isn’t growing. She kept bringing up my sister’s child, who is also small. Which is fine, but the facts are:

1. My sister’s child isn’t really my concern
2. My daughter weighed 2.5 pounds more than my niece at birth
3. The issue wasn’t general smallness; it was that she had stopped growing

So, yeah, fuck all to do with me, and it put me in the position of feeling defensive as well as worried.

[CAT_1]

I have one son, and have gotten a lot of unsolicited advice in the past five years.
He will be 5 in 4 weeks.
Actually more…it starts as soon as you are pregnant. I learned early on to do what an early poster(forgot who, too lazy to get the quote, sorry) said, I acknowlged the advice, and then probably didn’t use it anyway. But you know what? Sometimes it was good advice. So you just have to wade through all the crap and use what you can. I am pretty sure nearly 100% of those people really do mean well.

::Starting to Rant::

The only time I get really frustrated anymore is when I hear comments my sister(s) are making about my parenting. The one who does it the most, has two sons. Both were very difficult. They are 18 and 21 now, and have spent the last 10 years or so in and out of juvie, jail, etc. And, they both dropped out of H.S. even though they are pretty intellegent kids. Now they both live at home and totally mooch off of her. I don’t see that changing anytime soon either. They have aged my 48 year old sister to the point where she looks at least 60.
Her latest comment, behind my back, to my mother… “Why isn’t CAT taking Orion to Sunday School”? Um, ya, it did her kids a world of good. Plus, I am planning on it, but he just started 4K and I want him to get used to that first.
We don’t go to church but are spiritual people, and probably spend more time praying and sharing our faith with our son than she ever did with hers. She just has no clue about this, however, since she never talks to me directly about things like this, but prefers to tell my mother.
So, she did schlep her little darlings to church once a week. Give her a gold star for that! BTW, they all stopped going to church the minute the kids were confirmed.

::Rant Over::

Strangers or causual acquaintences offering advice really doesn’t bother me. And if it is wacky off the wall stuff, I usually speak up right then and there. That is always fun.

[the_Lady]

@irishgirl

Currently I’m working in an emergency department, if your kids aren’t here on a regular basis, you’re doing something right.

My sister, a nurse in emergency in our Children’s Hospital, says the exact same thing.

[MissTake]

@irishgirl

Currently I’m working in an emergency department, if your kids aren’t here on a regular basis, you’re doing something right.

Erm, for about a year we were known by name at the small hospital ER near the small town we resided in. TheKid, in a year, had a hideous allergic reaction, broken thumb, scratched cornea, sprained ankle, and a few other things. She went with me for my accidents. In one month either she or I were there a total of 5 times (we both were attacked by the klutzes).

Her regular dr was an hour drive away, the ER copay was minimally larger than the dr copay, and I knew barring a farming accident we would be seen rapidly. Now, being back in the cities, there haven’t been any ER visits.

[eleanorigby]

You misunderstood her, I think. Usually, frequent visits to an ER mean that a parent is using the ER in lieu of the doctor (which you were) but not for acute issues, such as an allergic rxn, but for chronic issues such as asthma or diabetes etc.

[lorene]

@eleanorigby

You misunderstood her, I think. Usually, frequent visits to an ER mean that a parent is using the ER in lieu of the doctor (which you were) but not for acute issues, such as an allergic rxn, but for chronic issues such as asthma or diabetes etc.

I took it as a congenial, “If you aren’t constantly in the ER, the principal’s office, or the police station, you’re doing OK.”

[eleanorigby]

@lorene

I took it as a congenial, “If you aren’t constantly in the ER, the principal’s office, or the police station, you’re doing OK.”

There is that as well. Good point.

[Belrix]

In the breastfeeding vs IQ debate, there seems to be a much stronger socio-economic influence than a nutritional one. Women who breastfeed tend to be higher on this scale than women who formula feed. Not surpisingly, there’s correlation between socio-economic scale & later child developement.

From here…

The Der, Batty and Deary study notes the major confounding factor in breast-feeding analyses is that women who breastfeed are usually of higher intelligence and social class than those who don’t breastfeed. In the NLSY79 data, breastfeeding mothers scored about one standard deviation higher on the Armed Forces Qualifying Test (AFQT).

A multiple regression analysis of the NLSY79 data, which includes 5475 children, shows that breast feeding has no statistically significant impact on children’s cognitive assessments. Factors having the strongest correlations with children’s cognitive assessments are the mother’s AFQT score, the HOME cognitive stimulation score (which is probably a good surrogate for the father’s IQ and a host of other socioeconomic factors), and strangely enough, birth order.

The study also did an analysis of 332 sibling pairs where one was breastfed and the other was not. The results show that the formula-fed sibling had an IQ that was 0.63 points higher than the breastfed sibling. The authors didn’t bother to point out that this result was the opposite of the expected pattern. The P value is 0.506, so the authors probably figured this is just a statistically insignificant fluke and not worth mentioning.

I’m a little defensive on this topic, I guess. My wife was unable to produce breast milk and we formula-feed all three of our children. The IQ argument gets my Grrr up.

-B