Parents, please can we stop doing this

Something keeps happening in the parenting realm. Something that makes me wanna smash my fist through  a wall.

Somehow – perhaps it’s to make ourselves feel better – we’ve become really good at making other parents feel kak whenever something is shared with us.

Here’s an example:

Me: Rosie is almost walking, it’s adorable
Friend: Just you wait, it will be a nightmare, you’ll have to start hiding things.
Other Friend: Oh no, it’s all downhill from now. Enjoy the crawling before it’s too late

Don’t see it yet? How about this:

Mother: Trying to dress a 5 month old is so tricky, they wriggle so much!
Friend: You ain’t seen nothing yet
Other Friend: Try dressing a 13 month old, it only gets worse.

Why are we conditioned to dish out fear-mongering? Why are we trying to make people’s experiences less by comparing them all the time?

STOP. Just stop.

You don’t need to reply to someone’s child revelation with your advice, or your scary moments. I promise you, you won’t feel like less of a human just by saying “that’s amazing”.

When someone shares something with you, you do not need to make them feel bad about it.

You don’t need to enforce your advice or experience on them.

If I tell you that my daughter is walking, don’t tell me that I need to start locking my cupboards and moving my house around because it’s going to be “terrible”. If you can’t be as excited as I am, then simply smile and change the subject.

Equally, you don’t need to make it about your kid. If my baby is sick, don’t tell me that yours is sicker.It’s like verbal diarrhea – when a friend tells me their kid didn’t sleep through the night, I suddenly have the urge to tell them how much worse my night was. But why? Does it really matter that much to me?

This is NOT a competition.

We’re all, to quote High School Musical, in this together and it gets awfully tedious trying to fight off everyone’s negativity.

Why are we doing this to others, to ourselves? We need to put a stop to this. Now. Let’s be happy for one another, be supportive of one another. Let’s park our insecurities and give each other love instead of opinion.

Okay, my rant is over. I’m going to need some strong coffee now.