this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2023
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I used to HATE when people gatekeep parenting. Stories of mums or dads being like "Oh you don't know what tired is you don't have to have kids". Swore I wasnt gonna do that. Who am I to say you arnt tired because you have a different experience to me? But I just had a friend try to tell me something about parenting, about the sacrifices you do or don't have to make. And I just wanted to laugh in his face. He isn't a dad. He would not have a clue the sacrifices required, or the decisions you face on the daily. I'm sure it came from the best of intentions, but it felt like a Call Of Duty player telling an Army Officer he was shooting wrong. In the end I decided to walk away, because "Bro you're not a dad you are talking completely out of your ass and its condescending AF" is usually a friendship killer.
So I think maybe we're all best off just sticking to our own lanes a bit more. There's no way for a parent to say "this is hard" in a way that isnt off-putting to non parents, and its hard for non-parents to offer advice that doesn't sound like someone who read web MD trying to advise a surgeon.
When we brought our daughter home we were told to give her 3 hourly feeds because she was a little jaundice and in my head I'm thinking "when do I sleep?" but you do it. When I went back to my doctor I asked him if I should wake her for her feed he's like "hell no". Of course it makes sense not to but no one tells you that.
BC (before child) you tend to but things off to another time because you can but when you're a parent it doesn't matter how tired you are if it's for your kid you get it done.
Empathy and understanding, without offering advice or judgement, is apparently difficult for many of the humans in our lives. Everyone has it hard, parents especially, and a childfree telling a parent (or vice versa) how to live is egregious and ridiculous.
You're a better person than I for walking away tbh, I would have lost it.
Thinking of you and your family, you're absolutely smashing it man, you are fine and good and doing amazing!
I think this really nails it. I honestly think that some people actually want to be genuinely supportive, but lack the skills to express it and it comes off poorly.
Effective communication and thought expression are dying skills.
Because people have been browbeaten into thinking normal communication is a boundary violation or abuse. The narcissists took over the internets and elsewhere because we tried to be sensitive to their feelings or believed there bs. We were naïve.
I just can't upvote this enough, hard-agree.
I thought ** I ** was reasonably prepared and knew what to expect, and the reality of parenthood still kicked my arse. Still wouldn't change it for the world :D