They are everywhere.
In the last few weeks alone I've posted about designer labels in Am I wrong to put my child in designer clothes? to being labelled as a person in Being a (bad) 'Mum'.
Nowadays we're quick to label everything Everything has a tag attached and with that tag comes a stigma.
Fred is a mere 14 months and in that short space of time I've been labelled numerous times. I've being a young Mum, a bad Mum, a good Mum, a patient Mum, a Mum who spoils her child, a Mum who is too harsh on her child, a stay at home Mum, a working Mum, a Mum who is patient and a Mum who is stressed out.
I've said it before and I'll say it again; every (wo) man and his dog like to stick their two penneth in when it comes to being a parent.
A few weeks ago I saw a debate on parenting on This Morning. Now I understand that it's all for entertainment purposes and that witch that goes by the name of Hopkins is no more than a pantomime villian but still, we are a nation of labellers. Bad parent, good parent, lazy parent etc etc.
We can't win. I didn't BF Fred for very long. I have dabbled with controlled crying. I let him in my bed when he's screaming at 3am. I weaned him before 6 months. Some days I can't wait for him to go to bed. Some days I can't wait for him to get up because I miss him. I let him have chocolate biscuits more often than I should and I profusely denied him a dummy.
So what label do I get? Am I an AP parent because he sleeps in my bed when he's cross in the night. Am I bad parent because I allow him to eat his body weight in chocolate from time to time? Do I qualify as a good parent because I read him a bed time story?
The only continuity in any of this is being a parent. None of us parent the same.
My brother & I, who have had the same upbringing, parent our children in completely different ways. What he sees suitable is worlds apart from my ideas. Does that mean that I'm a good parent and he's not?
I'm hesitant to believe that any person parents in a way that they think is bad. (I say person, the beasts who do wrong by their children on purpose don't qualify for that label)
We're all doing our best right?
One way or another, if you drop the labels, we're all 'parents' and what unites us all in that is that we're all on our own little journeys of parenthood, whichever way we chose to do it.
A few weeks ago I saw a debate on parenting on This Morning. Now I understand that it's all for entertainment purposes and that witch that goes by the name of Hopkins is no more than a pantomime villian but still, we are a nation of labellers. Bad parent, good parent, lazy parent etc etc.
We can't win. I didn't BF Fred for very long. I have dabbled with controlled crying. I let him in my bed when he's screaming at 3am. I weaned him before 6 months. Some days I can't wait for him to go to bed. Some days I can't wait for him to get up because I miss him. I let him have chocolate biscuits more often than I should and I profusely denied him a dummy.
So what label do I get? Am I an AP parent because he sleeps in my bed when he's cross in the night. Am I bad parent because I allow him to eat his body weight in chocolate from time to time? Do I qualify as a good parent because I read him a bed time story?
The only continuity in any of this is being a parent. None of us parent the same.
My brother & I, who have had the same upbringing, parent our children in completely different ways. What he sees suitable is worlds apart from my ideas. Does that mean that I'm a good parent and he's not?
I'm hesitant to believe that any person parents in a way that they think is bad. (I say person, the beasts who do wrong by their children on purpose don't qualify for that label)
We're all doing our best right?
One way or another, if you drop the labels, we're all 'parents' and what unites us all in that is that we're all on our own little journeys of parenthood, whichever way we chose to do it.
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