Competitive Child Rearing as a Sport - How to keep it a Spectator Sport.

It starts when you find out you are having a baby - at least for many first time moms, there is so much information available at the tips of your fingers, what stroller to buy, whether or not to co-sleep, homebirths, vaccinations, the perfect Pottery Barn crib and bedding.
There are also opinions. On one hand, having so much information is a huge benefit, and it certainly seems that today's parents are more well informed than ever before. The difference today is that everywhere you go, parenting seems to have become a sport, a barrage of "little Johnny is speaking 7 languages and he is only 2", or "my nursery cost us 20,000 and we brought in a designer from Italy". It is all too easy to get sucked into this world or at least the idea of it, since as parents we all want the best for our kids.
When I was pregnant, I bought into some of this, thankfully not all of it. Nevertheless, when my son was born, he and I lined up, with him strapped into his Maclaren stroller, ready at the starting line to engage our competitors. And you know what? It never happened.
You see, competitive child rearing is only a sport if you choose to play and if you surround yourself with others already in the competition. You have to engage it, you have to choose to participate. I chose not to, which is not to say that I don't observe other parents or children who are similar in age, or wonder if my son is as socially adept as others, etc. What I am saying is that one day, if the neighbor throws one of those seemingly ever popular birthday parties for a one year old with 20 live giraffes and a 3,000 square foot bouncy house, I'm not going to try to match it. I don't care. Nor will I worry that I am scarring my child for life by not providing the same fanfare. Treat those parties like a trip to the zoo or a carnival. Your child wouldn't expect to bring the zoo or carnival home, so use that as reasoning why he or she isn't going to have the performers from Cirque du Soleil give a private performance at his or her party.
If you are engaged in such a battle with other competitive parents, try not to complain or feel inadequate, just change your mindset to enjoying the sport from the bleachers. If we engage such behavior, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

It starts when you find out you are having a baby - at least for many first time moms, there is so much information available at the tips of your fingers, what stroller to buy, whether or not to co-sleep, homebirths, vaccinations, the perfect Pottery Barn crib and bedding.
There are also opinions. On one hand, having so much information is a huge benefit, and it certainly seems that today's parents are more well informed than ever before. The difference today is that everywhere you go, parenting seems to have become a sport, a barrage of "little Johnny is speaking 7 languages and he is only 2", or "my nursery cost us 20,000 and we brought in a designer from Italy". It is all too easy to get sucked into this world or at least the idea of it, since as parents we all want the best for our kids.
When I was pregnant, I bought into some of this, thankfully not all of it. Nevertheless, when my son was born, he and I lined up, with him strapped into his Maclaren stroller, ready at the starting line to engage our competitors. And you know what? It never happened.
You see, competitive child rearing is only a sport if you choose to play and if you surround yourself with others already in the competition. You have to engage it, you have to choose to participate. I chose not to, which is not to say that I don't observe other parents or children who are similar in age, or wonder if my son is as socially adept as others, etc. What I am saying is that one day, if the neighbor throws one of those seemingly ever popular birthday parties for a one year old with 20 live giraffes and a 3,000 square foot bouncy house, I'm not going to try to match it. I don't care. Nor will I worry that I am scarring my child for life by not providing the same fanfare. Treat those parties like a trip to the zoo or a carnival. Your child wouldn't expect to bring the zoo or carnival home, so use that as reasoning why he or she isn't going to have the performers from Cirque du Soleil give a private performance at his or her party.
If you are engaged in such a battle with other competitive parents, try not to complain or feel inadequate, just change your mindset to enjoying the sport from the bleachers. If we engage such behavior, we have no one to blame but ourselves.