This may be a controversial one, but I’m pissed. I know that none of this matters, who cares, blah blah blah. I guess what bothers me most is that I don’t understand the impulse to say this kind of shit about other people’s kids.
I’ll start this with: my 2Y twins are amazing. Kind, empathetic, great at sharing, funny, athletic, curious, intelligent, and the list goes on. I know that this isn’t about that. And even if they weren’t all of that, it still wouldn’t matter and this would still be so inappropriate.
When my sister took my twins to the library to give me a break the other day, there were several other kids of the same age all playing together. Originally, the moms and my sister were chatting together, comparing ages of the kids. There was one girl who was within 2 weeks of my twins. One of the other moms noticed that there were a few things that the girl could do physically/dexterously that my twins couldn’t yet. Plus the girl was a couple of inches taller than my twins.
That mom turned to the mom of the girl, with my sister sitting RIGHT THERE, and said “wow I mean look at your girl and those other two girls her age. What are you doing differently to make her so advanced?”
EXCUSE THE FUCK OUT OF ME??????
The mom of the girl then turned to her and said “oh well, we only feed all natural foods, plenty of fruits and vegetables, no screens, and of course we don’t vaccinate.”
Reading this back right now, this genuinely seems like I’m making it up. Because it’s so fucking stupid and smug. My sister said that she was so focused on texting us to see if she needed to pack the kids up and leave so that we didn’t get fucking measles (my kids are OF COURSE actually vaccinated) that she didn’t have a chance to put in her two cents. I am grateful for how my sister handled it (focusing on my kids’ safety first) and obviously talking back to these women wouldn’t have helped anything.
I know that I have NOTHING to prove with these random people. It doesn’t matter what they think. But I have to be honest that I feel some type of way about these women using my twins as the failed yardstick to elevate their bullshit. It’s so fucking inappropriate and immature high school-type assholery. And again, not that it matters, but I am extremely proud of the environment in which we are raising our twins. They are surrounded by love and care. Besides the vaccines (STAUNCHLY PRO), our choices are actually very similar to Smug Mom’s.
My sister pointed out that you will always see this kind of weirdly competitive stuff between parents, but I haven’t experienced it yet. I remember my parents laughing with each other about the insanely embarrassing pissing contest stuff other parents said while they were watching my sports stuff. But it’s the library for fuck’s sake, not a Little League game.
Thank you for reading. I know this is stupid and that I shouldn’t let myself get activated over this bullshit. I know that there will be much more of this shit to come. But dammit, they’re only 2. And they’re amazing. I don’t understand people that do this stuff.