not saying they have, just made me feel a little hesitent. We all do things differently at the end of the day, everyone has different backgrounds/morals/homelife etc that makes them do things differently which means whats wrong to you is alright for someone else.
Obviously I agree the whole swearing/abusing/drinking&drugs around children is unacceptable but things like tantrums/dummies/jared food/sweetfood/ etc is not for other people to judge.
What would you all say to me if you saw my DS with a bottle at the age of 3? We managed to bin them on the night of his 3rd birthday after telling him the bottle fairy needs it now he is a big boy to give to all the new babies. Before that we tried different methods of getting off of it but the days passed in tears and tantrums that made him sick and breathless and no amount of distracion or comforting helped. We tried letting him choose his own cup like a big boy, we tried weaning it off of him gradually, we tried cold turkey for 3 days, in the end we gave up and decided to wait till he was old enouigh to be spoken to and explained 'why' we were taking it away, and it worked, it was right for him and for us but I wonder how many people judged us in that time when my son needed a drink...and the only way was to give him that bottle???
Thanks for the compliment on Emily hun xx
I'd say good for you for listening to your child.
Ollie still has a bottle for morning and bed milk, MJ still has a bottle 4 times a day for milk. I don;t care what anyone else thinks - thats what makes my kids happy thats what they get (Of course within reason...)
I did write a load of other things but ~BE erased it all and I cant be bothered writing it all again
tbh i think it's instinctive to automatically judge others, but this doesn't mean we're always doing it in a nasty way. sometimes it's just a 'well i wouldn't do it that way' type thing iyswim?
but sometimes i also think it's almost impossible to not judge...my current case in judging a 'bad' mother....she's weaning her 9 week old son! on rusks! he's had a horrendously bad stomach crying fits ever since to the point that he was in a&e last night and had to have a lumbar puncture done! but she didn't tell hospital that she was giving him food?!
i judge that, because not only is she ignoring guidelines for no other reason than her baby wants a 6/7oz bottle every 4 hours (which i thought was completely normal??) and she can't be bothered getting up in the night but she's also not telling the doctors the full story about what she is doing and in my opinion making her LO suffer through tests that might not be necessary if she admitted all (btw, non of this is supposition, she's confirmed everything i just said in stupid detail on her FB statuses when people have asked about them etc).
i think we all just need to keep our judgements in our head unless it really is harmful/dangerous to the child in which case i'm sorry but i personally wouldn't be able to keep my mouth shut lol
I have to say I am judgemental, not on things like tantrums, as I have been there, and I have younger brothers.
But I hate it when I see obese children. There was a program on the telly the other day where there was an obese 6 year old. That poor child is only obese because of what his parents have fed him!! and yes some people have problems with glands etc, but he was checked out and prefectly fine. I hate the idea of people not promoting healthy eating and exercise in to kids. Saying this, I dont begrudge the occasionally fast food treat, but thats all it should be occasional. My stepson is a stone lighter then me and he is 9. That is just so wrong.
Also hate seeing people smoke/swear/drugs/etc around children.
the only thing that ticks me off and I'm very judgemental about is when you see a little one on a hot sunny day with no hat on. for some reason that really grinds my gears, lol.
I think things that are 'lifestyle' choices are a tricky subject to say you judge. To the lady who said she would try to influence who her child played with...I'll be honest...I probably would too.
To look at those who cause their child to be sick or put them at risk it's just motherly instinct. If I seen a child without a hat on too I'd be annoyed. I was out without sunscreen one day and was panicing as the sun came out (typical) only to find a bright orange bear in the main street. With a basket full of pouches of kids sunscreen from boots. A simple idea but so bloody effective. I think sunscreen for children should be prescribed. ??13 a bottle is ridiculous. Anyway I digress. What I mean is that I don't see some circumstances as judging someone, but merely our own maternal instinct going 'what or why the Frick would you do that!?'
To the lady who said she would try to influence who her child played with...I'll be honest...I probably would too
Me too, beyond a shadow of a doubt! Are there really mothers on here who can honestly say they wouldn't, if they felt so-and-so was a bad influence on their LO in such-and-such a way? Isn't that just active, sensible parenting?
We have to make judgements, it's natural and necessary as it helps us make choices about how we choose to parent ourselves. I'm amazed that so few people will admit to it, or admit the extent of it!
I have to say that (no offence to anyone here) I wouldnt influence my child to stay away from 'certain' children because this (in my view) I think is teaching them to exclude children and maybe I would end up raising a bully and for anyone who has ever been bullied in their life they would know that it is horrible. If when they were a teenager and they got into a crowd that say did drugs or something then I would be stepping in but I couldn't encourage them to exclude another child, sorry xxx
I wouldnt influence my child to stay away from 'certain' children because this (in my view) I think is teaching them to exclude children and maybe I would end up raising a bully
Ok, so what if the child your LO chooses to befriend is a bully him/herself? You'd be ok with your LO running around with the class bully, who shows your LO that it's acceptable behaviour to pinch/bite/hair pull/verbally abuse other kids? You wouldn't try and influence your LO's views on this "friend" AT ALL?
I'm not saying I would forbid my LO from being friends with other children, just that I would want to teach her which qualities are to be valued in others and which are not. If I don't point out that x y z is not nice behaviour how will she learn that is not ok to do these things herself?
Not picking on you Rosapenny, just interested in your point of view and like a debate!
i too wont influence who j&s play with , i will teach them right from wrong and i will give them advice if they do decide to become friends with the class bully however in reality we can not influence who our children play with ...what about when they go to school 6 hrs a day we then can not influence it at all ....how do u intend on stopping them being friends with a child u may not like them to be friends with for what ever reason ?? ..im not looking for a debate just interested on how as a parent we could possibly stop or make them be friends with children we choose? x
i too wont influence who j&s play with , i will teach them right from wrong and i will give them advice if they do decide to become friends with the class bully however in reality we can not influence who our children play with ...what about when they go to school 6 hrs a day we then can not influence it at all ....how do u intend on stopping them being friends with a child u may not like them to be friends with for what ever reason ?? ..im not looking for a debate just interested on how as a parent we could possibly stop or make them be friends with children we choose? x
I must admit i'm pretty judgemental. I always have been but I actually think it's my lack of confidence as i'm so worried what everyone else thinks of me that I judge them on what I consider my faults. When I failed at breastfeeding I was a wreck, I hated the fact I had to stop so when I see ladies givin bottles to babies it should make me more understanding BUT in all honestly it doesn't. I then start thinking "well I hope you tried because I would have done anything to be able to". I had a friend who just flatly refused from day one to do it. Don't get me wrong I admire everyones individual opinion (She says!) but when you fail at something and someone has the opportunity to do it and refuses it's heartbreaking. But in the same breath it was her choice and I know that so would never say anything to anyone about it.
I do think a lot of my judgements (that I do keep to myself!) are a lot to do with my insecurities and I constantly feel I am being judged (again a lack of confidence) so perhaps thats why I feel the need to judge others . I try my absolutely hardest not to but I always end up thinking it! On the subject of influencing who they played with I think it would have to depend on who it was. . If he was 12 and he had a friend who was just extremely naughty, being excluded from school for being the class clown and it was encouraging my boy to do the same then yes I would. Apart from that I don't know until it happens but I like to think I would be open in terms of perhaps if they came from not so nice an area. As a parent I just want the best and have to agree with Rosapenny that I hope I educate him well enough so that he stears clear of trouble himself but I would be inclined to give him a little helping hand if I felti it was needed. Anyway, it's not always friends thats the problem but family and as they say you can't choose those!!! xxx
re influencing friends in an ideal world yes I would do this but like rosapenny said I wouldn't want to exclude, we have this issue at the moment with DS1 a little boy in teh street same age (6) is very 'rough' spits have heard him say *shit* on one occasion and is out to all hours etc etc raised very different from my own (who is in no way perfect might I add but still innocent enough to be oooooooohhhhhhh he said stupid and thats a bad word and it isn't even a bad word lol iykwim) any way i can't stop ds1 playing with him as all the wee boys play together (about 5 of them) but I am watching out the window and if I see behaviour I don't like I just tell them all to stop it so as not to single out the one child but to make sure its stopped (he was picking on a wee girl today, his mum is never out watching him he is let out at 9 in the morning and only ever called in for dinner, lunch etc whereas I keep an eye on my son if that makes sense) any way I'll talk to ds1 about behaviour and like others say am confident that most of the time he would know to make the right choice- he knows not to spit/swear/pick on other children and I know he doesn't as he's wuite a quiet wee child - does this make sense I think i've rambled lol
yes thats exactly what I mean moonbean, you can't actually choose their friends for them but I would hope that they would be intelligent enough to know that one of their friends is doing something wrong and they dont have to take part in it. Does that make sense? I'm rambling a bit myself now I am so tired!!
Like EmmaH1234, I judge as I feel constantly jugded!
I am quite opinionated by nature, but after having Hannah I mellowed out quite a bit. I couldn't give a flying fig whether someone feeds their lo jars or gives a dummy. As long as I am doing my very best for Hannah is all that matters.
But when people judge me, I judge back out of defence. Like someone made a comment about giving lo bottled water whilst out one day. It was only a sip, but from her reaction was similar to if I had given her a sip of vodka. So smarting from this, I ranted to my husband about all the things she does "wrong". Things that normally I wouldn't care about. I would have never said it to her face though, there's judging, and there's just plain rude.
Re choosing los friends, we live in a really rough area, so I have thought about this a lot. If we are still here when she goes to school, I hope I will have taught her well enough to make friends with nicer children. But if I don't like their family values, I will not them them play together after school.
I do judge on lots of things that from reading this thread I really wish I didn't, but I do...
I judge the women who don't even try to breastfeed (not the ones who tried and failed-although I'm really sorry to say a tiny bit of me wonders if some of them tried hard enough..eek)
I do judge feeding your baby from a jar, which is awful and we've been lucky as our ds took to food (the baby-led way) from the start.
However, at 15 months he's already had McDonalds twice and I expect when he's been sat in his highchair others have judged me for that!
I really dislike seeing young babies in strollers, I know the parents might not be able to afford anything better but it just seems so wrong.
I also can't help but judge parents who have their babies forward facing from an early age.
I hate dummies on older children and hate seeing them in buggies when they can very clearly walk!
And I judge people living off benefits who don't have to work having more children.
I could go on but I already feel so awful for the things I've written. Why do we judge even when we know our judgements might be flawed?
ps I'd also try and influence my ds's friends if I thought he was making friends with the wrong sort of people, I wouldn't be able to help myself.
i have to say in the friends subject my mum tried to do this with me and all it taught me was to be a sneaky b*tch lol my best friend at school was a bit of a goer and well known, my mum knew through other mums/kids etc and wouldn't let ne stay at her house so instead i would lie work out ways to stay there - sad thing is just because she was didn't make me do itm in fact the only person ive ever been with is my oh as we met at 16 - i understand why she did it but on the other hand this friend was great to have yeah she liked it but apart from this was honest, stood up for me etc etc and never ever expected me to 'be like her'
tbh i worry more about drugs with my kids when their older i swear i'll kick their asses they'll be so warned!!!!!
I agree with the drugs, smoking, drinking etc.. I feel like what some of you are forgetting especially with breast or bottle feeding is that we have freedom of choice. I bottle feed my son who is a perfectly healthy happy child. I also when he was being weaned spent hours pur????eing food so he wouldn't be a fussy child but I also gave him jars when i went back to work, when he was 9 months. I wish I could say I've never judged someone because I have. but its usually the people who are giving children coke in their bottles, or the ones who don't work with 7 or 8 kids in toe. Rant over lol xx
To the lady who said she would try to influence who her child played with...I'll be honest...I probably would too
Me too, beyond a shadow of a doubt! Are there really mothers on here who can honestly say they wouldn't, if they felt so-and-so was a bad influence on their LO in such-and-such a way? Isn't that just active, sensible parenting?
We have to make judgements, it's natural and necessary as it helps us make choices about how we choose to parent ourselves. I'm amazed that so few people will admit to it, or admit the extent of it!
i guess we have aimed to do this too. we chose to have a smaller house in a good area, rather than a larger house in a bad area, which in itself will affect the type of children dd knows. we have friends who are currently saying how big their new house is, but it's in a really rough area, with really poor performing schools and a lot of crime. to me, that wouldnt even be a choice. it's not an aea i'd leave my car parked in.
Definitely would influence LOs choice of friends if I thought they weren't suitable. How else do you teach children to be discerning about who they let in their lives as children and then later as adults. There's a lot of bonkers people out there and I wouldn't have raised my LO one properly if I didn't equip him with the ability to spot a nutter or trouble and steer clear. Not everyone is ok, fact. And I'd even go so far as to say there's certain riff raff types that I wouldn't want him being friends with either, snobby? absolutely!
Replies
Obviously I agree the whole swearing/abusing/drinking&drugs around children is unacceptable but things like tantrums/dummies/jared food/sweetfood/ etc is not for other people to judge.
What would you all say to me if you saw my DS with a bottle at the age of 3? We managed to bin them on the night of his 3rd birthday after telling him the bottle fairy needs it now he is a big boy to give to all the new babies. Before that we tried different methods of getting off of it but the days passed in tears and tantrums that made him sick and breathless and no amount of distracion or comforting helped. We tried letting him choose his own cup like a big boy, we tried weaning it off of him gradually, we tried cold turkey for 3 days, in the end we gave up and decided to wait till he was old enouigh to be spoken to and explained 'why' we were taking it away, and it worked, it was right for him and for us but I wonder how many people judged us in that time when my son needed a drink...and the only way was to give him that bottle???
Thanks for the compliment on Emily hun xx
I'd say good for you for listening to your child.
Ollie still has a bottle for morning and bed milk, MJ still has a bottle 4 times a day for milk.
I don;t care what anyone else thinks - thats what makes my kids happy thats what they get (Of course within reason...)
I did write a load of other things but ~BE erased it all and I cant be bothered writing it all again
xxx
but sometimes i also think it's almost impossible to not judge...my current case in judging a 'bad' mother....she's weaning her 9 week old son! on rusks! he's had a horrendously bad stomach crying fits ever since to the point that he was in a&e last night and had to have a lumbar puncture done! but she didn't tell hospital that she was giving him food?!
i judge that, because not only is she ignoring guidelines for no other reason than her baby wants a 6/7oz bottle every 4 hours (which i thought was completely normal??) and she can't be bothered getting up in the night but she's also not telling the doctors the full story about what she is doing and in my opinion making her LO suffer through tests that might not be necessary if she admitted all (btw, non of this is supposition, she's confirmed everything i just said in stupid detail on her FB statuses when people have asked about them etc).
i think we all just need to keep our judgements in our head unless it really is harmful/dangerous to the child in which case i'm sorry but i personally wouldn't be able to keep my mouth shut lol
But I hate it when I see obese children. There was a program on the telly the other day where there was an obese 6 year old. That poor child is only obese because of what his parents have fed him!! and yes some people have problems with glands etc, but he was checked out and prefectly fine. I hate the idea of people not promoting healthy eating and exercise in to kids. Saying this, I dont begrudge the occasionally fast food treat, but thats all it should be occasional. My stepson is a stone lighter then me and he is 9. That is just so wrong.
Also hate seeing people smoke/swear/drugs/etc around children.
To look at those who cause their child to be sick or put them at risk it's just motherly instinct. If I seen a child without a hat on too I'd be annoyed. I was out without sunscreen one day and was panicing as the sun came out (typical) only to find a bright orange bear in the main street. With a basket full of pouches of kids sunscreen from boots. A simple idea but so bloody effective. I think sunscreen for children should be prescribed. ??13 a bottle is ridiculous. Anyway I digress. What I mean is that I don't see some circumstances as judging someone, but merely our own maternal instinct going 'what or why the Frick would you do that!?'
Me too, beyond a shadow of a doubt! Are there really mothers on here who can honestly say they wouldn't, if they felt so-and-so was a bad influence on their LO in such-and-such a way? Isn't that just active, sensible parenting?
We have to make judgements, it's natural and necessary as it helps us make choices about how we choose to parent ourselves. I'm amazed that so few people will admit to it, or admit the extent of it!
Ok, so what if the child your LO chooses to befriend is a bully him/herself? You'd be ok with your LO running around with the class bully, who shows your LO that it's acceptable behaviour to pinch/bite/hair pull/verbally abuse other kids? You wouldn't try and influence your LO's views on this "friend" AT ALL?
I'm not saying I would forbid my LO from being friends with other children, just that I would want to teach her which qualities are to be valued in others and which are not. If I don't point out that x y z is not nice behaviour how will she learn that is not ok to do these things herself?
Not picking on you Rosapenny, just interested in your point of view and like a debate!
I do think a lot of my judgements (that I do keep to myself!) are a lot to do with my insecurities and I constantly feel I am being judged (again a lack of confidence) so perhaps thats why I feel the need to judge others . I try my absolutely hardest not to but I always end up thinking it!
On the subject of influencing who they played with I think it would have to depend on who it was. . If he was 12 and he had a friend who was just extremely naughty, being excluded from school for being the class clown and it was encouraging my boy to do the same then yes I would. Apart from that I don't know until it happens but I like to think I would be open in terms of perhaps if they came from not so nice an area. As a parent I just want the best and have to agree with Rosapenny that I hope I educate him well enough so that he stears clear of trouble himself but I would be inclined to give him a little helping hand if I felti it was needed.
Anyway, it's not always friends thats the problem but family and as they say you can't choose those!!! xxx
I am quite opinionated by nature, but after having Hannah I mellowed out quite a bit. I couldn't give a flying fig whether someone feeds their lo jars or gives a dummy. As long as I am doing my very best for Hannah is all that matters.
But when people judge me, I judge back out of defence. Like someone made a comment about giving lo bottled water whilst out one day. It was only a sip, but from her reaction was similar to if I had given her a sip of vodka. So smarting from this, I ranted to my husband about all the things she does "wrong". Things that normally I wouldn't care about. I would have never said it to her face though, there's judging, and there's just plain rude.
Re choosing los friends, we live in a really rough area, so I have thought about this a lot. If we are still here when she goes to school, I hope I will have taught her well enough to make friends with nicer children. But if I don't like their family values, I will not them them play together after school.
I judge the women who don't even try to breastfeed (not the ones who tried and failed-although I'm really sorry to say a tiny bit of me wonders if some of them tried hard enough..eek)
I do judge feeding your baby from a jar, which is awful and we've been lucky as our ds took to food (the baby-led way) from the start.
However, at 15 months he's already had McDonalds twice and I expect when he's been sat in his highchair others have judged me for that!
I really dislike seeing young babies in strollers, I know the parents might not be able to afford anything better but it just seems so wrong.
I also can't help but judge parents who have their babies forward facing from an early age.
I hate dummies on older children and hate seeing them in buggies when they can very clearly walk!
And I judge people living off benefits who don't have to work having more children.
I could go on but I already feel so awful for the things I've written. Why do we judge even when we know our judgements might be flawed?
ps I'd also try and influence my ds's friends if I thought he was making friends with the wrong sort of people, I wouldn't be able to help myself.
tbh i worry more about drugs with my kids when their older i swear i'll kick their asses they'll be so warned!!!!!
I wish I could say I've never judged someone because I have. but its usually the people who are giving children coke in their bottles, or the ones who don't work with 7 or 8 kids in toe.
Rant over lol xx
Me too, beyond a shadow of a doubt! Are there really mothers on here who can honestly say they wouldn't, if they felt so-and-so was a bad influence on their LO in such-and-such a way? Isn't that just active, sensible parenting?
We have to make judgements, it's natural and necessary as it helps us make choices about how we choose to parent ourselves. I'm amazed that so few people will admit to it, or admit the extent of it!
i guess we have aimed to do this too. we chose to have a smaller house in a good area, rather than a larger house in a bad area, which in itself will affect the type of children dd knows. we have friends who are currently saying how big their new house is, but it's in a really rough area, with really poor performing schools and a lot of crime. to me, that wouldnt even be a choice. it's not an aea i'd leave my car parked in.
I also can't help but judge parents who have their babies forward facing from an early age.
x
can i ask why hun? xx