Social stress

[ailbhe]

So my NCT social event is over, and two women came, one with an external baby and one with an internal baby. They were lovely, if a bit more interested in adult-led weaning than I am, and stayed for about an hour, and it was fine. Now I'm feeling angry and stressed.

I'm annoyed, as far as I can tell, because I find it very hard to clamp down on my strong feelings about various things baby-related, but I do, and other people seem to me to be less reluctant to speak out to strangers on these matters. (Online journals don't count as talking to strangers; if you don't like what I say you can click away). I tried to be as moderate as possible on the topic of eco-disposables and cloth nappies, and on breastfeeding (I really, really stayed very quiet about breastfeeding, and didn't even mention that I'm still feeding Linnea, which felt very like not being Out), and I didn't even enthuse too much about sling use, though I did tell the pregnant woman that feeding a baby in a sling was a valuable skill and she's welcome to come and practice with my slings once her baby's external, before she buys one of her own.

They were nice, but I feel self-repressed, and that leaves me feeling a bit bitter. Ho hum.

Comments

[batswing.livejournal.com]

There MUST be other mothers with your views near you! What a shame.

[ailbhe]

For all I know these women *do* share the majority of my views, but not the early weaning one. It's just that neither of them felt in the least awkward discussing ways to make their child accept that it was time to stop breastfeeding now, and I *did* feel awkward - enough that I didn't say it - saying "actually we don't do adult-led weaning, Linnea's going to do it herself one day."

My views are a bit extreme, really. Recycling, organic food, ethical consumerism, child-led weaning and education, blah blah blah. I'm just a big soppy hippie.

[batswing.livejournal.com]

Hippie is good. More people should have your views and ethics. I wish I could be sure I'd have the stamina to keep it up with kids. I find it hard to keep up the level of ethical living we achieve at the moment. I imagine it's much more expensive and time consuming with wee ones.

[ailbhe]

For me, it's MORE important now I have kids, because I need to lead by example. I also don't cross the road when the red man is showing, these days.

[batswing.livejournal.com]

lol
An example to us all! (I nearly get run over on a regular basis according to my beloved, who is also very good about the green man!)

[clare-s.livejournal.com]

You know you are a parent when you do this ! You also know when you tell your visitors off for doing things you don't want the kiddies to emmulate

[rmc28]

I'm glad you're a big soppy hippie and that you're happy to talk about what you do online. From a purely selfish point of view, it helps me think a lot about what we do and what I'm prepared to change - the most recent and obvious one is deciding to get a dishwasher, after measuring how much water I use doing the washing by hand.

I was talking about using cloth nappies yesterday and someone said rather dismissively something along the lines of "oh you're such a hippy with the reusable nappies and wanting to breastfeed". I pointed out that both breastfeeding and real nappies can be easily justified on cost grounds alone, which seemed to disconcert them a little. Obviously the hormones are supposed to make me lose all ability to think quantitatively ...

[ailbhe]

Awww :) I'm glad it's useful.

I've been thinking about how I do all this thinking about all the things I do, and basically it boils down to geekness. I used to be a mutt geek, then I was a CSS geek, then I was a weddings geek, and now I'm a parenting geek. I wonder sometimes what would happen if I allowed myself a total lack of restraint about the whole thing. Not likely while I'm this hot and pregnant though.

[piqueen.livejournal.com]

What would a total lack of restraint with respect to parenting look like? *boogles*

[ailbhe]

I'd go on about it a lot more, in a lot more depth, a lot more often, for a lot longer :)

[piqueen.livejournal.com]

Ah okay that makes sense. I was picturing twins followed by triplets 12 months later or similar.

[ailbhe]

Unfortunately, my restraint or lack thereof doesn't make me able to choose to have twins etc :( But I'll keep on trying!

[k425.livejournal.com]

Come to Wet Yorks, you'd fit right in!

[clare-s.livejournal.com]

Now on the subject of slings - what type do you recommend ?

As long as you manage to get your views across without being confrontational then there is no issue with bringing them up. It could be that they have never come across the concept or the practicalities of child led weaning etc

[ailbhe]

I adore the hugabub because it works for me *and* Rob. But I mainly recommend that people try several kinds and see what works with them and their baby, because slings really are a body-shape thing, and a coordination thing, and a personal preference thing.

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

I agree with ailbhe that different slings work for different people. For what it's worth, my husband and I absolutely adored our Wilkinet - because it has no buckles, it adjusted very well to our very different body shapes.

[ailbhe]

That's why the Hugabub worked so well - it worked on me and Rob, on an infant and a 35lb toddler, all because it had very little in the way of restrictive shaping and fastening.

[tiggsybabes.livejournal.com]

I never made any proper friends at NCT coffee mornings. I was intersted in cloth nappies when I had Kate & niaively asked at an NCT coffee morning & all the women were horrified! That put me off totally & I only felt confident using them with Holls bceause of the fabulous lj support. I was also the only one who had a sling & everyone adnmired it, but no-one ever bought one. I had a tomy one as well, not even a "hippy" type one.

I have actually found another mother at Kate's schools who has similar views to me, uses a sling, uses cloth & is breastfeeding her nearly 1 year old. She's the only one out of all the dozens, possibly hundreds, of mothers I have known / met in rl. I've nevere, ever seen anyone use cloth when out, apart from myself & I've even demoonstrated how easy / cool looking it all is, but no-one ever bites.

[k425.livejournal.com]

Hang on, I thought we'd met?!

YoungBloke is cloth-nappied most of the time (including when out, depending on how long we're going to be out for) and still breastfed and he's NEARLY THREE!!!

I never got on with slings, but we wilkinetted for months.

[thealmondtree.livejournal.com]

I'm finding that the NCT friends I'm making are not the ones from my antenatal class but rather the tutor and the co-ordinator. Somehow I just don't seem to have much in common with the others from my class. I'm the only one of the group who (a) isn't planning on going back to work, (b) is using cloth nappies and (c) (I think) is still (at three months) exclusively breastfeeding.

[thealmondtree.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I was the only one who didn't buy everything brand new for their first baby. The only new (rather than new-to-us) things we have are the chest-of-drawyers/changing unit, the cloth nappies (partly because the bamboo ones haven't been around long enough to be available second hand!), and things people have given us. Everything else has been either given or bought secondhand.

[squishsplash.livejournal.com]

"I find it very hard to clamp down on my strong feelings about various things baby-related, but I do..."

Working out when to speak up and when to allow space is *very* difficult. I always thought that once I had kids, I'd pretty much be forced to be more vocal. And now you're telling me there's no magic personality transplant! Ah, well!

For the sustainability of your relationships, you need to be comfortable, which means allowing yourself to be yourself. "Being yourself" is always a risk, but it has an upside. You might end up scaring people away, but you might just become the binding agent in a group you are more comfortable with.