Momsicles 206

Moms have a tendency to judge each other on our parenting skills. Sometimes there is no way to win this – if your kid is having a tantrum in public its because you are not disciplining him. But if you smack the kid then you are a bad parent. If you give in then you are a bad parent. If you ignore him you are a bad parent. If you take out your phone to record the tantrum for his 21^st party you are a bad parent. If you scratch your bum and then your head you are a bad parent. So either way, no matter what you do, someone will disagree with you (and mentally call you a bad parent).

When we were travelling from Thailand recently, there were a number of young ones in the cabin with us. As the plane took off, the babies’ distress level went up and soon they were all screaming.

Each parent had their own bag of tricks to calm their baby down.. and one set of parents had a method that I didn’t agree with. I thought ‘this is bad parenting and they are not putting in any effort and its bad for the kid’. I became very self-righteous and was mentally berating them when I hit my wisdom cloud. Who am I to judge them for what they were doing? They were doing what works for them and it keeps their kid calm, so who cares?

So all you parents with your bag of tricks – go ahead and use them on your kids. And if someone gets their nose out of joint because of you, then, well, whatever.