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(hello, I'm Ina, from Romania and this is the briefest intro ever)
I've chuckled and LOLed 13 pages and recognized a lot of annoying things that I have already heard...and my son is barely 3 months old.
What irks me a little and I see it was not said here yet is when various friends of mine with babies around same age call to ask me how we are doing, when in fact they just want to monologue / brag about their own!
"Hey! How are you, haven't seen you in a while, are you ok?"
"Hello, yes I'm..."
"I've been to the mall the other day and bla bla bla bla....How's Alex? "
"He's fi..."
"[insert baby name here] is doing fantastic I think her first tooth is coming out and bla and bla and bla"
I mean I am really happy to hear about other children of course but would it not be easier to just skip the questions and just say "Hey I called ...to share how's my little one doing!" It would spare me of a lot of attempts of answering your questions.
(hello, I'm Ina, from Romania and this is the briefest intro ever)
I've chuckled and LOLed 13 pages and recognized a lot of annoying things that I have already heard...and my son is barely 3 months old.
What irks me a little and I see it was not said here yet is when various friends of mine with babies around same age call to ask me how we are doing, when in fact they just want to monologue / brag about their own!
"Hey! How are you, haven't seen you in a while, are you ok?"
"Hello, yes I'm..."
"I've been to the mall the other day and bla bla bla bla....How's Alex? "
"He's fi..."
"[insert baby name here] is doing fantastic I think her first tooth is coming out and bla and bla and bla"
I mean I am really happy to hear about other children of course but would it not be easier to just skip the questions and just say "Hey I called ...to share how's my little one doing!" It would spare me of a lot of attempts of answering your questions.
Welcome to C-D! I am glad you like the thread. I thought we could all use a place to vent out some of those things that you can't really say in real life. Seems like it is working.
Regarding your little issue: That is annoying when they call under false pretenses like that. It also sounds a little like Mompetition.
In my experience, Mompetition never really stops. It starts when you are pregnant and another mom feels the need to 1-up you on everything from the fact that they are only eating organic and are having fresh air pumped into the house to avoid pollution getting into their system to comparing how many ounces your baby weighs at 8 weeks gestation. Then it moves on to whose baby had their teeth come in first or who has more hair. Then who is sitting/crawling/standing/walking/recognizing colors, etc. For some reason many moms feel the need to constantly try to 1-up other moms. You will probably hear it the rest of your life. "Johnny is first in his class at Harvard Law." "Really? Well, my Jane graduated college 6 months early." Then you may hear about how many grandbabies they have and how well they are doing at their careers.
Sorry. I could go on forever about that. Why do moms feel the need to do this? Is it to validate the choices they made as parents? I really am curious.
In my experience, Mompetition never really stops. It starts when you are pregnant and another mom feels the need to 1-up you on everything from the fact that they are only eating organic and are having fresh air pumped into the house to avoid pollution getting into their system to comparing how many ounces your baby weighs at 8 weeks gestation. Then it moves on to whose baby had their teeth come in first or who has more hair. Then who is sitting/crawling/standing/walking/recognizing colors, etc. For some reason many moms feel the need to constantly try to 1-up other moms. You will probably hear it the rest of your life. "Johnny is first in his class at Harvard Law." "Really? Well, my Jane graduated college 6 months early." Then you may hear about how many grandbabies they have and how well they are doing at their careers.
Sorry. I could go on forever about that. Why do moms feel the need to do this? Is it to validate the choices they made as parents? I really am curious.
They drive me bananas too. Who knows what inspires them, but it must be either validation or great insecurity.
My husband and I have 4 children, ages 12, 10, 8 and 5. I cannot tell you the number of times a stranger has felt they needed to comment on this. I've gotten everything to "Are they all YOURS?" to "Do you run a daycare?" to "Are you Catholic?" and all the people that ask "You do know what causes that, don't you?" Just a few weeks ago, in a Disney store in the airport, the clerk wanted to know what months they were born in so he could "figure out if there was some special reason" we had all of them.
Yes, our secret, special reason....sorry, we can't tell you what it is....
My husband and I have 4 children, ages 12, 10, 8 and 5. I cannot tell you the number of times a stranger has felt they needed to comment on this. I've gotten everything to "Are they all YOURS?" to "Do you run a daycare?" to "Are you Catholic?" and all the people that ask "You do know what causes that, don't you?" Just a few weeks ago, in a Disney store in the airport, the clerk wanted to know what months they were born in so he could "figure out if there was some special reason" we had all of them.
Yes, our secret, special reason....sorry, we can't tell you what it is....
Oh good grief, how rude! We have three kids, which is pretty common for this area. Where we used to live, one or two kids was the norm, so we felt like a bigger family, but sheesh--four is not THAT many.
Welcome to C-D! I am glad you like the thread. I thought we could all use a place to vent out some of those things that you can't really say in real life. Seems like it is working.
Regarding your little issue: That is annoying when they call under false pretenses like that. It also sounds a little like Mompetition.
In my experience, Mompetition never really stops. It starts when you are pregnant and another mom feels the need to 1-up you on everything from the fact that they are only eating organic and are having fresh air pumped into the house to avoid pollution getting into their system to comparing how many ounces your baby weighs at 8 weeks gestation. Then it moves on to whose baby had their teeth come in first or who has more hair. Then who is sitting/crawling/standing/walking/recognizing colors, etc. For some reason many moms feel the need to constantly try to 1-up other moms. You will probably hear it the rest of your life. "Johnny is first in his class at Harvard Law." "Really? Well, my Jane graduated college 6 months early." Then you may hear about how many grandbabies they have and how well they are doing at their careers.
Sorry. I could go on forever about that. Why do moms feel the need to do this? Is it to validate the choices they made as parents? I really am curious.
Mompetition ~ what a great description! And it never does stop, does it?
Welcome to C-D! I am glad you like the thread. I thought we could all use a place to vent out some of those things that you can't really say in real life. Seems like it is working.
Regarding your little issue: That is annoying when they call under false pretenses like that. It also sounds a little like Mompetition.
In my experience, Mompetition never really stops. It starts when you are pregnant and another mom feels the need to 1-up you on everything from the fact that they are only eating organic and are having fresh air pumped into the house to avoid pollution getting into their system to comparing how many ounces your baby weighs at 8 weeks gestation. Then it moves on to whose baby had their teeth come in first or who has more hair. Then who is sitting/crawling/standing/walking/recognizing colors, etc. For some reason many moms feel the need to constantly try to 1-up other moms. You will probably hear it the rest of your life. "Johnny is first in his class at Harvard Law." "Really? Well, my Jane graduated college 6 months early." Then you may hear about how many grandbabies they have and how well they are doing at their careers.
Sorry. I could go on forever about that. Why do moms feel the need to do this? Is it to validate the choices they made as parents? I really am curious.
I think the best way to deal with Mompetition (love that, btw) is to be self-deprecating about your own parenting skills and your kids. I have a friend whose little girl has a very wild-child, out there personality and my friend cracked me up when she said, "At this point, we just hope to keep her off the pole," as in pole-dancing. Whenever anyone goes on about how many activities their kid is in, I usually say we're teaching our daughter to keep up our family slacker tradition. Same with things like science fair and other competitions. I usually just shrug and say "we're lazy. what can I say?"
Of course I am proud of my daughter and her accomplishments (limited though they may be ) but comments that show you're not going to compete usually stop the Mompetitors, at least for a while.
My husband and I have 4 children, ages 12, 10, 8 and 5. I cannot tell you the number of times a stranger has felt they needed to comment on this. I've gotten everything to "Are they all YOURS?" to "Do you run a daycare?" to "Are you Catholic?" and all the people that ask "You do know what causes that, don't you?" Just a few weeks ago, in a Disney store in the airport, the clerk wanted to know what months they were born in so he could "figure out if there was some special reason" we had all of them.
Yes, our secret, special reason....sorry, we can't tell you what it is....
The same thing happens when you only have 1--people are always asking when you'll be having another.
My cousin has five kids: two twin boys, then a single boy, then two more twins, a boy and a girl. They are all very close in age--I think they are 7-8-9 right now. She gets questions all the time. It would drive me nuts.
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) but comments that show you're not going to compete usually stop the Mompetitors, at least for a while.
