February! Whoa.
Today I finally got the, "Hell, when I was a kid we played with mercury and ran behind the DEET truck and I turned out fine," comment from my mom today, in response to something I said about some product. I was starting to think maybe I'd be lucky and it wouldn't happen, because she has been pretty chill about my parenting ideas so far, but it did. (She actually said it nicer than that, but the message was crystal clear.) And the conversation continued for a while, so that by the time I was off the phone, I thought, "now I don't feel like I can trust my mom to respect my parenting choices when I leave her alone with my kid." I guess that was inevitable. But I was holding out hope.
She also said over Christmas, "Ugh, just don't be one of those parents who lets your kid sleep in your bed forever. Those kids are always weird." (She's a preschool teacher.) That was when we told her we were building a sidecar for the bed.
And she's trying really hard to be understanding. I can't imagine what she must have dealt with with my grandma, who just totally disregarded her decisions whenever her back was turned and proudly told her about it. I wonder if I'll remember times like this when/if my daughter has children. I saw a post on a forum once where a soon-to-be grandma was asking for advice about what parenting books were current because she wanted to be educated in the way her daughter would want to do things, assuming the general knowledge had changed since she did it. I was jealous.
Today I finally got the, "Hell, when I was a kid we played with mercury and ran behind the DEET truck and I turned out fine," comment from my mom today, in response to something I said about some product. I was starting to think maybe I'd be lucky and it wouldn't happen, because she has been pretty chill about my parenting ideas so far, but it did. (She actually said it nicer than that, but the message was crystal clear.) And the conversation continued for a while, so that by the time I was off the phone, I thought, "now I don't feel like I can trust my mom to respect my parenting choices when I leave her alone with my kid." I guess that was inevitable. But I was holding out hope.
She also said over Christmas, "Ugh, just don't be one of those parents who lets your kid sleep in your bed forever. Those kids are always weird." (She's a preschool teacher.) That was when we told her we were building a sidecar for the bed.
And she's trying really hard to be understanding. I can't imagine what she must have dealt with with my grandma, who just totally disregarded her decisions whenever her back was turned and proudly told her about it. I wonder if I'll remember times like this when/if my daughter has children. I saw a post on a forum once where a soon-to-be grandma was asking for advice about what parenting books were current because she wanted to be educated in the way her daughter would want to do things, assuming the general knowledge had changed since she did it. I was jealous.