Parenting forums are the actual worst.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013Parenting forums are a fresh new torture method that have caused me many anxiety attacks. When Eli was a newborn, I'd read the newborn comment threads about baby development, and there were parents talking about how their three-week-olds were laughing out loud, sitting up, rolling over and doing all sorts of crazy tricks.
I'd look at my sleepy little lump, who was neither laughing nor sitting nor rolling, and panic would set in.
WHY ISN'T HE DOING ALL THE THINGS TOO? WHAT'S WRONG WITH MY BAYYYBEEEE?
I have come to learn there are a lot of bat-shit crazy parents out there. Just today, I'm reading a babycenter.com forum about language and cognitive development milestones in 15-month-olds, and came across this gem of a comment:
"My 15 month old daughter can say over a hundred words and she uses most of them almost every day. She amazes me daily! She can count to ten and sing most of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star! She even says small sentences, the hard part is sometimes getting her to listen to some commands, but she loves talking and reading!"
For a second I was like, Eli, you need to step up your game. This genius knows over a hundred words, and you're rolling with what, 10? 15? Read a book or something.
But this is tomfoolery. Your whiz kid does not know 100 words. Go home, mom, you're drunk. The Internet is full of crazy people and they're all lurking on babycenter.com making you feel like a shitty parent.
Eli loves to be read to, loves to look at books, and loves to point things out and "read" to us, but he isn't a walking thesaurus like the mastermind offspring of the babycenter.com freak show quoted above. He says dada, mama, banana, ball, dog, kitty (err, "titty"), baby, baa (for sheep), moo (for cow), down (which means down OR up - "down" is his word for getting to wherever he wants to go, basically). There are lots of words he's said once and refuses to repeat, like tractor, dolphin and diaper. He points out the parts of his body, uses a spoon, tries to put his socks on, does "cheers" if you have a drink, and follows instructions. I'm pretty sure he's doing just fine.
Crazy ass parents need to slow their roll on the forums, but since that won't be happening any time soon, I probably just need to stop reading them. Baby forums are the dark alleys of the internet. Just don't go there.
8 comments
I nannied a little girl who at my son's age (17 months) could count to 10 consistently and knew her colors. She's 4 now and has a huuuuuge vocabulary and is super articulate. Recently I was working on colors with my son and caught myself thinking, "Lauren knew her colors at this age! Why don't you!" ....but um...that wasn't NORMAL. Crazy children making the rest of us feel bad...
ReplyDeleteDang baby geniuses!
Deletelol- i also find colours a COMPLETE waste of space. Seriously, how useful is it to say "BLUE" instead of being able to say "truck"???? if you had a bowl filled with bananas, lemons, starfruit and golden delicious apples, would you want your kid to say "yellow" or "apple"? :)
DeleteSo true. I freak out on the regular because of parenting forums and groups. Add to that the fact that Avery has weird skill development (like he is cruising furniture and about to take first steps any day now, but he hasn't figured out how to get him self from laying down to sitting position) and I regularly have to talk myself off the proverbial ledge.
ReplyDeleteFor a while, Eli would pull himself up to standing and walk around, but he wouldn't get into a standing position in the middle of the floor, which I was convinced was some sort of horrific problem. Parenting forums are as bad as Googling symptoms!
DeletePeople go crazy when they become parents, lol I feel your pain!
ReplyDeleteThey absolutely do. People need to keep the crazy to a minimum!
Deleteok... so... this post and comments inspired my rant against colours and numbers LOL :)
ReplyDeleteMerci!
http://ecoyogini.blogspot.ca/2013/02/my-inner-speech-therapist-hates-colours.html