Category: Parenting


Comments, phrases and opinions guaranteed to increase your blog comments or better yet, start a blog war.

For Mummy Bloggers:

1. Boob Nazi. Cue horrified breastfeeding advocates resenting being associated with “that word” or “those people.” Someone else will say “ANTI-SEMITISM” and then everyone is quiet and they’ve forgotten what they were arguing about until another will pipe up about the conspiracy that is formula milk so we should all feel sorry for the bottlefed people, really.

2. I feel sorry for stay at home mothers. Cue like minded people who say things like “What must they DO with their time and how are they helping this country sitting on their fat bums all day watching Oprah and Dr Phil?” Stay at home mothers will get on the defensive and start blaming all the ills of society on the fact that children were put into daycare and raised by strangers just because mothers wanted to go out and drink coffee in an office.

3. I really need to take a break from my children. Cue parents lamenting about how awful a parent you must be to actually want to be away from the children – I mean after all, you helped MAKE them! They are designed to be worn all the time and you are most certainly not allowed ANY time for yourself. Only selfish people want “me-time” whatever happened to FAMILY time etc. Counterattack by other parents making comments about attachment parents/gentle mothering (usually called (s)mothering) and breastfeeding their children until they are 12 years of age.

4. I trained my baby to sleep… Cue happy parents who have also done this with their children and way to go it was hard but worth it in the end; babies need to cry before they sleep; I waited 50 minutes before I went in there to clean his vomit; I really needed to do it, I was desperate for sleep and so on. Counterattack by mothers MORTIFIED and angry that anyone could do such a thing to their baby; sending message of total rejection; this is CHILD ABUSE IN IT’S (sic) MOST BASIC FORM etc etc.

5. Any mention of childbirth, be it caesarian, homebirth, epidural or other forms of pain relief. Cue mothers opposed to any or all of the above. Because we all know the sort of birth experience you have dramatically impacts on your child and a “bad” birth is the leading cause of violence and drug abuse amongst teens.

For Muslim bloggers: View full article »

Disappointment

As experienced by my 3 year old the other day:

While driving to school one unusually rainy morning, I spotted a brilliant and vivid rainbow. Not wanting them to miss out, I pointed it out to the children.

6 year old saw it clearly and marvelled at the bright colours. One and half year old continued watching the cars oblivious to any change in the sky. My 3 year old strained his neck trying to see the rainbow. “I can’t see it!” he wailed.

“There!” I pointed.

Still he couldn’t quite see it and quickly his tears began to flow.

“There!” screamed 6 year old, mildly frustrated. He couldn’t quite understand that just because it was in his line of sight, didn’t necessarily mean it was in everyone else’s.

More tears and this time accompanied by heartbreaking sobbing.

I pulled over to the side of a very busy main road and scrambled out of the car, unhooked his seat belt and scooped 3 year old up in my arms and pointed. At that very moment, the rainbow disappeared before my eyes and my darling 3 year old blubbered, “I still can’t see it!”

I know we can’t (and probably shouldn’t) shelter our children from every little setback and disappointment – however will they learn to cope with same when they are older? No doubt there will be many more misfortunes and indeed failures as he is growing up; I just wished for that one moment I could freeze time so we ALL could marvel together at the bright, colourful rainbow and my little boy wouldn’t have to suffer this one very small (and short-lived, I must say) but still very heartbreaking upset.

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