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And — here are some of our latest threadjacks of interest – working mom questions asked by the commenters!
- If you’re a working parent of an infant with low sleep needs, how do you function at work when you’re in the throes of baby’s sleep regression?
- Should I cut my childcare down to 12 hours a month if I work from home?
- Will my baby have speech delays if we raise her bilingual?
- Has anyone given birth in a teaching hospital?
- My child eats everything, and my friends’ kids do not – how should I handle? In general, what is the best way to handle when your child has some skill/ability and your friend’s child doesn’t have that skill/ability?
- ADHD moms, give me your tips to help with things like behavior in the classroom, attention to detail, etc?
- I think I suffer from mom rage…
- My husband and kids are gone this weekend – how should I enjoy my free time?
- I’m struggling to be compassionate with a SAHM friend who complains she doesn’t have enough hours of childcare.
- If you exclusively formula fed, what tips do you have for in the hospital and coming home?
- Could I take my 4-yo and 8-yo on a 7-8 day trip to Paris, Lyon, and Madrid?
TheElms says
Well this is sad news. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/02/16/coronavirus-covid-live-updates-us/#link-IMFVRANCBVAO7LNVPI3J2XRC7Y
AIMS says
It’s tragic. But what does it really mean? It’s like those stories where someone dies after receiving a vaccine or a healthy person suddenly dies with no warning. It’s statistically anomalous which is why it gets headlines and what does it do other than terrify us?
Anon says
This. It’s sad, but a lot of babies are stillborn for unexplained reasons so I think the simple fact that the baby tested positive for Covid does not mean it died of Covid. And even if it did die from Covid, it doesn’t really tell us anything about how common that is.
Anonymous says
Yes. She could’ve just had an unrelated stillbirth. It’s awful, but 1 in 100 babies is stillborn.
Anonymous says
Agreed, and it seems like this isn’t super common. The article says that stillbirths have risen since COVID (though correlation doesn’t equal causation!) but the one statistic cited was that in one country, stillbirths were up 50%. So if the previous rate of stillbirth was 1%, now it’s 1.5%. Heartbreaking for those who are in that extra half percent, but the risk of stillbirth is still very small.
Anon says
My friend had a 35-week stillbirth two weeks ago. A 2% risk of your baby dying after 20 weeks is actually really high.
Anonymous says
What it does is make it clearer that pregnant women should get the vaccine.
Anon says
No, not really, because it doesn’t tell us anything about the relative risks vs. benefit of vaccination vs Covid in pregnant women. Healthy people have dropped dead of rare blood disorders after receiving the vaccine – does that tell you that you shouldn’t receive the vaccine? I would get the vaccine if I were pregnant and eligible, but that’s because of large scale studies about relative risks of Covid vs vaccination, not one anecdote about a stillborn baby.
Anonymous says
It’s not one anecdote if you read the whole article.
AIMS says
It’s a series of anecdotes. Per the article: “The case adds to a handful of similar fetal deaths recorded in Brazil, in which the coronavirus was detected in the amniotic fluid in one case and in the placenta in two others.”
And then it mentions that stillbirths in general have been somewhat up since the start of the pandemic and says that it’s unclear why at this time.
Anonymous says
I think there are a lot of possible explanations for why the pandemic might have increased stillbirths, most notably the possibility that women are delaying or avoiding prenatal care out of fear of catching Covid. Just like kids’ vaccinations for non-Covid diseases have dropped tremendously this year.
Boston Legal Eagle says
Yes, this. I feel this way about all of the stories about how more children are now getting serious side effects from Covid (Kawasaki disease-esque symptoms) – but statistically, this is still rare and we should not be basing our school opening decisions on this. Of course it’s tragic that this happens to children, but so are other childhood illnesses and accidents.
Anon says
It’s also very treatable with immunoglobin, which is never mentioned in the fearmongering articles. Not that I want my kid to end up in an ICU but I think virtually all the kids with MIS-C have survived.
Anonymous says
Children during non-Covid times are statistically MUCH more likely to get kowasakis than MIS-C. And that can be after any random virus. But we don’t all panic after our kid gets a cold.
Anonymous says
A lot of the scary adult Covid complications like myocarditis happen after other viruses too. The headlines like “Healthy 25 year old drops dead from heart failure after recovering from Covid-19” are scary, but the same thing happens to some very tiny percentage of healthy people after infection with viruses like influenza too.
cbackson says
Agreed with Anon@12:12 – On a similar note, I actually wonder if the “long COVID” phenomenon is not so unique as it’s perceived to be and if the reality is that longterm health issues are somewhat common after serious viral infections but we’re crappy at tracking/helping those people.
Anonymous says
Chronic health conditions akin to long Covid are definitely a thing with other viral infections and immune system changes like pregnancy. My pregnancy gave me an autoimmune disease (i.e., activiated an immune disease that I always had a genetic predisposition to). That said, my doctor feels that post-Covid complications are more common than with more common viruses like flu, but that’s probably because we all have some baseline immunity to flu due to having it as kids and Covid is completely new. Once everyone has been infected or vaccinated for Covid once, I doubt the level of complications will be higher than for other viruses even with mutated strains, etc. But who knows.
TheElms says
I had not previously heard of cases where it was even suspected that Covid was transmitted to the fetus. I realize anecdotes don’t prove the baby died as a result of Covid, but I hadn’t realized it was a possibility until now.
Anonymous says
I feel like there were documented cases of babies catching Covid in utero as far back as this summer.
Anon says
Does anyone else read the care and feeding column? The most recent one about the 18 month old and grandma really missed the mark. Just because our parents gave us tang (not at 18 months, I’m sure), does not mean my MIL gets to give my kid sugar whenever she wants. Maybe the overall advice (pick your battles/chill) was correct, but I found the response really unempathetic.
ALC says
I was just reading that and thought the same thing! I find it very annoying when people bring out the “we all did this as kids and we’re fine!” argument.
Anon says
Agreed. That grandma could have been my MIL. And that’s why she doesn’t get to babysit, ever – she has demonstrated that she is unwilling to follow the parent’s preferences (first with my BIL/his wife’s children, and now with ours). I don’t care what you did with your children or whether or not it is/was good or not – I care if you follow my rules when it comes to my children. If I decide they can only eat orange food, then you can think I’m batsh*t crazy (and you’d be right!) but then your two choices are either to watch them and feed them only orange food, or not watch them. There is no third choice where you get to disregard my rules for my kids.
Anon says
I do have some hard line rules about safety and things like that. Any good caregiver would follow them. But I would not disrupt my children’s relationships with their grandparents over minor stuff. I think I get a lot of help from my parents and in-laws because I’m not super rigid about stuff. It’s good for everybody.
Anonymous says
Yup. I’m really surprised by how harsh some of my friends are to their parents and in-laws about differences in taking care of kids. I have a hard line about safety issues like using car seats properly but everything else it’s kind of like “eh grandma can do what she wants” and the kids have a super close relationship with both sets. Kids as young as 2 can totally understand different environments have different rules. It’s not that confusing.
Anon says
My husband and I got to go on a trip to Paris for a week in 2019, while my mom watched the kids. They had a blast, and we had a blast. I love my mom, but she would not have agreed to it if I had given her a bunch of rules. (She can handle what she can handle, ya know?) The memory of that trip has carried me through the pandemic.
Anonymous says
Ah, that sounds wonderful. Our first “leave the kids with grandparents” trip was supposed to be in March 2020. Womp womp. Hoping we can go away at least for a long weekend this summer.
Anon says
In my experience, the parents who would feed your kid only orange food because that’s the rule are usually outstanding caregivers anyway, no instruction needed. The ones who would fight you on the rules are the ones most in need of them.
By analogy, the teenager who would eagerly agree to drive the speed limit, gas up the car, check the tire pressure, and be home before curfew is the one whom you can hand the keys to without rules, and the one who would disregard the rules is the one who totals the car even when they agree to the rules.
Cb says
Yeah, I think the “I turned out okay” thing was a bit glib. My husband was fed loads of juice (in a bottle, at 9 months) and has awful, painful, expensive teeth problems as an adult. I never had soda as a kid (despite my parents being fiends) and never got the taste for it and have had 1 cavity my whole life. Like you never know how things will turn out.
My mom will let my son scam cookies and youtube videos off her, but I know she’s not trying to wind me up, so I can let it slide. I think her MIL was being purposefully provocative with the television and that needs to be nipped in the bud.
Anon says
I tend to agree (though I’d say C&F, in fact, all of the Slate advice lately, tends more to be a hate read for me much of the time). I’m more lax then the LW, but IMO, at 18 months, you should pretty much do what works for you. If you’re saying no sugar and no TV while the kid has a bevy of friends getting these things, that’s a little much and you should probably re-think that, but there’s still some time until it becomes a weird and possibly hurtful restriction, and holding back now will make it all the more special of a treat when it comes. The LW seemed to recognize that this was just holding back, not a permanent ban. And the MIL seemed to be obviously not just disregarding the parents, but actively undermining them.
I don’t have a great solution (I don’t think this rises to the “cut her off” level), but it’s a problem.
Anon says
Totally. I drank a ton of full sugar soda growing up and as a person I “turned out fine” but I have struggled with cavities and subsequent crowns etc my whole adult life (I think for a few reasons, but I’m sure the soda didn’t help). I would really prefer my kids not to have to deal with the same. So no, grandma does not get to do whatever TF she wants.
Anonymous says
Yeah the advice was bad. No it isn’t a big deal if grandma puts on Sesame St or gives your kid a cookie. But it’s a huge deal if she does those things deliberately to undermine you as a parent and assert control.
AwayEmily says
This is a good way of putting it. Whether this is a big deal depends on the rest of the relationship. I would not be mad at my MIL for this, but that’s because I truly believe she fundamentally respects me and likes me, and so I’d chalk it up to her own issues, a misunderstanding, or just us being incompatible in this way — in other words, I wouldn’t take it as a sign of larger issues. But in the letter-writer’s examples it seemed like this was parter of a bigger pattern of deliberately trying to mess with/undermine the parents, which is a whole different animal.
Anonanonanon says
This. The broader context matters IMO.
If my mom is doing me a favor and watching my kids so my husband and I can go on a trip, or I can seize a cool work opportunity, etc. well, then, she’s doing me a favor and she’s older and tired and if she needs to use more TV than I’d prefer so be it.
If my MIL begs to have “alone time” with my kids and intentionally goes against our parenting preferences to prove she can and because she just doesn’t want us to “tell her what to do”, that’s different.
DLC says
As an interesting counterpoint, there was a Carolyn Hax column last week where the letter writer was unhappy that her SIL was disciplining her children/ had a different parenting style and Hax’s response was that it is good for kids to learn to adapt to different rules. I feel like it’s kind of the same message, as C&F but delivered with a little more empathy and grace and perhaps a bigger picture in mind. Also- the Hax LW had five year olds and I do think that perhaps there is a difference between 18 months and five years old in terms of their ability cognitively to distinguish between environments. I do find that C&F can be a a little flippant and smug for my tastes.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/advice/carolyn-hax-what-the-whole-family-can-learn-from-a-strict-aunt/2021/02/14/a13b7938-67cc-11eb-8468-21bc48f07fe5_story.html?utm_campaign=wp_carolyn_hax&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_hax
Clementine says
Caveat that I didn’t read the column… but husband and I have always said that either you pay with money or you pay with control.
I do think that it’s good for kids to have other sets of experiences and rules… but I do also draw the line at safety stuff. So for me – my in-laws bringing my kid to McDonald’s? FINE. My in-laws presenting an expired carseat with reassurances that their kids didn’t even use them after infancy? Not fine.
Pick your battles. No, that’s too many. Put some back. Yep. Some more. Then ask: is this the hill I want to die on? And maybe it is!
Boston Legal Eagle says
“Either you pay with money or you pay with control” – that is such a good way on thinking about the dynamic of grandparents. I’m lucky in that my local parents generally respect our boundaries but they’re not my paid babysitters. My hard line is safety but I’m not going to dictate their entire relationship with the kids or prevent them from giving kids chocolate and lots of TV.
I can’t tell from the letter how the initial conversations went but if grandma is not using a proper car seat or disciplining with spanking, then no, I wouldn’t be ok with her watching the kids. But TV, sweets, running around, saying please or whatever other rules you have? Well, maybe the rules can be different at grandma’s house.
avocado says
Same here. Car seats, back to sleep, bike helmets, and other safety rules are non-negotiable. Otherwise grandma can do whatever she wants because she’s the one who is setting a precedent and has to deal with the consequences. My mom is the full-time child care provider for my sister’s kids. With them, she has to be a third parent and rule-enforcer. She can’t just go around giving them soda because then they will demand it every single day. With my kid, she has always had the freedom to be fun grandma. If she takes kiddo to the museum and feeds her ice cream every day, it’s only going to last for the week she’s in town.
Interestingly, both my mom and local (step-)grandma have chosen to be very strict about enforcing manners and relatively lax on the food. So much Velveeta. Ew.
Anon Lawyer says
I agree with this too, but in this case they were visiting with the parents there for a few hours and the grandma deliberately did things she knew the parents had decided not to do while they were there in the house, which is pretty ridiculous and clearly an attempt to exert control.
Anonymous says
Both mom and grandma in this story sound ridiculous and controlling. They deserve each other.
Anon Lawyer says
I don’t think it’s that uncommon to not due screentime or much sugar at 18 months? If the kid was 3 I’d agree and I roll my eyes at the parents who refuse Facetime or make a healthy sugar-free first birthday cake. But not turning on the TV for an 18-month-old is pretty standard among the people I know. (Granted I live in yuppie-ville).
My brother once got on my mom’s case because she showed my then-3-year-old niece a Sesame Street sketch with Elmo when she was only SUPPOSED to watch VINTAGE Sesame Street. THAT I thought was insane. This is just kind of crunchy parenting, I think.
Anonymous says
I think they both sound controlling too.
Anon Lawyer says
I keep getting stuck in mod but that just seems normal crunchy parenting to me – doesn’t AAP say no screen time till 2?
Anonymous says
We did no screentime at home until 2 and the letter writer still came off as controlling to me. It’s one thing to have that as a goal for your own family but to say no one else can show your kid anything, even something as educational as Sesame Street, just seems kind of extreme to me. Also the AAP recommends a lot of crazy things (ahem babies rooming in for AN ENTIRE YEAR), so someone who sticks rigidly to AAP guidelines can be pretty far outside out of the norm. I don’t know anyone who followed that 1 year guideline.
Pogo says
The car seat one is such a hard line for me. I recently had a freakout at my parents when I found out they basically just adjusted the straps on their car seat one time and never tightened/loosened again, meaning it was for sure way too loose for my son. Yes, I turned out just fine but LOTS MORE BABIES DIED when we didn’t have real car seats.
Anonymous says
Oh my god yes. My parents have been harassing me for a year to turn my child forward facing. She’s barely 3 and she’s totally happy sitting backwards so I just don’t understand why they’re so fixated on it but they act like I’m torturing her by making her ride rear-facing at this age. My mom actually said to me the other day “she’s probably unhappy and just not telling you.” Right…. because 3 year olds are SO good at holding in their emotions. Have you even met my kid, mom!?! If she’s unhappy, the whole world knows.
Anon says
The column was super frustrating to me.
Deliberately undermining a parent to give things to an 18 month old that the child’s parents want to wait on and the child doesn’t even know about is really inappropriate. Way different situation than the parent of an 8 year who needs to chill a bit.
Also, the argument “we turned out fine” by citing some career successes just doesn’t hold water to me. The massive amounts of television and soda I consumed as a child weren’t good for me and have some lasting negative effects I’m still overcoming. That tv and soda didn’t stop me from graduating from fancy schools or having prestigious jobs doesn’t mean that they were harmless.
Anonymous says
I agree with you that “I turned out fine” is sort of a silly argument. But I will say as someone who had a really close friend do zero screentime and zero sugar, it can be really exhausting and a lot of people like this have a holier-than-thou attitude. Like she wouldn’t videochat my kid on her first birthday because she didn’t want her kids to see my kid eating cake. Or one time I sent her kids pretend cupcakes as a birthday present because the Melissa and Doug ones are so cute and I was sending them to a bunch of different people and forgot about her restrictions, and she blew up at me and accused me of undermining her parenting choices. The LW doesn’t sound quite that extreme, but some of the things in her letter did remind me of the smugness of my friend. A little Sesame Street and a cookie is not going to kill an 18 month old and is not the same as having the kid mainline soda and binge-watch TV all day.
Anonymous says
+1 million. The letter-writer reminds me of my relative who is smug and holier-than-thou about how she BF’d for two years and the only cookies she lets her son have are homemade with no gluten, dairy, or refined sugar (what exactly are they made of?). She is downright cruel about it–she has more than once openly excoriated her own mother, who tries her best to comply with the extreme demands, in front of the entire extended family.
Anon says
Are these real medical restrictions? I’ve seen families be completely unsupportive of kids with actual medical conditions, like a “little” gluten won’t hurt, etc., and complain when this goes poorly.
Anonymous says
No, not real at all. The kid is allowed to eat pizza.
Pogo says
The co-opting of gluten/dairy-free as health choices has really muddied the waters for kids who have actual health conditions. It’s super frustrating I’m sure for those parents.
Anonymous says
Yeh I wouldn’t be friends with someone anymore after they blew up at me for sending an innocuous gift.
Cb says
Nursery is officially back on Monday! Since March 21 2020, we have had 3 weeks of full-time childcare. My husband has exhausted all forms of leave, I’m on half time furlough and feeling pessimistic about my academic career prospects, and the toddler has been increasingly disgruntled. Fingers crossed they can stay open.
AIMS says
Very happy for you! Fingers crossed it continues.
I am at my wit’s end with this year. We are on school break for the week but just got notified that school will be closed for an extra few days because there were two confirmed cases in the school *before* the break. It seems like school policy is to close for X days any time there are two or more cases, but putting aside how I feel about that policy how does it make any sense at all when nobody is in school for 10 days already? And of course we’re also doing cohorts so this means my kid is missing all in person school the week they are supposed to be back.
AIMS says
But I should say that I also read about schools that haven’t been open at all since last spring and am incredibly grateful that we have had at least some normalcy this year.
Cb says
Oof, that’s super frustrating. Our nursery was open from August to December without a case (children were split into two groups and allocated two days a week) so long may that continue. But I know the new strains seem to be more prevalent among children.
Anon says
Hooray! I hope they can stay open.
Boston Legal Eagle says
Yay! I hope we are past the worst peak, and it will now be managing isolated high cases that come up. This will make us appreciate the future days of reliable, consistent childcare so much more.
Pogo says
This, so much. I did not fully appreciate how amazing it was to have consistent childcare. I definitely took it for granted!
Clementine says
RIGHT.
Remember when it was annoying to have to keep your kid out for 24 hours if they had a fever – even if it was a ‘they’re probably teething’ fever??
Well, I would give ANYTHING to have that again over the ‘oh god, pull ALL your kids out of school and daycare, have a telemedicine visit, get orders for a COVID test, get everyone tested, wait 2-5 days for results and possibly be the reason an entire class is quarantined.’
Anonymous says
When I told my 3 year old there was no school today (because of snow) she burst into tears and said “there’s yellow tape again…?” (There was yellow tape all over our playground for months so “yellow tape” is her euphemism for things being closed due to Covid). The next person who tells me kids are resilient is going to get punched. Not really but I’m so sick of pretending this didn’t affect them. But yes in the future we will appreciate normal life so much more.
Anonymous says
If we had put up yellow tape up in bars, restaurants, and gyms instead of playgrounds and kept it up long enough, we would be able to reopen schools safely now.
Anon says
I hate the kids are resilient line, in any situation. Yes they can adapt, and readily take cues from their parents to help them process change, but they are not more resilient than any other person. It often seems like an excuse for adults to do whatever they want and/or a recipe for repressed trauma
Anonymous says
Yeah it just seems like an excuse to do crappy stuff to kids and forgive yourself for it.
anne-on says
I think you know you’re officially an adult when my first thought upon seeing the rain this morning was ‘thank god it’s not snowing, I can’t handle another snow day.’ Jokes on me though, more snow later this week!
I would so dearly love to be looking forward to a warm-weather get away for winter break but nope, more of the same local outdoor hiking trails and maybe a few runs at the local mountain. Sigh. I am SO over this winter.
Anon says
It’s a snow day here in the Midwest. There’s about 15″ on the ground and daycare is closed for weather for the first time since we’ve been enrolled there.
anon says
This winter has been brutal. The upside is that suddenly my town’s covid numbers have gone way down, probably because people are finally hunkered down because it’s THAT miserable. But I am really, really over it. I’m jealous that you have a mountain! We have a few rolling hills?
Anon says
Yeah in all the possible explanations for the recent downward trend that have been discussed, I think people are really neglecting the weather as a factor. The last few weeks have been miserable in most of the country and I think people are finally staying the F home.
Pogo says
So much this. I was a little worried about the ice but they did get out and salt this morning. It’s like, first yesterday was a “holiday”, then more freaking weather. I am growing so increasingly resentful of my colleagues with grown children and/or SAH wives.
anon says
Willow vs. Elvie?
I have a Spectra from my last baby to use for my main pump (lives at my office), but I also want a completely-in-the-bra, no-wires option to use when driving, caring for my older children, etc. They are the same price through insurance. I find people who love both and people who hate both but can’t get a good sense of which one is better.
Anon says
I bought a willow with kid 2 and hated it. It just did not fit me at all. If you’ve ever used the freemie cups, I think those give you a good idea as to fit because those also never fit me well. But I sold my lightly used willow to a friend who loved it so who knows.
The New Mrs says
Karrie Locher on Instagram compared them to each other, as well as to her spectra and madela. I think it’s a saved highlight.
Anon Lawyer says
I had an Elvie and it was about a million times better than the spectra in terms of making me feel like a human rather than a milk cow but still annoying. It wouldn’t work if it got even a tiny bit out of alignment and I had to replace the rubber flanges, etc. a lot. And the battery seemed to drain quickly. I haven’t tried a Willow but got the sense talking to other people that it’s a bit less finicky. Also, the Elvie customer service is in the UK so it’s hard to reach them for tech support if you’re in the U.S. because of time zones.
Still worth the money, don’t get me wrong. I shouldn’t sound so negative about it; pumping will probably just never be fun.
Katala says
The blog Fed and Fit has a detailed comparison. I can’t recall which she ended up preferring, but she explains her reasons well I thought.
SSJD says
My 9 year old daughter needs an alarm clock. She requested a “unicorn” alarm clock. Any ideas? Suggestions? Warnings? Will a 9 year old soon outgrow something unicorn-themed? (Seems better for a 6 year old.)
Anonymous says
I would get her a unicorn wall clock and a plain boring digital alarm clock.
If you can find a unicorn alarm clock, I’m sure she’ll outgrow it but why not? pass it on to a friend/neighbor. My 7 y/o has a room plastered in unicorns but a $7.99 digital alarm
clock from Walmart.
mascot says
It seems like there are several inexpensive options out there and then some slightly higher liked the PBK one at $39. Set a price limit, have her look at the options in that limit and maybe you check the reviews to see if they are total junk and then just buy her one. Who cares if it would also appeal to a 6 year old- this seems like a small item that would make her happy. If she has a pattern of discarding things as too babyish soon after getting them, then tell her you will buy her one clock for the next year and after that, she has to replace it if she changes her mind based on aesthetics.
Realist says
+1. It might also be an option to buy a cheap plain one and decorate it with fancier unicorn stickers.
But I agree with mascot, this seems like an easy thing to make her happy and there can be natural consequences if she wants to replace it too soon.
AwayEmily says
I would show her a couple of cheap alarm clocks you are okay with buying and then let her choose which one she wants.
(this is how I handle most purchase decisions where they want to weigh in — I select a couple I am okay with and let them choose between those. I won’t be able to get away with this forever but it works for now…)
So Anon says
Has anyone used a virtual assistant to conduct personal research? I keep thinking of all the things I need to research on the home front, and pull together so that I can sit down and make decisions on a few paths forward. Things like statistics on private schools in the area, vacation spots that have programs for kids (someday….). These are all things that if I took a few hours on google, I could pull together myself, but I’m strapped for time and so never go to the next level of decision making. Any experiences – positive or negative? Recommendations?
Anon says
I did this for someone when I was unemployed after law school. I’m not sure how much time he really saved. I don’t think I was bad at my job but it just seemed like we spent so much time discussing what he wanted and the options I found that it would have been faster for him to do it himself? I think there are a few specific things that are really time intensive to research (like summer camps or vacation options) where it could be worth it, but if you’re not really selective it seems like a big waste of money.
Anonymous says
Eh you can’t really outsource this effectively. Like, you’re mom. You gotta pick a school. And vacation spots with kids programs is a) something you don’t need to do at all now and b) a travel agent’s bread and butter.
Cb says
There was a family travel agent on Best of Both Worlds a year ago or so and that sounds like the best bet for travel. But also, do you have a partner you can outsource to?
So Anon says
I don’t want to outsource the decision making, just the data collection piece. If there are 30 summer camps in my area, it would be helpful to know which of those 30 are science based v. arts and crafts based. Or for schools, I would like to know the teacher to student ratio, whether the website mentions students with disabilities, requires that kids play a sport and offer before and after care.
I do not have a partner to outsource this to or provide any help on the gathering information and decision making. This is part of the emotional labor of parenting, the data gathering piece of which is not necessarily that sophisticated, and it is frustrating that this is an underserved market.
Anonymous says
I would not hire some random person to do school and camp data collection. So much of this is word of mouth. For school selection, you can hire a consultant who is familiar with the local options and which are best tailored to your child’s particular needs. I believe you posted a question about this a couple of weeks ago?
If you are just generally overwhelmed, I’d hire someone to take the routine stuff off your plate so you can focus on the higher-level household management tasks such as school and camp selection.
Anonymous says
Maybe I’m just an incredibly lazy parent, and living in a small city without a ton of options might be a factor too, but I’ve never spent much time gathering data for these decisions. For camps, we usually just do what friends are doing. Once kids are older I imagine they might ask for a specific camp and then I’ll look into it. Sleepaway camp will be the camp my husband went to when he was a kid. We haven’t done private school, but for daycare I knew pretty much immediately which ones were on our shortlist just based on talking to friends and community reputation. The only time consuming thing was touring them, and I wouldn’t have wanted to outsource the tours. Gently, I think it’s an underdeserved market because (except maybe in very wealthy areas) most people just do this themselves since it’s not something people generally feel they need to throw money at unless they have a LOT of money.
I do spend a lot of time on travel planning, but I agree that if you want to outsource that, a travel agent is the best bet.
Anonymous says
Sorry but this isn’t easily outsourced. You can pay a lot of money for a private school consultant or do it yourself.
Anonymous says
I do think you can outsource school research, you’ll just need to outline the project requirements very clearly: I want to know about all schools within x radius, and here are the pieces of information I want you to compile about each one. Give it to me in presentation format with individual summaries as well as a comparison table mapping abc criteria, and I need links to the original websites and admissions contact info for each. I have some big tabbed spreadsheets and summary tables that I created about summer camps and private schools, and although I ultimately did the analysis and decision making, all that research could have been done by someone else. A friend had a good experience with Fiverr, but I assume it depends a lot on the person you select. You might spend almost as much time managing the assistant as you would have doing the research.
Definitely a travel agent for the vacation planning.
Anon says
This is a perk some employers offer. My experience with it as a perk has been that it saves me no time—they pasted the results of the Google search into an email, with some nicer formatting.
However, if you could get a person who is already familiar with your area/lifestyle with whom you work directly, it could be helpful. I’m thinking a college student who is home or a recent grad who could not only do the online searches, but also text their friend who went to XYZ school about it, etc. They’ve been to the camps, done the vacations, and therefore have a good starting point for helping you.
Anonymous says
Would you trust a college student on things that are this important though? I don’t know, I think of myself as a pretty hands-off parent, but schools and camps are kind of a situation where you really need to do your own research or hire someone like a private school admissions consultant who does this for a living, not a college kid who might have had a friend at XYZ school.
Runner says
What would you do? We have a nanny, S, who we love and trust for our 2 year old twins. She met another nanny at the park, Ms L, who runs a nanny share for five kids, two of whom are around our kids’ age. They have been doing outdoor play dates at different parks, and on Friday did some sort of zoom Valentine’s Day party thing where candy and valentines were dropped off pre-zoom. I realized that I don’t know anything about this lady so asked S to get her contact info, which I received. I also asked for the name and number of one of the parents in the nanny share. Ms L asked why we needed this and then refused, saying she was “contractually unable” to share contact info of one of her parents. I *think* I understand where she is coming from, but it feels weird to me to not know even one parent name and number for kids who are hanging out with my kids.
Anon says
If they are just hanging out in parks I wouldn’t worry about it. Nannies aside, when you go to a playground or park your kids play with other kids whose parents you don’t know at all, right? I would not want my kids going to someone’s house, especially alone, without knowing the parents and being able to confirm they don’t have unsecured guns in the house.
GCA says
That’s easily solved. (I’ve just come off a session to try and sort out our company’s GDPR compliance, lol.) You give Ms L a note with your name and contact information and request that she share it with her employers; it’s up to them whether they want to contact you. If I were a parent in the nanny share, I certainly would want to meet S’s employer too!
Anon says
So I kind of see where you’re coming from, but this is the life of all of us with kids in daycare. I have never known the names of the parents all the kids my kids see during the day.
Anonymous says
+1 I don’t know any of the names of the parents in our daycare class. We were just getting to the birthday party stage (kids turning 3) and then Covid hit so I’ve never seen any of them outside of drop offs and pickups which are brief, masked and distanced, so there’s not really a way to strike up a conversation.
Pogo says
I think the part where it gets weird is that Ms L dropped stuff off at her house pre-Valentines zoom. Daycare parents don’t know where I live, plus daycare is a third party who has to comply with government regulations, whereas a random nanny is not.
But I agree the solution is to just offer your info via your nanny to Ms L, and then they should reciprocate I’d assume.
Anonymous says
I didn’t read it as being dropped off at the house. I assumed that they’d brought stuff to the park and swapped it there. Even still, the parents (I assume) didn’t do the drop off, that was the nanny. OP has Ms. L’s contact information, and since she’s the unknown adult who is actually interacting with OP’s children, I’d be OK with stopping there.
Anonymous says
Why would you need to know this? I think asking is weird. To hang out in public with neighbor children at the park doesn’t require any vetting.
If you wanted to set up a play date, you would ask your nanny to pass along your contact info to other nanny to share with parents.
NYCer says
FWIW, our nanny hangs out with a group of 4-5 other nannies who take care of kids the same age (close to 2 years old). They go to the museum together, hang at the park, attend some of the same classes, etc. For all intents and purposes, these are my daughters “friends”. I have never met any of the other parents… (Though at this point I do have the contact info of 3 of them, obtained the same way GCA suggested – i.e., I asked my nanny to have one of the other nannies give my phone number to the other parent). From what I have gleaned from other friends with nannies, this is normal.
Anonymouse says
The wording is weird but we have a long term nanny and pre-covid our share played with two other shares (friends of our nanny) on a regular basis. I only met the parents two years later when my kid had a birthday party and wanted to invite these kids. Particularly if they are only meeting up in parks, I don’t think it matters if you know the parents. There are lots of reasons why the nanny might not share (she may be paid under the table, she may have a privacy clause in her contract, she may work for someone prominent that is also paying in cash). A 5 kid nanny share maybe be treated as an illegal daycare in some states so that is risk for the nanny too. You will need to determine the rules that work for you. I was fine with meets up outside and occasional meet up in a house if I knew the family but I made sure to communicate that in advance.
Anonanonanon says
I appear to be in the minority, but I think it’s reasonable due to COVID. I’d say here is my name and contact info, please ask your employer if they are comfortable sharing theirs in the unlikely event one of us needs to inform the other about something COVID-related. Perhaps offering a specific reason will help.
Anonymous says
I get where you’re coming from, but we don’t have contact info of most kids our kids play with at a park so I’m not really sure why this is different unless they’re actually forming a “bubble” and doing indoor activities. Personally I would be kind of weirded out if someone asked for my info for Covid purposes in this situation. I’m not sure I owe some stranger whose kids have played with my kids at the park a few times sensitive information about my health status, and a Covid exposure or diagnosis is pretty sensitive information.
Spirograph says
I actually appreciate that Ms. L did not hand out contact information for her employers; to me, that would have been really impolite, irrespective of the contract. I agree with others, you need to give your info out and hope that the other parents respond. I’ve put notes in daycare cubbies when I wanted to get in touch with the parent of one of my kids’ friends, and I’ve been on the receiving end of it as well. There was always a goal, though, like, “it sounds like our kids have gotten to be really good friends at school, and Johnny’s asking for a playdate. Here’s my email and phone #, maybe we up at the park on the weekend sometime?” So, how do you intend to *use* the contact information? If your kids are only playing together in public places, I don’t see any reason you need to be acquainted with the parents.
Anonymous says
This. You need the info if you want to plan playdates at someone’s home. You don’t need it for public meet-ups.
AIMS says
Is your concern COVID? I think you can ask your nanny to limit exposure to these other kids. But otherwise, I think you can give your info to other parents. I wouldn’t want my nanny handing my info out to people she met on the playground.
Anon says
My 21 month old DS does not really have much interest in TV and only has maybe 20 words None of which are verbs. He repeats words when I ask him to but it sounds nothing like the word usually. It’s so different from my DD who was speaking in sentences by this age and could watch TV for hours if we let her. He lives to read though and can sit for 20+ minutes reading and seems to understand a lot. Is this normal with boys? Just so hard parenting a non verbal child :/
Anonanonanon says
My daughter is LIGHTYEARS ahead of where my son was at her age in terms of speech. I definitely think there is a gender difference, for whatever reason. My son could understand and react to speech at that age much better than he could speak in response.
Anon Lawyer says
I do think individual kids just vary a ton. Not sure why everyone always assumes from a sample of 2 that it MUST be a gender difference when plenty of same-sex sibling pairs develop language differently.
Anonymous says
Yup. For anecdata, my daughter was a relatively late talker – she had only a handful of words before a language explosion around 18 months and even after her explosion she talked in brief sentences that weren’t grammatical, e.g., “Olivia bagel?” not “can I please have a bagel?” Her BFF is a boy who was speaking pretty much in fully grammatical sentences shortly after his first birthday. They’re 3 now and their speech is similar, if anything I think my daughter is a little bit more advanced.
Anon says
I don’t think it has anything to do with boys vs girls, but does vary by kid. You can check with your pediatrician, but I’m pretty sure 20 words at 21 months is well within the realm of normal.
FWIW, my kids were late to start talking, then rapidly surpassed their peers by age 2. They also had no attention span for TV shows until close to 3 and only were able to sit through anything longer than a 20-minute show closer to 4, but could sit and listen to books for an hour years earlier.
Anonymous says
My son didn’t watch TV reliably until after age 2, (then it went off the charts when lock down started at 2.5….). At 22 months we took a nine hour flight that included ~7 mins of TV…..
I think that he sounds within the range of normal. TOTALLY anecdotal evidence.. BUT IMHO kids that are in more public settings (i.e. daycare vs. nanny) have larger vocabularies earlier (this obviously events out). I would guess that he is communicating just fine to get his needs met by people who is very used to. I would guess your daughter had more opportunity for different social interactions between say 15 mo and 21 months….
My best friend and I had this conversation a few months ago – at 18 mos her daughter barely a handful of words (and had literally interacted with only 4 adults in MONTHS); she turns 2 soon and i can now understand her well enough on facetime.
Anonymous says
Yes, my daughter had almost no words at 16 months and our ped was mildly concerned even though her receptive language was great. In hindsight, I think she just didn’t need to use any words because she wasn’t in daycare and her parents were too good at understanding her pointing and grunting. She had a major language explosion right after starting daycare. They also taught her a bunch of signs that she used before she could say the words.
Anon Lawyer says
Hmm, that kind of sounds like my 15-month-old. She says “mamamamamamama” to me as a demand but that’s it. But she’s at home with my parents and makes herself understood with all of us. . . . I get the sense she understands everything.
Anonymous says
My kid was fairly verbal at 21 months, but she had no interest in TV until well after her second birthday and for a long time after that it was not something that would hold her attention span for long. A 5 minute Peppa was about her max until 2.75. Even now at 3, she can watch several Daniel Tigers in a row, but if we try to do a movie with characters she’s less familiar with she gives up less than 30 minutes in. I wouldn’t worry about the not having interest in TV at all.
Boston Legal Eagle says
Both my kids (boys) had language explosions around 16-18 months. The little one (almost 2.5) talks a lot now and has always been interested in TV, for better or for worse.
Gently, you have a sample size of two. They happen to be different genders, but I wouldn’t attribute all differences based on this. I can tell you a number of ways that my kids are similar and ways they are different.
Pogo says
+1 it’s just different kids, not necessarily genders. Of the daycare kiddos I’ve known, 2/4 boys (including my son) were super verbal, 1/4 was a little delayed, and 1 was average (though he’s pretty shy/quiet anyway so hard to tell). In general, just ask your ped and see if where you are is indicative of needing services of not. I did this when my son had a stutter around age 2, and it resolved before we needed to put him in any speech therapy.
Anonymous says
I can’t speak to the verbal part. But neither of my sons had any interest in, or ability to be entertained by, TV until at least 2.5. The older one was more like 3.5 (younger one interested because older one was watching). It was occasionally inconvenient but fine in the long run.
Anon says
My son didn’t say his first legitimate word until he was 26 months old.
My daughter was speaking in like multi word phrases between 12-15 months.
That is my sample size of 2. A few years later you would never know the starting difference between the two :)
We did take my son to a speech therapist for a few months around 2.5 after a lot of consultations with his doctor etc. But he also definitely did not have 20 words at 21 months.
Anonymous says
My daughter had a ton of words but no verbs and wasn’t combining words at 2. She is almost 4 and tells a completely coherent story like a 7 year old. I think 20 words is fine. The milestone is 50 words by 24 months. He’ll prob ramp up soon. The tv thing is unrelated. It’s kid dependent. Do you really want a 21 month old watching that much the? My DD could do like 20 mins at that age. My DS is 18 months and has 10 words. Ped is not concernef
Anon says
I agree it’s probably not correlated to gender, but FWIW I have two boys and they were both like this. Especially if he is comprehending language, the benchmark for spoken language is 50 words by age 2 (and both my boys had language explosions right before their birthdays). I also tried to get my older to watch TV as a young toddler because I was sick and pregnant and he had no interest. Truly, it’s a blessing to have a little kid that prefers to read and doesn’t want to watch TV (and I’m sure he’ll be into TV soon enough). Things change so quickly at that age.
Anon says
Unless things have changed since I last took a linguistics course, it’s standardly understood that boys pick up language later and more slowly than girls (though they catch up later).
Anonanonanon says
Well, I ruined my kids’ lives this morning. I hope they can forgive me.
I just… like many people, I feel trapped. And my husband and I both work the response and pass like ships in the night. And boy do I miss hotels. And an opportunity to get a chunk of that back presented itself and I just couldn’t resist…
You see, I put fruit on top of my kids’ yogurt in fancy bowls this morning, instead of beside their yogurt. I tried to tell them it was like fancy hotel breakfast. It was CLEARLY an unforgivable lapse in judgment and one I regret. Did your parents ever do this to you? Are you OK now?
lolololol says
I am sorry to tell you that my parents DID do this to me when I was a child, and it is the #1 thing I discuss in therapy now… just week in, week out, trying to process the lasting trauma having fruit served on top of my yogurt. I never recovered. It was the worst thing that ever happened to me, and I could only conclude that my parents really did not love me when they tried to serve me a wholesome breakfast in a fancy bowl. You can maybe still limit the damage, but it’s going to take weeks – MONTHS – of serving donuts for breakfast.
Anonanonanon says
They trusted me to keep them safe from unexpected mixed textures and I failed. Thank you for the advice, I will start with cinnamon toast crunch as a gesture to regain their trust. Please keep my family in your thoughts, maybe we will come out of this stronger.
IHeartBacon says
This post and reply is probably the best thing I have read in the last six months. Hysterical. Thank you!
Clementine says
Your children and mine can find the same therapist.
Sincerely, I pulled the foil all the way off her yogurt this morning, I didn’t just loosen the corner and allow her to pull the lid off herself.
(FWIW, I would LOVE if somebody fed me pretty fruit on the top of a bowl of yogurt for breakfast.)
Anonanonanon says
RIGHT?? Who’s feeding me fresh fruit and yogurt in the morning?! Some day I WILL throw this in their faces. when they have small children of their own.
Anon says
My husband feeds me fresh fruit and yogurt in the mornings. I always thank him profusely and then do the dishes.
Anonymous says
OMG – this did happen to me. I really struggled for years trying to reconcile why my home wasn’t operated like a luxury hotel. Why didn’t the towels pick themselves up? Where was the fresh bathrobe?
With therapy…. this can be fixed….
;)
Pogo says
No, but I once used the same spoon to scoop the yogurt out as he wanted to use to eat the yogurt. Why would you do such a thing, mother?? You know you must use a separate serving spoon, which I also need to lick and thus dirty for anyone else’s consumption, and you must then provide me with a different, clean spoon for use with my bowl. And yogurt must be all the way to the top, TO THE TOP I SAID. IN MY BLUE BOWL.
Anonymous says
I made a mistake this morning, too. My son DID NOT WANT HIS TOAST TOASTED. (aka he just wanted bread, but he asked for toast, and silly me I put the bread in the toaster).
Therapy for all!
Anonymous says
Untoast my toast, mama! Also please unslice the banana that I asked to have sliced.
potty training update says
I was one of the anons posting last week about my dread of potty training. We have almost 3 year old girl. This long weekend we did “the naked thing” as my husband calls it and it was more successful than I had dreamed. She went to daycare in underpants today and went to the potty when we got there. I was so proud.
We did one day of totally naked on bottom, and then added underpants halfway through the second day. Only two accidents the whole weekend. And poop (my personal fear!) went in the potty every single time. Still doing night diapers for sleep. I have to say, it was utterly exhausting, and kiddo stayed up way too late due to all the excitement, so I’m kindof dragging today, but I think it was worth it.
Thanks everyone for the support and hoping this sticks (although am preparing for some regression/accidents as that seems to be par for the course).
Anon says
Yay! That’s excellent. Congrats and thanks for the follow-up.
Anonymous says
Please tell me I’m not the only one who hates playing pretend? I love my kid, I really enjoy reading to her, building legos, playing outside, etc. but I just can’t stand the elaborate pretend games and it’s literally the only thing she wants to do these days. We’ve been playing school all morning and so far I’ve fed, pottied, dressed, led group time and put to bed all 50-something stuffed animals she owns. I want to die.
CPA Lady says
I HATE IT. That said, there are two good ways to play pretend, one of which I may have read about here:
Play :the volcano and the villagers”. You lie in bed and let her cover you with blankets. You are the volcano. Then have her set up all her stuffed animals and dolls around the volcano. Hopefully this takes a long time. They are the villagers. You lie there and occasionally make a “rumble” noise and shake the blankets a bit. Then eventually, you erupt, flinging the blankets and stuffed animals off you while shouting “KABLAM!!!”. Then it’s time for the village to rebuild.
OR
Play “baby and mama” and it’s nap time. The kid gets to be the mom. You get to be the baby. She puts you to nap by covering you in blankets and turns off the light and leaves. Occasionally bellow “MAAAAMAAAAA” and have her come in and do something like adjust your blanket or pick up a fallen stuffed animal.
Anonymous says
The second one worked really well for us during the spring/summer daycare closure when she was only 2 (I might have been the one who shared it here) but now she wants to do more elaborate stuff. I will give the volcano one a try.
avocado says
Restaurant is another good one. Kid is the waiter and the chef. You are the customer and sit on the couch relaxing and doing whatever you want. Kid comes to take your order, then goes off to the play kitchen to cook the food. Kid brings the food and goes back to the play kitchen while you eat. Kid comes back some time later to clear the plates.
Anonymous says
I don’t think my 3 year old remembers what a restaurant is, lol. We play DoorDash delivery though.
Anonymous says
Hahaha, good point.
Pogo says
The only one I enjoy is when I am the mommy animal (bird or dino) sitting on my egg (child under a blanket). ‘Oh, I wonder when my little egg will hatch. I better keep it warm.’ (hatches) ‘Oh, it’s a baby pteranadon! What I’ve always wanted! He’s so cute!’
LO has started demanding a lot of tag and hide and seek lately. I don’t mind it in theory but physically, I’m exhausted. I just want to sit in one place.
Mary Moo Cow says
I’m with you. LW school changed my brain so that I just cannot with pretend play. And I was a theater major! And pre-kid, I pictured myself being super at pretend play, like I was excited about it!
I put a limit on it. This weekend I played one round of tooth fairy and three rounds of doctor (rotating roles so I could get through it) and called it quits and told the kids to play with each other. Mom of the year.
Mary Moo Cow says
Supposed to be law school.
Cannot wait to try volcano! Thanks, CPA Lady!
Anonymous says
There was a piece in the NYT this weekend on using improv in parenting. Pretending the kid is a toothbrushing robot or some such nonsense. My kid sees right through that.
Boston Legal Eagle says
I don’t really enjoy most “kids play” activities – like, cool, we’re pushing this train around again and again, or pushing play doh through, huh. Whereas my kids enjoy this. But I’m not a kid and I don’t necessarily think it’s my job to spend hours playing with them like this. This is partly why I have 2, for that one day magical day when they can really start playing together ;)
So Anon says
Totally the same. Then when my kid starts scripting the play, or there are rules that I am supposed to follow: “Now mom, you be the teacher and have this student sit in the back of the class. Then when my stuffie comes into the class, you say….” Argh.
I say that I will play for five minutes and then we can pick a different activity, and I try like anything to steer her towards a game that I like (Connect 4, Cat Crimes, checkers, anything but playing school).
Anon says
+1 the worst part of playing pretend with my daughter is I’m not actually allowed to pretend anything. She has every detail in her head of how it should go, so it’s just me doing exactly what she tells me which is so much more boring than if I could at least come up with a side story line.
Pogo says
YES, omg. “be this guy mommy” “Ok, hm .. driving along in my car..” “NO MOMMY NOT LIKE THAT! HE GOES THIS WAY”
Anonanonanon says
THIS! This is exactly what I was going to say. Is they try to make me do it exactly how they want to, and I try to explain that people don’t want to play with you if you don’t let them play the way they like to, and then we’re all miserable. Although, to be fair, I wouldn’t enjoy it if I was left to my own devices either.
This is why we work. lol
AwayEmily says
I actually like it more when the kids start scripting because then I can completely zone out and just parrot back whatever they tell me.
Them: “And then pretend you saw the kitty running away and you were sad and you wanted the kitty to come back but she didn’t.”
Me [reading newspaper]: “Oh no, the kitty is running away. I am sad. I want the kitty to come back. But she isn’t.”
Anonymous says
Ugh yes she has just started scripting and it’s the worst. If I have to play pretend, I want to at least get to make up my own storylines.
CCLA says
Yep, not a fan here either. But it is totally one of the things my 4 yo loves best, so I make a point to do it for a limited period. I find that for 15 minutes I can engage and it’s easiest it I just let her be totally in charge. I just follow instructions and growl like a mom monster or, one of my favorites, hide from the thunder/badguys/other misc terror (=lie down on bed covered by blanket).
Anon says
Yep, I don’t like it. And you don’t have to do it. You are the parent, not the peer, and it’s best for kids to learn to direct their own play. I read, chat, bake, take walks and play board games with my kids and that’s how we connect. Verrry occasionally I play a pretend game, but I engage for about 5-10 min then leave them to continue on without me.
Anonymous says
This is a total first world problem, but I got in a huge argument with my mom about potential post-vaccine vacation planning this weekend, because she thinks it’s horrible for a mother to go away alone without her children. I could sort of understand “you must never ever leave your kids” (even though I don’t agree) but the thing is she’s fully supportive of me and DH taking a trip without the kids because “couple time is so important for a marriage” but like…what about “me time”? Does my mental health only matter as it relates to DH and my marriage? Does the fact that my husband doesn’t want to travel with me that I just no longer get to take adult vacations? My mom is a second generation working mother who has been a trailblazer in an incredibly male dominated field, and it’s just frustrating to me that she still has this sexist attitude that somehow women aren’t allowed to prioritize their individual desires. Ughhhh.
Anonymous says
Fortunately not a thing your mom gets to approve! As long as your husband is ok with it, enjoy.
Anonymous says
Yup! If your husband is watching the kids I’d just ignore it. Frankly, I’d just go and not tell her about it.
Anonymous says
Well this was in the context of a potential trip with my parents and I don’t get to go if I don’t bring the kid. You’re right that for travel that doesn’t involve them I should just not tell them about it.
Anonymous says
Eh, if that’s the context then I wouldn’t think much of it. Of course your mom wants to see her grandchild. Since our kid was born, I don’t think either of our parents care whether they see us. It’s all about the grandbaby.
Anonymous says
No, no I’m not blaming her at all for not wanting me on their trip without my kid. I get that they invited us because they want to see their grandkid. What hurt me was that she said a bunch of really judgy stuff like “you seriously would voluntarily leave [kid] for a week for a vacation without your spouse?” Um…yes? And when I said yes, she said it was selfish to vacation without my kid unless it was for the purpose quality time with my husband.
anon says
This is your mom’s problem, not yours, but I completely understand why it hurts. Internalized misogyny is one heck of a drug, and it’s more infuriating when a parent is perpetuating that attitude.