# so what have others called demeaning?



## octobermom (Aug 31, 2005)

Some view child restraints as demeaning, others say a child who is still nursing at say 2 that is demeaning ect what things that you view as normal and even best for your child has others suggest are actually demeaning?
Me
1) cloth diapers
2) diapers of any kind on my non potty trained 3.5-4.5 year old
3) her nursing "too long"
4) me keeping her hair short so she doesn't constantly chew chunks of it out..
5) toddler leash (you knew I'd say it







)
6) the sling
7) a play pen (pack N play)

Deanna


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## MusicianDad (Jun 24, 2008)

Hmm, well I use to put little bells on DD's shoes when we went out, once she got past the darting stage and was able to follow one simple rule... Stay where I can hear you. I've had people call it demeaning. I call it better then making a 5 year old stay in my limited field of vision, safer too.

Velco on shoes over a certain age, we did that because DD lagged behind in learning to tie her shoes and felt embarrassed having to ask DH or I to tie her shoes for her when she was 7.

There's probably more, but I can't seem to think of one right now.


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## sisteeesmama (Oct 24, 2008)

SO far no one has accused me to my face or that I have heard of of doing something that was demeaning to my dd.....lucky I guess!


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## Lindsay1234 (Dec 19, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *MusicianDad* 
Hmm, well I use to put little bells on DD's shoes when we went out, once she got past the darting stage and was able to follow one simple rule... Stay where I can hear you. I've had people call it demeaning. I call it better then making a 5 year old stay in my limited field of vision, safer too.


Bells on shoes is demeaning?! Crazy.


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## soccermama (Jul 2, 2008)

How is a sling demeaning???


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## octobermom (Aug 31, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *soccermama* 
How is a sling demeaning???









I was told I was basically squishing up my child it would like make her crippled and that was demeaning.. Other think of it as resrainting and put it in the same catagory as say a stroller or child harness so if a child that could walk is in it its demeaning and cruel. The sling brought me the most comments eaither REALLY positive ones or real negitive.. Mind you this was several years ago I probably stoped slinging for size and comfort reasons back in 2004ish slings have since made a big comeback..

Deanna


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## GoBecGo (May 14, 2008)

When DD was 15 months and in our meitai a woman came and told me she'd never be able to walk because i never let her off my back. I put her down and she promptly ran off and i stood and looked into that woman's eyes and said nothing for what must have felt a VERY long time to her....

Lots of people have lots of opinions on things. Demeaning can mean just "behaved in a certain way", it doesn't have to mean a debasement of dignity or social standing. Perhaps those who say things that we think are normal parenting practices are "demeaning" are just unclear on d meaning.







sorry i couldn't help it...


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## Storm Bride (Mar 2, 2005)

hmm...had a few people tell me that ds1 was going to grow up with gender confusion issues because he had long hair, and I was disrespecting his manhood (yes - manhood - he was 4!) by not getting it cut. *sigh*

That's about it, though.


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## MusicianDad (Jun 24, 2008)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Lindsay1234* 
Bells on shoes is demeaning?! Crazy.

Apperently I was treating her like a cat...

DD loved the bells BTW. She though they were great fun, as she could make music while walking.


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## tallulahma (Jun 16, 2006)

hmm,ive got a list

-nursing dd1 past two (my parents)
-wearing dd1 on my back past walking age (my parents)
-wearing dd1 in a sling at 2 (creepy invasive lady at subway)
-"letting" dd1 have wild messy hair & mismatched clothes (my parents)
-not feeding solids until almost a year (starving & depriving them)


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## Daphneduck (Jan 22, 2009)

I can only think of one thing that someone referred to as being demeaning. I have a friend that thinks that cribs are like cages and because of that, she feels as if they are demeaning. She told me that she hated to see my DD in a crib because she felt as if it were humiliating to DD, even though DD could not express it. My in-laws told me numerous times that swaddling DD would hamper the proper development of her limbs. They also felt that the sling would prevent her from learning to walk well, they maintained this stance even after DD started walking at 10.5 months.


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## paquerette (Oct 16, 2004)

Well, I don't know if it was quite demeaning, but my MIL insisted that I was depriving and damaging my newborn because she hadn't been outside yet at two days old, and we were mostly staying in bed, not out and around the house.


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## eclipse (Mar 13, 2003)

Well, we've all heard the leash thing, so I'll skip that









I've heard EC described as demeaning and damaging.


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## Storm Bride (Mar 2, 2005)

errr...I don't EC, myself...but I fail to see how that could possibly be more demeaning or degrading than peeing and/or pooping one's pants? Do we consider using a toilet to be more degrading than soiling oneself for an adult? (I don't think using diapers is degrading, either - I just don't get this one at all.)


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## eclipse (Mar 13, 2003)

I don't either, but I've heard it!


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## MusicianDad (Jun 24, 2008)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *eclipse* 
I don't either, but I've heard it!









Same. I don't get how it's degrading, though the last time I talked to anyone mainstream about EC they were under the impression that an EC baby is always going in their pants anyway.

Nobody called it demeaning, but when I took DS out yesterday someone wanted to know why DS was wearing a onesie and no shoes. Apperently your 5 month old is supposed to be decked out in all the latest fashion, shoes included despite the fact that DS can't walk yet.


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## Storm Bride (Mar 2, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *MusicianDad* 
Nobody called it demeaning, but when I took DS out yesterday someone wanted to know why DS was wearing a onesie and no shoes. Apperently your 5 month old is supposed to be decked out in all the latest fashion, shoes included despite the fact that DS can't walk yet.

You get it more because you're a man, too. I've seen it with both my ex and dh, who were great dads (my ex was a terrible dad later, but wonderful when ds1 was a baby/toddler). Most (not all!) people assumed that if I left off a hat, shoes or jacket, it was because I knew my baby didn't need them. But, when my ex or dh did so, the assumption was that they weren't competent to take care of a baby. Tedious.


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## MusicianDad (Jun 24, 2008)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Storm Bride* 
You get it more because you're a man, too. I've seen it with both my ex and dh, who were great dads (my ex was a terrible dad later, but wonderful when ds1 was a baby/toddler). Most (not all!) people assumed that if I left off a hat, shoes or jacket, it was because I knew my baby didn't need them. But, when my ex or dh did so, the assumption was that they weren't competent to take care of a baby. Tedious.

Yeah, that makes sense. Unfortunately.


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## purplemoon (Sep 24, 2008)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *MusicianDad* 
Same. I don't get how it's degrading, though the last time I talked to anyone mainstream about EC they were under the impression that an EC baby is always going in their pants anyway.

Nobody called it demeaning, but when I took DS out yesterday someone wanted to know why DS was wearing a onesie and no shoes. Apperently your 5 month old is supposed to be decked out in all the latest fashion, shoes included despite the fact that DS can't walk yet.

That always irked me too. I would constantly get looked at when my infants had no shoes. They never had shoes until they walked.


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## Gentle~Mommy :) (Apr 21, 2009)

My sister over the whole leash ordeal.

The only other time was when I made my son a pink bunny costume for halloween, and my husband said it was demeaning. I told him I was going to make him one next!


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## sapphire_chan (May 2, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Gentle~Mommy * 
The only other time was when I made my son a pink bunny costume for halloween, and my husband said it was demeaning. I told him I was going to make him one next!









Excellent.

I haven't gotten any remarks about things being demeaning yet.


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## SweetGuayaba (Jun 5, 2006)

No one has actually used the word demeaning yet but I have been told I am creating a monster and other such nasty and negative things for the following

Nursing until dd self-weaned
Not allowing dd to cry unattended when she has been fed and changed (apparently emotional needs are not important)
giving my dd choices and using Gentle Discipline (most the time I am not perfect) and not being authoritative in a militant way
giving them healthy vegetarian food instead of fast food or less healthy foods
not watching TV in our home (we have a set just no programming and only use for DVD viewing)
Homeschooling, of course that is the top criticism we got though now that dd1 can read and plays violin they think we are doing so well in that area (btw it was not planned for her to learn these things just happened we are eclectic unschoolers with a Waldorf influence)
co-sleeping
cloth diapering
babywearing
Many times I may not receive a negative comment directed at one of these things but then they treat me as if the reason I do them is poverty LOL. They don't even get it. Mostly I get that poor you having to do those things comments from my mom who thinks everything I do is 3rd World (her own term).
With the self-weaning I actually had a "friend" tell me it "pissed her off" (her actual words I don't talk like that) that I wanted to let dd self-wean because she felt sure that would never happen and she would just continue to nurse forever LOL I responded by saying that if dd was still nursing in University I would remember her warning and laughed which I imagine made her really PO. Never mind the fact that this person allowed her 3 yr old to drink from her beer, had a foul-mouthed 8 yr old and wondered why she was so foul-mouthed (after what she told me I felt happy to share that her childs mouth was like her mothers her reaction to that thought was priceless). She also told me that giving children choices and respecting them was a huge mistake because they needed to know how to take orders not think and that she told her dd to let mommy think for her because if she thinks without mommy she will get it wrong. I considered her comments beyond rudeness and too far so I dropped the relationship.
I wonder why people need to be so strongly opposed to these things that they feel a need to comment so negatively on something that does not affect them. I mean I disagree with bouncers, electronic baby swings, strollers for small infants, pacifiers, formula, EC and leashes but just because I would not do those things with my kids does not mean I would consider them demeaning or even pretend to tell another parent if they are right or wrong for them. Even when something is really offensive to my principles I don't dare tell another parent how to parent their child. I am even careful in the wording of my advice when asked because I don't want to be insulting/offensive. Each child and family is different and their needs are therefore different why can't that just be respected.


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## SweetGuayaba (Jun 5, 2006)

Oh and I don't even tell people I don't vax (not even my mother). Could you imagine the reactions LOL. I don't want to deal with that ignorance.


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## peaceful_mama (May 27, 2005)

at this thread....

none of my kids wore shoes until they *walked*, the ability to walk pushing a toy at the gym playgroup counts...

(well DD did with ONE outfit cause a friend gave me the outfit and the shoes and they were just SO CUTE)

I've been told I should get my kids off goat's milk.

And I'm depriving them by not giving them "both cultures" holidays. Here is the thing. DH is a born Muslim, I converted long before I met and married him. Our family is NOT multi-religion, so WHY would I raise my children like we are?
My idea has always been that if friends/family that do celebrate want to also include us in their card-sending, gift-giving, whatever...we accept. On the terms of friends/family giving a gift.
We do "cultural' Stuff like Thanksgiving.

And we have our OWN holidays.

So HOW am I depriving them? (It was "depriving" not "demeaning" I guess)

also I didn't use a stroller for my infant, felt my baby should be worn and loved doing it...............UNTIL....I had DS2, who is the world's most warm-blooded creature, and he is HAPPY in his stroller! I have wrap-worn this child on a less than 70 degree day naked except for a diaper and in 10 minutes he was overheated, sweaty and crabby.

Oh and I should feed baby jars of food. Why? I thought the whole POINT of giving them food was so that they um.....learn to eat food?

I don't get so many of the 'depriving' comments now that I've laid off of other people and just concentrated on what *I* don't want to buy/feed them. (In regard to junk foods)


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## Mama.Pajama (Jul 16, 2008)

DS (19 months) hasn't gotten his first haircut yet (simply because his hair is gorgeous and we don't want to chop it off), and sometimes I clip his bangs out of his face. Then people say he looks like a girl (I personally think it's sexist to designate hair clips only to females! What's next- laundry detergent?). I just laugh the remarks off usually, but deep down, I know they are all homophobic.


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## ASusan (Jun 6, 2006)

Well, if we're talking about demeaning as loss of human dignity, DH thinks that having DS wear used clothing is demeaning. He doesn't want DS to wear anything but used clothing. Hand-me-downs from a relative might be ok, but we have no child relatives younger than teenaged. (DS is 19 mos.)


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## Ligeia (Jul 24, 2006)

Let's see, here's my list.
*not feeding dd meat as we are vegetarian
*letting her run around with no shoes (lol I got lots of comments on that)
*babywearing ("are you sure he/she's ok in there?")
*letting dd and now ds get completely muddy and disastrous


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## ASusan (Jun 6, 2006)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Gentle~Mommy * 
The only other time was when I made my son a pink bunny costume for halloween, and my husband said it was demeaning. I told him I was going to make him one next!

Oh, yeah. Anything with ears on it is demeaning, according to DH. (I've sort of started to agree with him on that.







)


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## my3peanuts (Nov 25, 2006)

Not allowing my kids all the junk food they want
Nursing past a year
Deciding to stop spanking
Letting my son have longer hair
My son wearing pink
Not vaccinating


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## ashleedio (Jan 8, 2008)

A friend of mine who recently graduated with a degree in early childhood development made a comment to a mutual friend about how my ECing with dd is "developmentally damaging" and how she'll be having accidents in her pants until she's 5, because "developmentally" she's not ready to sit on a potty chair. FWIW, we haven't had a bowel movement in a diaper since she was 5 months old (other than when she was sick).

*EYE ROLL*


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## MammaV (Jul 13, 2002)

Nursing DD til she was about 3 - got a lot of flack from the Ped and DH's grandma.
Not vaxing
homeschooling/unschooling


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## OGirlieMama (Aug 6, 2006)

Not sure if this quite suits the category, but my MIL implied that a photo I sent out when my girls were 6 months old was demeaning. It was a picture of all four of their chubby little thighs tangled up together, and the caption was "Anyone want a drumstick?" She thought they would be offended when they are old enough to worry that their skinny teenage thighs are chubby. Oy.

Then the following Christmas she sent out a photo of my girls and my niece (same age) naked in the tub, with my identical twins mis-labeled in the caption, without asking any parents if it was OK to use the pic. Oooookay.


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## octobermom (Aug 31, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Gentle~Mommy * 
My sister over the whole leash ordeal.

The only other time was when I made my son a pink bunny costume for halloween, and my husband said it was demeaning. I told him I was going to make him one next!









so who else had this picture? 













Deanna


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## meemee (Mar 30, 2005)

i have never heard the word 'demeaning'. however i have had innocent words used in the implied sense that i am 'hurting' my dd or setting her up for failure for life. or i got the look.

HOWEVER on the other side, the v. thing that got me flack was the very thing that got me 'good job' type comments too.

cosleeping and nursing even though she graduated first grade. however i also get how awesome that is.

- for letting her go without shoes when seh didnt want to. for letting her run on the bark at the playground when seh was little. she basically wore no shoes till the age of 4 - almost 5. for letting her walk around town with no shoes on.







she was careful and looked out for glass. she has never ever even had a splinter when she spent most of her first 5 years with no shoes on. i was a little concerned when seh started K how i was going to keep shoes AND socks on her.







: she just wore them as if it was something she did everyday.

- for letting her go out the house with green coloured skin upto her elbow.

- for letting her walk around with her special hat on when she was TWO. her underwear. that is the only hat she ever tolerated ever.

- for letting her use her marker on her body and go out like that at TWO. uhmmm that is not marker people!!! those were her tatoos she drew on herself







:

- for not insisting that she listens to me. that i should not let her lead the way at the grocery store and follow her.

- the most i got though was i was spoiling her by letting her have her own opinion as a toddler.

- for letting her crawl out the grocery store on an imaginary leash. she was a v. happy dog you see







:

- oooooh my fav. dd the first year looked like a boy. seriously. even in girly clothes she looked like a boy. to make it worse she was wearing 'boy' clothes because my friend had passed on her son's clothes to us. i was confusing her :eyeroll: yeah at 10 months i was.

- oh one more. the family i was nannying for a v. short while - the mom would get really upset and angry that i was depriving my 18 month old because seh had never had a mcdonalds hamburger or fries, or that she had never had pop tarts and kool aid ever leave alone for breakfast and that she had never tasted ramen noodles with peas (







: that I LOVE). that is what her 3 year olds ate.

however i got many, many more positive comments rather than the opposite.


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## vixnix (Jun 11, 2009)

I remember explaining EC to someone and them saying "like Pavlov's dogs?" with this kind of distate in their voice. I was like "Yeah, exactly."


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## BetsyNY (Jul 1, 2005)

This thread is becoming kind of a catch-all. I have to say, no one has ever used the word "demeaning" in reference to any parenting decision we has made.


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## churndash (Mar 25, 2009)

The only thing I can recall which elicited the specific word "demeaning" was when I indulged my daughter in her "I'm a kitty" phase. I let her curl up in my lap while I petted her and let her drink from a bowl on the floor and crawl around, etc.


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## VisionaryMom (Feb 20, 2007)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *SweetGuayaba* 
Many times I may not receive a negative comment directed at one of these things but then they treat me as if the reason I do them is poverty LOL. They don't even get it. Mostly I get that poor you having to do those things comments from my mom who thinks everything I do is 3rd World (her own term).

Heh, I thought we were alone in getting this comment. I've had the "third world" comment as well, but many, many people assume we're poor. DH actually makes really good money, so we often laugh about it. It does create a struggle for me, though, because on the one hand, I want to scream "we don't not have cable because we can't afford it," and on the other hand, I don't want to make a big deal out of it as if it's "bad" to be poor.


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