This week, a lovely friend was telling me about how her mother-in-law has secretly been spoon feeding her son behind her back, when she wishes to follow the baby led weaning route. I was pretty horrified, and we chatted about the level of disrespect for her that it showed, and I sympathised about how upsetting it must have been for her to find that out, and to feel that her mother-in-law didn't care about her wishes.
Imagine my utter surprise and horror when the exact same thing happened to me the next day! After kindly looking after Miss Isabelle for a few hours, I picked her up from my parents' only to be informed during the course of conversation that my mom had spoon fed her banana.
Now, of course, I am not so insane as to think that spoon feeding Isabelle once is the end of the world. Certainly not, and that's not really what the problem is with any of this. To me, and to my friend, it's the total disregard of our parenting wishes, and the blatant lack of disrespect that was shown, that is the issue.
I'm very well aware that my family don't understand our decision to follow baby led weaning. They don't understand it, the probably don't like it, they really just don't "get" it. And that's fair enough, I understand that it's a very new concept to them and it challenges a long held belief that babies are spoon fed purees. If somebody had told me about baby led weaning two years ago, I probably would have thought they were a bit nuts too! And that's OK, because different opinions on parenting are OK to have. I don't even mind if people talk about me when I'm not there, and talk about how insane I am for parenting the way I do, and how they would never do it that way (because let's face it, don't we all do that?!). And I'm sure my family do that as well.
But what is not OK, and what I do very much care about, is when my parenting decisions and wishes are so blatantly disrespected by my own family, who should know better. I have thought long and hard about the way I raise Isabelle, and Simon and I have made the decisions we have based on research, and what we feel is best for our family. We try to explain our decisions to our families to help them understand why we are doing things in a way they have never seen before (cloth nappies...using wraps and slings...baby led weaning- really all my crunchy habits!), but it isn't always easy when you feel very unsupported.
What upset me most about this situation, is the doubt that was put into my own mind about whether I am raising Isabelle 'correctly'. Being a new mother is difficult enough as it is - constantly worrying about whether what I do is good enough for Isabelle - without having others put doubt in my mind as well. Luckily, both Simon and I are agreed that our decisions ARE best for Isabelle, and so we will continue to raise her in our "unconventional" way.
Of course, grandparents mean well. There is no doubt that they just want the best for their darling grandchildren. But I wonder how many other mummies and daddies have experienced a "meddling grandparent", how many grandparents experienced it themselves when they were new parents, and how it made them feel? Hopefully in years to come I will look back on this when I am with my grandchildren, and respect the way that Isabelle choses to raise them, even if I don't agree. If not, she can direct me back this way for a quick reminder about how to show respect to others....
