Anonymous wrote:Do breastfeeding groups still push lip and tongue tie release surgeries on everyone?

Yes, there was even an article in one of the big papers on “big tongue tie” a year or two ago. I’ll try to find it.

Do breastfeeding groups still push lip and tongue tie release surgeries on everyone?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just don't watch social media, but it can't be worse than whatever people were being fed by the church or the neighborhood moms or whoever else in before times.

Honestly I think moms just get PPA/D and so they're always going to latch onto some weird stuff. I doubt there's ever been a period where all the new moms were super chill, because I think it's biological.

I think this is true. I had PPD and the first thing everyone on my care team told me was to find a moms group for support, so I did. But in retrospect I'm not convinced this always worked because there was so much ambient anxiety in that group and the facilitator sometimes helped tamp it down but also had her own pet issues that she'd speak strongly about and it all just amped up the feeling that I was failing. I think this idea that new moms should all get together and help each other is misguided.

Ultimately I think new moms need a family/community support structure, where the people who are helping are NOT also parenting young kids. The problem is that culturally we've moved away from structures like that so a lot of people just don't have it, or the people in their support group hurt more than help.

The best thing I did post partum was pay for 1:1 therapy, and if I do it again, I'd also get a postpartum doula for the first two weeks after birth. Hanging around other moms who are also stressed and anxious is not the answer. And social media is sometimes just a virtual version of that.

I think so too. The new mom groups are helpful in making acquaintances with same/similar age children. But it’s a lot of the same anxiety of getting deep into the weeds about omg my 4 week old won’t latch without a nipple shield and omg my lactation consultant said that wasn’t as good as breastfeeding because the baby deserves to feel my nipple in his mouth and then someone else in the group is basically like, I agree because nipple shields aren’t the same as breastfeeding, etc. Ideally you’d have some of those people and some 18 year old cousins who think your baby is so cute and have a ton of energy, and some 40-50 year old moms of teens, and some grandparents too, and get a balanced perspective.

Yes to all of this. The "new mom group" thing is huge in DC over the last 10 years or so and I thought it would be great and it was only okay and in some ways a source of stress. I did meet other moms and we stayed in touch for a while but then that faded away too.

I actually think a lot of the trends these days are a reaction to the fact that a lot of families do not have a "village" or whatever. Like one thing I see is that it seems like nannies have become the preference and default for way more families than used to be the case, even in UMC communities where people could always afford them. But a nanny is a form of support that a daycare isn't, and that has major appeal for people who feel isolated and unsupported.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just don't watch social media, but it can't be worse than whatever people were being fed by the church or the neighborhood moms or whoever else in before times.

Honestly I think moms just get PPA/D and so they're always going to latch onto some weird stuff. I doubt there's ever been a period where all the new moms were super chill, because I think it's biological.

I think this is true. I had PPD and the first thing everyone on my care team told me was to find a moms group for support, so I did. But in retrospect I'm not convinced this always worked because there was so much ambient anxiety in that group and the facilitator sometimes helped tamp it down but also had her own pet issues that she'd speak strongly about and it all just amped up the feeling that I was failing. I think this idea that new moms should all get together and help each other is misguided.

Ultimately I think new moms need a family/community support structure, where the people who are helping are NOT also parenting young kids. The problem is that culturally we've moved away from structures like that so a lot of people just don't have it, or the people in their support group hurt more than help.

The best thing I did post partum was pay for 1:1 therapy, and if I do it again, I'd also get a postpartum doula for the first two weeks after birth. Hanging around other moms who are also stressed and anxious is not the answer. And social media is sometimes just a virtual version of that.

I think so too. The new mom groups are helpful in making acquaintances with same/similar age children. But it’s a lot of the same anxiety of getting deep into the weeds about omg my 4 week old won’t latch without a nipple shield and omg my lactation consultant said that wasn’t as good as breastfeeding because the baby deserves to feel my nipple in his mouth and then someone else in the group is basically like, I agree because nipple shields aren’t the same as breastfeeding, etc. Ideally you’d have some of those people and some 18 year old cousins who think your baby is so cute and have a ton of energy, and some 40-50 year old moms of teens, and some grandparents too, and get a balanced perspective.

Anonymous wrote:I just don't watch social media, but it can't be worse than whatever people were being fed by the church or the neighborhood moms or whoever else in before times.

Honestly I think moms just get PPA/D and so they're always going to latch onto some weird stuff. I doubt there's ever been a period where all the new moms were super chill, because I think it's biological.

I think this is true. I had PPD and the first thing everyone on my care team told me was to find a moms group for support, so I did. But in retrospect I'm not convinced this always worked because there was so much ambient anxiety in that group and the facilitator sometimes helped tamp it down but also had her own pet issues that she'd speak strongly about and it all just amped up the feeling that I was failing. I think this idea that new moms should all get together and help each other is misguided.

Ultimately I think new moms need a family/community support structure, where the people who are helping are NOT also parenting young kids. The problem is that culturally we've moved away from structures like that so a lot of people just don't have it, or the people in their support group hurt more than help.

The best thing I did post partum was pay for 1:1 therapy, and if I do it again, I'd also get a postpartum doula for the first two weeks after birth. Hanging around other moms who are also stressed and anxious is not the answer. And social media is sometimes just a virtual version of that.

Anonymous wrote:I just don't watch social media, but it can't be worse than whatever people were being fed by the church or the neighborhood moms or whoever else in before times.

Honestly I think moms just get PPA/D and so they're always going to latch onto some weird stuff. I doubt there's ever been a period where all the new moms were super chill, because I think it's biological.

It’s worse because of the sheer volume. I can open Instagram and find dozens of mom influencers who make a living pretending to be perfect and shilling products or courses that will help you be more like them . I find them morbidly fascinating and I can see how someone less confident or more susceptible would feel bad in comparison.

I just don't watch social media, but it can't be worse than whatever people were being fed by the church or the neighborhood moms or whoever else in before times.

Honestly I think moms just get PPA/D and so they're always going to latch onto some weird stuff. I doubt there's ever been a period where all the new moms were super chill, because I think it's biological.

My kids were born in 2008 and 2011 and I remember a trend where you were supposed to keep your baby out of diapers from the newborn stage, and potty train your newborn. Every time the baby peed you were supposed to make a sound. Eventually, the baby was supposed to pee on demand. Hahaha. Didn't work very well for me!

Anonymous wrote:“Teaching” your baby to sit up, crawl, walk… there’s a popular instagrammer milestones and motherhood who is a PT and it’s all exercises you should be doing with your baby to facilitate these things. When the vast majority of babies will figure these things out on their own. I was so stressed about whether I should be doing “more” as a first time mom to help my baby sit up.

Agree on the overwhelm of inclusivity and activism infant and toddler books. It’s all about the parents and rarely developmentally appropriate and effective.

And gentle parenting that cedes all parental authority. You can be loving and sensitive and still be the decider. Your child is not your equal.

2020 mom

I get what you mean about milestones, but on the other hand, both of my kids have needed PT as infants and toddlers due to delays, and I appreciate that there are free resources out there. So I think it’s a double edged sword, like so much of parenting these days.

Anonymous wrote:“Teaching” your baby to sit up, crawl, walk… there’s a popular instagrammer milestones and motherhood who is a PT and it’s all exercises you should be doing with your baby to facilitate these things. When the vast majority of babies will figure these things out on their own. I was so stressed about whether I should be doing “more” as a first time mom to help my baby sit up.

Agree on the overwhelm of inclusivity and activism infant and toddler books. It’s all about the parents and rarely developmentally appropriate and effective.

And gentle parenting that cedes all parental authority. You can be loving and sensitive and still be the decider. Your child is not your equal.

2020 mom

Too funny. My youngest is 10 years old now, so it’s fun to see what’s changed.

On Solid Starts, do you remember when the mom used to post videos of her son completely losing it over food? It was terrible. I felt so awful for him. He was like 6. I unfollowed and hope she got a ton of flack for that. What a terrible thing to do to your child.

“Teaching” your baby to sit up, crawl, walk… there’s a popular instagrammer milestones and motherhood who is a PT and it’s all exercises you should be doing with your baby to facilitate these things. When the vast majority of babies will figure these things out on their own. I was so stressed about whether I should be doing “more” as a first time mom to help my baby sit up.

Agree on the overwhelm of inclusivity and activism infant and toddler books. It’s all about the parents and rarely developmentally appropriate and effective.

And gentle parenting that cedes all parental authority. You can be loving and sensitive and still be the decider. Your child is not your equal.

2020 mom

Anonymous wrote:I’ll be the second teacher to weigh in here to say I’m very concerned when the “gentle parenting” kids reach my grade level. Don’t get me wrong — I was a pretty gentle parent, I expect, but I fear that parents have interpreted this movement to mean that their child doesn’t have to do anything they don’t want to do… which is often what school is.

I think people blow this up into more than it is. The people most likely to use gentle parenting techniques are super involved parents who tend to be very engaged with their kids. Someone very engaged with their kid is unlikely to let their kid do whatever they want. My observation is that gentle parents are also the ones whose kids have minimal screen time and never get sugar. Those kids might not have any experience with being yelled at, but they have rules and know how to follow them.

The worst behaved kids are the ones whose parents gave up and just plant them on screens all day. That's not gentle parenting. Those are the kids who will quickly get bored in school because they aren't used to doing anything without distraction/entertainment, are more prone to outbursts because they have no emotional regulation skills beyond numbing bad feelings away with screens, and have the worst social skills.

Gentle parenting *sounds* annoying and is easy to make fun of, but there's no evidence it actually leads to more entitled kids. As has long been the case, it's parental neglect (including in the firm of letting phones/tablets babysit your kids) that results in the worst outcomes and make things hardest I'm teachers.

My kids are teens now, and luckily there wasn't the same level of social media nonesense directed at moms as there is now. Ten second blips of curated life that are held up as some kind of aspirational or instructive model, it's just really harmful to women. Not helpful at all.

Anonymous wrote:I'm currently about to have a baby and the thing that's been most annoying to me is the way it's become normalized to let anxiety drive your decisions. I don't have TikTok and don't watch instagram reels. A lot of my friends who are new moms do and I see it creating SO much anxiety to the point where I worry they will adjudge me a bad parent for just not doing that, or not worrying about a particular issue that they view as a BIG DEAL because they watched something on the internet that's poorly sourced and designed to attract attention/manipulate the algorithm.

+1 Amen
And what's worse is even non parents do this.