I found myself in a conversation on Twitter a couple days ago about sleeping training. This pretty much breaks my only rule on Twitter, which is "Do not fight with people about their core parenting beliefs."1 Thankfully, it could have gotten a lot more heated than it did and it ended pretty genially, or at least without any explosions.2 It got me thinking, though.
Forgive me for generalizing, but the more I consider it, the more I suspect a lot of parenting bloggers sit down and do this every day because they consider themselves as furthering the rights of babies and children by appealing to and educating parents. That it a completely valid reason to blog. I've even made decisions I otherwise wouldn't have, based on things I've learned online. However, I wonder if the contention comes in from the fact that some of us aren't blogging for the sake of children, but for the sake of other parents.
Parenting bloggers come in more than one variety. We all have agendas. We all have goals. Unless the thesis of your blog is "All children should be ritually beaten at 9PM to prepare them for adult life," I sincerely doubt that you're wrong. I am a strong believer of grey areas, of middle ground and different strokes -- but everyone has their hill to die on.
I have issues that I consider my "child" issues. I believe all children have the right to a safe and healthy life, without wanting for any necessities or love. But I'm primarily a blogger for other parents, insofar as I'm a blogger for anyone. My issues lay with how parents are treated by society at large, how mothers are pressured and bullied into decisions, how certain issues are portrayed and passed along. And please don't think I'm implying that bloggers whose primary focus is children don't worry about those things either --- I just feel like they have a different perspective on how these issues play out and relate to parenting.
Lets look at this through the muddied filter of feeding issues. Some people view breastfeeding from a perspective of a baby's right -- all babies deserve the best start through breastfeeding -- as though breastfeeding happens in a vacuum. Some people believe that breastfeeding is at it's core anti-feminist, regardless of circumstances or personal choice. While I by no means support the false dichotomy of "formula feeders are selfish, breastfeeders are saints," those are viewpoints made from entirely different perspectives, concerning a totally different issue.
But we cannot unilaterally say that one party is more important than the other. My needs as a person are just as valuable as my son's needs as a person; when I make a decision as a parent, I need to keep both of these things in mind. Sometimes I will make decisions that are to his benefit and my detriment, because they're best for him; sometimes vice versa. I'm pretty sure that's just what parenting is.
When we have one person who believes that they're arguing for the best interest of a child, and another who feels they're arguing for the best interest of a parent -- no wonder we have these heated, awful fights that have no resolution. We're essentially teenagers fighting with our mom! Add the Internet to that mix? It's amazing that we manage to function at all.
1. I could probably just narrow this down to "Don't fight on Twitter." You may not know this about me, but I'm rather non-confrontational.
2. More than once I felt condescended to, but I couldn't tell you how much of that was real or imagined. And I'm sure more than once I was condescending, though I tried not to be.
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