Anonymous wrote:
at the end of the day, until you are responsible for another human being 24/7 your opinion holds little weight. As the saying goes, opinions are like assholes...

Having a child does not somehow make you the font of all knowledge of all things child-related. There are many people who have a lot of education and experience in raising children who have not been parents. We learned a TON from the pediatric nurses in the NICU who handle more children in a month than we had handled in our lives and I at least have had some childcare experience with nieces and babysitting. There are lots of parents such as Casey Anthony, Banita Jacks, John Michael Robey & Christina Dawn Moore, and hundreds more who I would never trust anything they said about raising children.

Frankly, if you are one of those parents who are so close-minded that you think that just procreating suddenly makes you more credible about childcare, then I feel sorry for your children. I learn more and more about childcare every day. From my children, from my friends' children. From our daycare workers (parents and non-parents), from pediatric nurses who don't have children, from parents and non-parents with backgrounds in early childhood development and so on. If you only take the advice, experience and opinions from those with children you are closing yourself off to a lot of information that may be helpful in raising your children.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Exactly 00:08. I mean, Honey Boo Boo's teenage sister just gave birth to a baby so now she's a parent. You'd take her advice over a 35 year old non-parent who has nannied, babysat, and been an aunt for 15 years?

THANK YOU!! And also to others who have said the same. I'm childfree but the devoted auntie to 5...my siblings have often asked for my perspective on parenting things because 1) I love the kids too and want the best for them 2) I'm a relatively intelligent human being able to talk on a variety of topics of which I have no first hand experience and 3) people outside the direct line of fire of a situation are sometimes able to see things more clearly than those in the trenches.

at the end of the day, until you are responsible for another human being 24/7 your opinion holds little weight. As the saying goes, opinions are like assholes...

NP here, I am childless but worked in preschool and now do research in the child development field. I post about things that I have a understanding of, whilst I don't have the responsibility of the 24/7 I do have something valid to offer many discussion on this forum. Assuming that you know all doesn't actually make you a good parent. I came to respect parents at school who asked my opinion even when they knew I myself was not a parent. I have worked with many women who choose to not have their own children after spending all day taking care of other's kids, and they know more about potty training, social/emotional needs, and discipline, than most parents walking through the door.

Umm... I am not a parent, I post here occasionally. I am happily married and I have no desire whatsoever to have children of my own. Come to think of it OP, I really do have a life! You don't.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Exactly 00:08. I mean, Honey Boo Boo's teenage sister just gave birth to a baby so now she's a parent. You'd take her advice over a 35 year old non-parent who has nannied, babysat, and been an aunt for 15 years?

THANK YOU!! And also to others who have said the same. I'm childfree but the devoted auntie to 5...my siblings have often asked for my perspective on parenting things because 1) I love the kids too and want the best for them 2) I'm a relatively intelligent human being able to talk on a variety of topics of which I have no first hand experience and 3) people outside the direct line of fire of a situation are sometimes able to see things more clearly than those in the trenches.

at the end of the day, until you are responsible for another human being 24/7 your opinion holds little weight. As the saying goes, opinions are like assholes...

Anonymous wrote:Exactly 00:08. I mean, Honey Boo Boo's teenage sister just gave birth to a baby so now she's a parent. You'd take her advice over a 35 year old non-parent who has nannied, babysat, and been an aunt for 15 years?

THANK YOU!! And also to others who have said the same. I'm childfree but the devoted auntie to 5...my siblings have often asked for my perspective on parenting things because 1) I love the kids too and want the best for them 2) I'm a relatively intelligent human being able to talk on a variety of topics of which I have no first hand experience and 3) people outside the direct line of fire of a situation are sometimes able to see things more clearly than those in the trenches.

I don't have kids, but I also am new to the area and have no local family and have only a few acquaintances here. I am very, very lonely because DH works all the time. I come here to feel less lonely and feel like I'm actually socializing. It's actually made a lot of difference to me in terms of feeling less alone.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:The poster on this thread who thinks that a step-parent should not be posting on a parenting website is nutty. Step-parenting is a form of parenting. I have both a mother and a step-mother and I think of them both as parental figures. I have a different relationship with each of them, but that is largely because they have very different personalities. There are some things that I go to my step-mother for advice about rather than my mother because in those areas she has more experience or a better track record of giving advice. I am closer to my mother, but I would never diminish the role that my step-mother played in my life. Love is not a limited commodity and a child can love more than two parental figures. It doesn't always happen with step-parents, but it is small-minded to think that it never does.

Nobody here said that step-parents should not be posting. What has been said is that step-parents are not parents. They can be "parental figures", sure, just like teachers, priests, uncles etc can be. That doesn't make them parents, sorry.

Wow so let me guess pp...with your ass backwards logic adoptive parents are also not "real" parents too huh? You are a complete ass!

Better being an ass than a dummy like you are. Nothing I said implied that adoptive parents are in the same boat as step-parents. Can't you losers see the difference? Adopted children have their adoptive parents listed as their parents. This is who their parents are. They have no other parents. Step-children in fact have "other" i.e. their only parents. Those could be adoptive or not, that's a totally separate issue. Nicole Kidman is a mother of children she adopted with Tom Cruise. Katie Holmes isn't. Or are you saying she is their mother, too?

My best friends father left her mother when she was 2 years old. Her step-father raised her since that point in time - he is the only father she's ever known. She calls him "dad" and he has been there for every sprained ankle, every soccer game, every nightmare. He gave her away at her wedding - and was there when her daughter was born. He is a father in EVERY WAY.

When he passed away 2 years ago - she was heartbroken.

The fact that you feel the need to put a label on love, shows me that you have something broken inside of you. If you tried to tell my friend that her father wasn't her real father - she wouldn't even be mad at you - she would laugh at you.

You don't even known the meaning of the word parent - obviously.

To find out how young woman are thinking

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The poster on this thread who thinks that a step-parent should not be posting on a parenting website is nutty. Step-parenting is a form of parenting. I have both a mother and a step-mother and I think of them both as parental figures. I have a different relationship with each of them, but that is largely because they have very different personalities. There are some things that I go to my step-mother for advice about rather than my mother because in those areas she has more experience or a better track record of giving advice. I am closer to my mother, but I would never diminish the role that my step-mother played in my life. Love is not a limited commodity and a child can love more than two parental figures. It doesn't always happen with step-parents, but it is small-minded to think that it never does.

Nobody here said that step-parents should not be posting. What has been said is that step-parents are not parents. They can be "parental figures", sure, just like teachers, priests, uncles etc can be. That doesn't make them parents, sorry.

Wow so let me guess pp...with your ass backwards logic adoptive parents are also not "real" parents too huh? You are a complete ass!

Better being an ass than a dummy like you are. Nothing I said implied that adoptive parents are in the same boat as step-parents. Can't you losers see the difference? Adopted children have their adoptive parents listed as their parents. This is who their parents are. They have no other parents. Step-children in fact have "other" i.e. their only parents. Those could be adoptive or not, that's a totally separate issue. Nicole Kidman is a mother of children she adopted with Tom Cruise. Katie Holmes isn't. Or are you saying she is their mother, too?

Interesting that you don't have a comeback for 10:02, PP. What is your retort?

I started reading that post, but it was so boring, I couldn't make it. Care to summarize?

That was not a good effort. It was one additional paragraph after your response. Try again or we will have to assume that you can't come up with a response because your position lacks a reasonable counterpoint.

I don't care what you are going to think - I am not here to persuade you. For as long as I think I am right (and that's a very, very high standard to meet), I am done.

Good. That's settled. You don't need to persuade us, but your inability to mount a reasonable defense of your position indicates that your argument lacks a foundation in generally accepted tenets of logic. "Because I said so" is the logic of a child, not that of a rational adult.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The poster on this thread who thinks that a step-parent should not be posting on a parenting website is nutty. Step-parenting is a form of parenting. I have both a mother and a step-mother and I think of them both as parental figures. I have a different relationship with each of them, but that is largely because they have very different personalities. There are some things that I go to my step-mother for advice about rather than my mother because in those areas she has more experience or a better track record of giving advice. I am closer to my mother, but I would never diminish the role that my step-mother played in my life. Love is not a limited commodity and a child can love more than two parental figures. It doesn't always happen with step-parents, but it is small-minded to think that it never does.

Nobody here said that step-parents should not be posting. What has been said is that step-parents are not parents. They can be "parental figures", sure, just like teachers, priests, uncles etc can be. That doesn't make them parents, sorry.

Wow so let me guess pp...with your ass backwards logic adoptive parents are also not "real" parents too huh? You are a complete ass!

Better being an ass than a dummy like you are. Nothing I said implied that adoptive parents are in the same boat as step-parents. Can't you losers see the difference? Adopted children have their adoptive parents listed as their parents. This is who their parents are. They have no other parents. Step-children in fact have "other" i.e. their only parents. Those could be adoptive or not, that's a totally separate issue. Nicole Kidman is a mother of children she adopted with Tom Cruise. Katie Holmes isn't. Or are you saying she is their mother, too?

Interesting that you don't have a comeback for 10:02, PP. What is your retort?

I started reading that post, but it was so boring, I couldn't make it. Care to summarize?

That was not a good effort. It was one additional paragraph after your response. Try again or we will have to assume that you can't come up with a response because your position lacks a reasonable counterpoint.

I don't care what you are going to think - I am not here to persuade you. For as long as I think I am right (and that's a very, very high standard to meet), I am done.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The poster on this thread who thinks that a step-parent should not be posting on a parenting website is nutty. Step-parenting is a form of parenting. I have both a mother and a step-mother and I think of them both as parental figures. I have a different relationship with each of them, but that is largely because they have very different personalities. There are some things that I go to my step-mother for advice about rather than my mother because in those areas she has more experience or a better track record of giving advice. I am closer to my mother, but I would never diminish the role that my step-mother played in my life. Love is not a limited commodity and a child can love more than two parental figures. It doesn't always happen with step-parents, but it is small-minded to think that it never does.

Nobody here said that step-parents should not be posting. What has been said is that step-parents are not parents. They can be "parental figures", sure, just like teachers, priests, uncles etc can be. That doesn't make them parents, sorry.

Wow so let me guess pp...with your ass backwards logic adoptive parents are also not "real" parents too huh? You are a complete ass!

Better being an ass than a dummy like you are. Nothing I said implied that adoptive parents are in the same boat as step-parents. Can't you losers see the difference? Adopted children have their adoptive parents listed as their parents. This is who their parents are. They have no other parents. Step-children in fact have "other" i.e. their only parents. Those could be adoptive or not, that's a totally separate issue. Nicole Kidman is a mother of children she adopted with Tom Cruise. Katie Holmes isn't. Or are you saying she is their mother, too?

Interesting that you don't have a comeback for 10:02, PP. What is your retort?

I started reading that post, but it was so boring, I couldn't make it. Care to summarize?

That was not a good effort. It was one additional paragraph after your response. Try again or we will have to assume that you can't come up with a response because your position lacks a reasonable counterpoint.

I don't have kids. I participate in DCUM because a lot of threads are about interesting aspects of life, a lot are about life in DC. That's relevant to my childfree life.

Sometimes I'm just curious to find out what people who live around here but have very different lives from mine - the SAHMs, the religious people, the people who care a lot about status and house size and chicken farming - think.

Also, I spend a lot of my day in front of a computer; it's impossible to spend every second of that time working. I don't smoke. I look at the internet.

I don't give advice in the threads about child rearing. But some of the threads don't call for having joined an egg and a sperm in some mystical way.

As for the person who doesn't have kids and was curious why people do have them - where better to ask that question than on a parenting forum?

My dad is technically my brother's stepdad. However, my brother calls him dad and he is really the only father he has ever known. My brother calls his biological dad by his first name and does not consider him his father. Every family is different.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The poster on this thread who thinks that a step-parent should not be posting on a parenting website is nutty. Step-parenting is a form of parenting. I have both a mother and a step-mother and I think of them both as parental figures. I have a different relationship with each of them, but that is largely because they have very different personalities. There are some things that I go to my step-mother for advice about rather than my mother because in those areas she has more experience or a better track record of giving advice. I am closer to my mother, but I would never diminish the role that my step-mother played in my life. Love is not a limited commodity and a child can love more than two parental figures. It doesn't always happen with step-parents, but it is small-minded to think that it never does.

Nobody here said that step-parents should not be posting. What has been said is that step-parents are not parents. They can be "parental figures", sure, just like teachers, priests, uncles etc can be. That doesn't make them parents, sorry.

Wow so let me guess pp...with your ass backwards logic adoptive parents are also not "real" parents too huh? You are a complete ass!

Better being an ass than a dummy like you are. Nothing I said implied that adoptive parents are in the same boat as step-parents. Can't you losers see the difference? Adopted children have their adoptive parents listed as their parents. This is who their parents are. They have no other parents. Step-children in fact have "other" i.e. their only parents. Those could be adoptive or not, that's a totally separate issue. Nicole Kidman is a mother of children she adopted with Tom Cruise. Katie Holmes isn't. Or are you saying she is their mother, too?

A dummy? Atleast I am not a cold hearted bitch like you.. Good day lady, you are going to need all the help you can get in this life with a nasty attitude like yours.

My guess is she is a recently divorced mom and her husband just remarried a prettier, younger version of her. As a result, she is jealous and hateful of all step moms.

You wish

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The poster on this thread who thinks that a step-parent should not be posting on a parenting website is nutty. Step-parenting is a form of parenting. I have both a mother and a step-mother and I think of them both as parental figures. I have a different relationship with each of them, but that is largely because they have very different personalities. There are some things that I go to my step-mother for advice about rather than my mother because in those areas she has more experience or a better track record of giving advice. I am closer to my mother, but I would never diminish the role that my step-mother played in my life. Love is not a limited commodity and a child can love more than two parental figures. It doesn't always happen with step-parents, but it is small-minded to think that it never does.

Nobody here said that step-parents should not be posting. What has been said is that step-parents are not parents. They can be "parental figures", sure, just like teachers, priests, uncles etc can be. That doesn't make them parents, sorry.

Wow so let me guess pp...with your ass backwards logic adoptive parents are also not "real" parents too huh? You are a complete ass!

Better being an ass than a dummy like you are. Nothing I said implied that adoptive parents are in the same boat as step-parents. Can't you losers see the difference? Adopted children have their adoptive parents listed as their parents. This is who their parents are. They have no other parents. Step-children in fact have "other" i.e. their only parents. Those could be adoptive or not, that's a totally separate issue. Nicole Kidman is a mother of children she adopted with Tom Cruise. Katie Holmes isn't. Or are you saying she is their mother, too?

Interesting that you don't have a comeback for 10:02, PP. What is your retort?

I started reading that post, but it was so boring, I couldn't make it. Care to summarize?