A few weeks ago, Maddie put out a call to find out what problems are people inventing for your weddings. Turns out our family and friends are inventing ALL the problems for our weddings! From claiming that no one will know who the groom is unless he wears a tux (seriously?) to outrage over the lack of flowers. I get it, we’re all married (heh!) to our individual traditions, and it can be jarring to encounter someone who is doing something different.
You know what taught me that? Having a baby. Cause it turns out, people really invent new problems for you the moment you announce your pregnancy. My daughter #BabyPi is now almost two years old, and some of the made-up issues I’ve heard include:
- “You have to find out the sex of the baby, otherwise people won’t know what to buy for your shower!”
- “Don’t hold the baby so much. You’ll spoil her and then the daycare staff won’t want to watch her.”
- “You can’t give your baby that name. Her initials spell PEE and kids will tease her on the playground!”
- “If your kid doesn’t have the same last name as both parents, how will schools know that’s your child?”
- “If your baby doesn’t have (insert literally any random thing), they will be scarred for life!”
It is both never-ending and exhausting. People have strong opinions about weddings, but their feelings about raising children are even stronger. And just like with weddings, a lot of those feelings are shaped by how they themselves parented their own children. For example, when I shared with my family that we would be following pediatric guidelines and not introducing #BabyPi to solid food until she was six months old, some family insisted that she needed rice cereal (plus chicken, greens, and grits) to help her stay full longer. In their world, kids have been eating these things early for years, and look how great they turned out!
Now that we’re in the toddler stage, I’m seeing that this cycle of inventing problems seemingly never ends. We’ll just transition to new problems. The current one? That my twenty-month-old needs a real bed, not the crib she’s been sleeping in. Joy. On the plus side, I’ve learned how to tune out 99% of the “advice” I get, and chuckle at the really absurd (and unsolicited) comments.
So tell me, what problems have people made up for your kids? Have you ever accidentally invented a problem for someone else’s baby? Are people making up problems for your imaginary babies? let me know!
