I'll do it my way

Parenting.  Who would have thought it would be such a minefield of opinions and advice.  The right way and the wrong way.  My way and your way.

I think it would be fair to say I am not a 'mainstream' type of mother.  I believe in gentle parenting, attachment parenting, and basically treating my children as actual real people, rather than some burden in my life.  Since the moment I told people that I was having a baby, I have been inundated with advice. Some of it good, and some of it bad.  The best piece of advice came from a man I worked with who said "Don't listen to anyone - just do it your way".

I started to get a bit upset with certain well-meaning people in my life (my mother, grandmother and auntie included), who would try and tell me that 'crying is good for your baby's lungs', 'he is playing you like a fiddle', 'you need to leave him to cry, or he'll never go to sleep', and so on.  I would get annoyed with them, and they with me.  I started to really think about this.

It is simple really - they are just telling me to do what they did, and they did these things because they were told to do it.  And they did these things because they loved their children and wanted what was best for them.  Twenty, thirty, and especially sixty years ago there was no internet, there was no easy access to 'alternative' parenting information.  All mothers were given the same set of advice, and told to follow it.  It would have been very difficult to go against this advice, if everyone you encountered in society was doing it the same way (and it was doctors orders).

My mother has actually come around - she has seen the research on the damage that 'crying it out' can do, to both mother and baby.

So now, when I hear "Back in my day, we did....", I won't take it badly, I will try not to be offended, I will just try to understand that they are saying it out of love and care.  They are giving me the only information that they know, the information that was drummed into them, which was the best way for their precious children.  I will try and be understanding that they may be deeply hurt if I try to tell them that new discoveries about babies brains have been made since their children were young, and the very things they did out of love for their children could very well have caused damage.  I think I will just smile and nod, say thanks.