OP is obviously already aware the pacifier isn't great or she wouldn't be reluctant to use it in public. She is not actually in need of advice on pacifier usage. No one needs a "village" of judgmental advice-givers who want to weigh in on your every parenting move. You can get that for free from your own family. The village is supposed to be about help and support not unsolicited advice and scaring 3 yr olds in grocery stores. |
The village is for both. But since women today will not accept the latter, they do not receive the former. And then they complain about it (on other threads). |
| Ignore them and strongly declare to your daughter that the way they spoke to her was incredibly rude and wrong & that they should know better by their age. |
| I’ll be your village - if I saw an old lady make a toddler cry for no reason I would help you explain to your 3 year old that the poor old lady had dementia and we just needed to be kind and back away. |
Look grandma if you want to condition your "solidarity" with other mothers on them agreeing with every one of your parenting decisions and doing whatever you tell them then it isn't solidarity in the first place. And again OP already knows what the issue is with prolonged pacifier use. It's not like she lacks information and you or those women in the store were telling her something she doesn't know. They're having trouble getting rid of the pacifier because the kid is struggling to self-soothe other ways. It's a work in progress. I guarantee you did all kinds of "not ideal" parenting when your kids were small and I hope the elders around you were smart enough to recognize that parenting is never perfect and that correcting and judging every tiny decision misses the forrest through the trees. |
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"Larla, it's fine for you to have the pacifier now - we agreed. Ladies, please mind your business." Then walk away.
FWIW, she's old enough to be done with pacifiers. Next time a friend has a baby, try telling her just like you pass down baby clothes to friends with babies, it's time to pass down the pacifiers to the new baby too. Then throw them out. Tried and works. |
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Part of the problem here is that many older people selectively forget all the hardest parts of parenting (especially really little kids) as well as all the imperfect parenting they did. They just remember this rosy fake past where children simply did what they were told at all times (from infancy) and never cried or were loud or whined or argued and where they were just ideal parents who never yelled (or worse) or used a parenting short cut or whatever.
When people with these extremely well-edited memories of parenthood give advice or inject themselves into parenting situations it's always total BS because they are just not acknowledging like 90% of what parenting is. It's based on a lie. |
Also, kids actually used to behave better, self-regulate better, comply better. Kids these days have poorer fine motor skills than previous generations, have poorer self-regulation. Etc. Is it because of poor sleep/back to sleep and developmental delays? Is it because of gentle parenting/lack of spanking? Is it because of screens? Is it the chemicals in the water? Is it something else? Who knows? But it's documented. |
So talk to the mother, not the kid. For all they knew, the child could have special needs. Cruel to approach a child with that kind of criticism. |
| Thanks all , I know she's too old, I'm struggling to find that time to get rid as she's being great with all the stress of a house move but we're hoping to be finally settled in the next couple of weeks. We'll focus on trying to limit it to bed and then full cold turkey shortly after |
Sometimes a stranger speaking directly to a child is effective. I have been surprised at how receptive my children were to comments or admonishments from strangers. Sure, it doesn't always work. But it's not necessarily malicious - as you are saying it is. |
| Randos should not be able to get that close to your 3yo in a store and all the while you're within "earshot"? Too far away. Count your blessings nothing too bad happened |
Agreed. I actually suspect the women were trying to *help* OP by speaking about it to the daughter… put the idea in the girl’s head so Mommy doesn’t have to be the bad guy. |
Where is it documented -- genuinely asking. |
What are you talking about? You’re just imagining this is what is happening. |