MY child's development

Thank you for writing this post first of all!

Here are my thoughts. <commence soapbox> I happen to agree with the opinion that moms are judged a lot harder than dads. I also feel that same judgment as Loriani when I find out my son hasn’t done something as fast as other kids. My response… “leave him alone, he’ll get there in time!” Ya, Timmy may have walked at 9 months and that is great for him but my son is taking his time and I’m actually grateful for that because this moment in time when he needs my help is going to end FAST and I want to preserve this baby-hood as long as humanly possible.





Now…don’t get me wrong I will try to teach him to walk and encourage his learning as best I can. What I refuse to do is compare my kid with yours, or your friends, or some child on TV. He’s happy, healthy and rather smart in my own opinion. All kids learn at different times and struggle with different things…this doesn’t make any one of them better than another.

If you are a mom, you should understand this so it boggles my mind that we judge each other or try to make ourselves feel better by our child’s accomplishments. We should be supporting one another. I would like to see a day when we can tell our stories without judgment of another’s family and offer experiences rather than “solutions” to another mom’s “problems”. Trust me I have gotten my fair share of "oh you know who's walking already?", "he's still on a bottle?" and the most condeming one of all "you let him watch TV?!"  

Now on the fairness of moms versus dads…. I think this will always be lost. Single dads get more praise than single moms. Stay-at-home dads get more praise than stay-at-home moms. I think it is just the nature of the beast. Maybe it is because women are more maternal and nurturing so it is assumed parenting comes natural to us. Whereas when a man tries to take on the role, it is surprising and people tend to be impressed they can do it. Come to think of it…if I were to build something, say a cabinet or fix something like a car….I can pretty much assure you that people would give me a lot more praise than they would if a man did those things. Fair, maybe not, but I don’t think it’s really about fairness. It’s more about the nature of male versus female and what we are innately better at …. or just programmed to think about our genders that way.

Maybe that should be our concern, not about who is getting praised but about how we teach the next generation to view the capabilities of them as a person and not simply about what their gender normally functions as. I want to teach my son to be strong and self-sufficient and “manly” but if he wants to be a nurse, a stay-at-home dad, a stylist, then I want him to be the type of man that can do that without taking gripe from other people.

XOXO, Sharon

Images from:

© Sharon Price

http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/s/stay_at_home_dads.asp

http://www.hooverwebdesign.com/free-printables/greeting-cards/stay-at-home-dad-greeting-cards.html