“Don’t sweat the small stuff”

[Anonymous]

Question for you guys. I had my kids much younger than my college friends who started having babies in their late thirties/early forties. We are 40, they have babies and toddlers,!and my kids are teens and tweens. When we catch up, I spend a lot of time listening to them agonize about all the typical little kid stuff that I admittedly worried about too: breastfeeding, sleep training, daycare, screen time, sugar, type of preschool, etc.

As a mom of older kids, my inclination is to tell them none of this stuff matters in the long run (in a nice way of course, I wouldn’t put my friends down). I usually say, “yeah it’s hard, I remember worrying about that too, but I promise you this won’t make a difference when they’re 14.” I mean it in a comforting way. If none of this stuff really matters, then you can’t screw up too badly. But I worry this comes off as too know-it-all or something? Would you appreciate this or be annoyed?

[Anonymous]

Depends on the situation/their personalities to be honest. This is the stuff that matters to them and the decisions they’re making. Even if it doesn’t matter, they still have to decide. Do you want to be told not to worry about your kids’ college prospects because honestly what college they get into doesn’t make that much difference in the long run? That being said if they’re coming to you because you’re the parent of older kids and someone’s giving them a hard time about their decisions, your response is great because they wanted reassurance that they went screwing up their kids for life. So like situational on guess? It really depends on the context and your tone.

[Anonymous]

I would be so annoyed. Do you think that would have helped you in the moment when you were in the thick of it? This is like people who see me with three melting down kids at the grocery store and say "wow you've got your hands full". Yeah I know thanks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Depends on the situation/their personalities to be honest. This is the stuff that matters to them and the decisions they’re making. Even if it doesn’t matter, they still have to decide. Do you want to be told not to worry about your kids’ college prospects because honestly what college they get into doesn’t make that much difference in the long run? That being said if they’re coming to you because you’re the parent of older kids and someone’s giving them a hard time about their decisions, your response is great because they wanted reassurance that they went screwing up their kids for life. So like situational on guess? It really depends on the context and your tone.

This is such a good point. OP are you stressed about your kids driving? Going to parties? Their college choices? Stress is natural for parents and actually yes some of the examples you cited do actually matter.

[Anonymous]

It’s annoying and condescending, even if you don’t mean it that way. You’re also forgetting the things like chronic sleep deprivation, being touched out all the time, trying to keep an eye on developmental milestones (which can absolutely be a big issue). My kids are tween and elementary age, so those little kid days are in the past for me, but they were still hard in the moment.

The one thing an experienced parent said to me during that phase, which was actually helpful, is that parenting is a marathon, not a sprint, and to pace myself. That it’s hard all the way through, albeit in different ways. That felt both empathic with what I was experiencing at the time and useful in terms of thinking how to parent. It wasn’t the dismissive “just you wait until you have teenagers” crap - it was realistic. It’s stuck with me.

[Anonymous]

I would be annoyed.

You are looking at it from your current position, and telling them to simply stop feeling as they do because eventually they will be in their position. How does this help them now?

Perspective can be useful but it doesn't always solve immediate problems. If you are 22 and job hunting and can't find a job, having someone say "don't worry, when you are 35 and have been working for over a decade and have a mortgage and a kid, you'll look back at this time and realize this wasn't a real problem" doesn't help you solve your actual problem, which is that you need a job.

If they ask for advice, offer practical advice for their immediate problem. If they don't, simply be empathetic. But don't become the Perspective Fairy trying to get them to just stop worrying about any of it altogether because, after all, YOU'RE not worried about it anymore so it can't really matter.

You are being myopic.

[Anonymous]

This would really annoy me. It may be small stuff in the long run, but when you’re in the thick of raising small children, these decisions do have a big effect on your daily life and at least the short to medium term well-being of your kid(s).

[Anonymous]

If they are in the thick of postpartum misery, don't say it. But with toddlers, if they had a really hard day, maybe say it!

What's much more helpful to me (as a mom who hates the baby/toddler stage) is to hear moms of older kids say encouraging things about how it gets better. Please please tell me about how they don't need help wiping their bums one day and don't want to hang out with Mom and Dad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Depends on the situation/their personalities to be honest. This is the stuff that matters to them and the decisions they’re making. Even if it doesn’t matter, they still have to decide. Do you want to be told not to worry about your kids’ college prospects because honestly what college they get into doesn’t make that much difference in the long run? That being said if they’re coming to you because you’re the parent of older kids and someone’s giving them a hard time about their decisions, your response is great because they wanted reassurance that they went screwing up their kids for life. So like situational on guess? It really depends on the context and your tone.

This is such a good point. OP are you stressed about your kids driving? Going to parties? Their college choices? Stress is natural for parents and actually yes some of the examples you cited do actually matter.

OP here. Actually I do find it comforting to hear from people that the name on the degree doesn’t matter as much as DCUM would have you think! Lol

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If they are in the thick of postpartum misery, don't say it. But with toddlers, if they had a really hard day, maybe say it!

What's much more helpful to me (as a mom who hates the baby/toddler stage) is to hear moms of older kids say encouraging things about how it gets better. Please please tell me about how they don't need help wiping their bums one day and don't want to hang out with Mom and Dad.

+1. I also like getting this kind of perspective from parents of older kids sometimes, so I think it can be a helpful thing in some situations if done in an empathetic, non-dismissive way.

[Anonymous]

As a mom of adult children I would not tell any moms of infants and toddlers that the stuff they are concerned about doesn't matter because ultimately it all matters. Do you think all kids turn out the same no matter how they were raised?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a mom of adult children I would not tell any moms of infants and toddlers that the stuff they are concerned about doesn't matter because ultimately it all matters. Do you think all kids turn out the same no matter how they were raised?

Pretty much, yeah. Or, more specifically, outside of truly phenomenal or truly crappy parenting (say top 15% or bottom 15%), how a person turns out is about them, not their parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a mom of adult children I would not tell any moms of infants and toddlers that the stuff they are concerned about doesn't matter because ultimately it all matters. Do you think all kids turn out the same no matter how they were raised?

Pretty much, yeah. Or, more specifically, outside of truly phenomenal or truly crappy parenting (say top 15% or bottom 15%), how a person turns out is about them, not their parents.

I disagree that it’s only 30% that depends on parenting. I’ve been a HS teacher for 20 years and I can’t count the number of times I met parents and had the aha moment of ‘that’s why the kid behaves this way’.

[Anonymous]

Ugh I would be so annoyed. Don't be surprised if your friends start distancing themselves from you.

[Anonymous]

This kind of response REALLY bothers me.

I got this a lot when I was pregnant with my first and during his first year. “Oh, none of this stuff matters,” “it all works out” that kinda stuff and it was WILDLY unhelpful and condescending even when said “nicely.” And as a seasoned mom of three, I don’t even think that is accurate. I mean, yeah, which preschool your kid was in doesn’t matter when your kid is 14. But it DOES matter for the years you’re in it! Doing research when I was pregnant with my first on which swaddles were best (for example) led me to register for SwaddleMe swaddles, which worked great for all three kids. Reading a bunch of sleep books and talking about sleep training experiences with other parents in those early months helped me determine what made sense and led to me being able to confidently sleep train all three using one of those methods. Yeah, some of it didn’t work out how I’d hoped (the sugar intake of my toddlers definitely went up with each kid, and so did their screen time) but dismissing all the work and essentially emotional labor I was doing (and still do!) to figure out how our family will operate as we raise kids is super crappy and comes off as condescending no matter how you phrase it.

If they’re stressing about sleep training, what’s actually helpful is to say “here’s what I did, I would/would not do it again, here’s what I learned from doing it.” Now, if someone is trying to, for example, choose between preschool A and preschool B, you can at some point tell them that you think either preschool would be great (ie, there is no bad option). But honestly, either participate in the discussion of pros and cons or exit the discussion.