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May contain swears, slang, dark humour, graphic pictures, nudity, sexual references, drug references, and anything else that can be considered offensive.
Seriously.

Saturday, March 5, 2011

I tried SO HARD....





I have 3 children, as I've stated before.  They are healthy, happy, normal, cute children. I love them with all of my heart, and always will. It hasn't been easy raising three children, but I've worked my ass off to give them what they need. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people out there that think I am not doing a very good job. Let's check it out!


1. Breastfeeding/bottle feeding.
This is the NUMBER 1 thing that I get ridiculed for. 
I did not breastfeed my children. I attempted to breastfeed my first two, and was unsuccessful. By the time my third one came around, I went straight to formula. Did I love it? Not necessarily. Would I have breastfed if I could have? More than likely.
Hey - guess what? My kids are fine. They didn't shrivel up, fail to grow hair or gain weight, or any other stupid thing that some people assume will happen. They aren't lesser people because they were not attached to my breast for a year. Oh, and also? I'm not a lesser person because I didn't have them attached to my breast for a year. I'm just fine, thank you.
Bottle feeding is not 'lazy'; it's not cruel, it's not terrible, it's not something that you need to frown upon. So please stop.
OH, one more thing. I absolutely loved it when people would tell me how 'lucky' I was because 'bottle fed babies sleep more than breastfed ones'. Really? My oldest son must have missed that memo, considering he was up every 2 hours at night until he was about 7 months old. 


2. Vaccinations
This is a big one, and very controversial. This article explains one of the main reasons people are under the assumption that vaccines are wrong. Okay, hold on. This isn't supposed to be a blog about whether vaccinations cause damage or not. 
Here's the main thing:
If I have decided to vaccinate my kids, then that's that. I believe it will help them. End of story. 

If you have decided not to vaccinate your kids, then that's that. You believe it will help them. End of story. 
Do I disagree with your view? Hell yes. Do I think you're a bad parent? No. I think that whether we decide to vaccinate or not, we are doing what we actually believe is the best for our children. I just really hope that it's not because Jenny Mcarthy told you so.


To be fair, she's pretty persuasive

3. Co-sleeping/lack thereof
This is not as extreme as the others. I do not co-sleep.
I will not co-sleep. In fact, I have never had any of my children share a room with me. Why? Because it's my freakin' room! I can hear them just fine through two closed doors with 5 feet between them. You don't believe me?? Here's some fun facts. 
Yes, you read that properly. A baby crying is louder than your alarm clock, about the same as a motorcycle, and only slightly quieter than an ambulance siren.  Indeed. 
I'm just one of those people that weigh pros and cons, and pick the one with less in the 'con' column. To me, the dangers of co-sleeping out weigh having to walk to another room to feed my baby. Also, I would not be able to get my freak on with a baby in the room. -shrugs- That's just me.
I've been called a 'mean Mom' for 'forcing my child to sleep so far away' from me. Hey, that's harsh! I give my kids lots of love and cuddles, just not in my bed, at night.

4. Cloth diapers/disposables
I have never used cloth diapers. Ever. My children all had/have store bought disposable diapers. This is the one and only thing that I admit to doing because of laziness. Plain and simple! I honestly wish that I had the patience and guts to use cloth diapers. Alas, I do not. Still, please don't hate me for it.

Please remember that I am not putting anyone down, hating on anyone, or forcing my opinion. Stating my opinion, yes. Defending my decisions? Only because I've been forced to. I already know what my comments section will look like after this, but whatever. The idea is that you can't tell me I'm a bad parent because I bottle fed my vaccinated, disposable diaper wearing child in their own bedroom. I can't tell you that you're a bad parent because you breast fed your non-vaccinated child in your bed. Don't call me out for being 'lazy' or 'wrong', please. It's totally unfair. Let's just agree that we all want the best for our children, and we love them. That's why we had them, right?!

11 comments:

  1. I've no lessons to teach!
    I'll reply individually!
    and the p on my keyboard is being stuid <ha! see?
    I've never thought of you as being a bad mama. I breastfed originally because there is so much pressure to do so, coming from all directions. I feel sad admitting that to you, honestly. If I'm contributing to that, then I feel bad, but I've always been a member of the 'feed the baby with whatever means you have' You helped me so much when I was really struggling, and you came over and told me that it's OKAY to give baby a bottle. So I did! Luca still gets bottles when Dennis is home because breastmilk creeps him the fuck out. Formula is designed to nurture, and so, good for you! You didn't let your children starve. I KNOW how expensive that stuff is, and I know a few moms on assistance who've had no choice but to feed their babies skim milk. Their babies are okay! I don't think they did anything but feed their babies using whatever means they had. I'm certainly not going to hold you formula feeding against you.

    Jenny Mccarthy is a dolt. I really don't get why anyone would stop vaccinating without putting a ton of research into it, and just trust some b-list celebrity with their childs health. There is a film I know I've told you about called "vaccine nation" which I recommend if you do want to understand my point of veiw on the whole issue. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ulAX_MLLhY I believe that there is a place for vaccines, but the viruses they are treating mutate so quickly, that they become obselete by the time they are given out.

    I co-sleep because it works with breastfeeding, and I don't want to buy another damn baby crib. He grows out of those really quickly. Dennis and my sex life has suffered as a result of Luca sleeing with us, and at times I regret co-sleeing but ultimatly, I really do love the cuddlin.

    Haha I started using cloth because they look cute! Later I found out about the dioxins in disosable. Haha, lucas wearing a disposible right now. I'm not even kidding you. I don't have anything against disosable. I am trying to buy fair trade things right now, so I've been buying these unbleached fair trade disosables from ava marie... 30 dollars for 32 diaers. UGH. I would never have used cloth when Luca had his runny new-baby poops. Back then I have gdiapers. Seriously? Not the greatest choice. They cost more then disposibles for a cloth diaer with a disposible insert. Stupid investment. I try not to buy disposibles or I get lasy and end up using them instead of cloth. After spending 250 on cloth diapers. Nice.


    Never feel like I'm judging you on your decisions. My posts on facebook are there for me as much as they are there for other moms. In terms of the vaccinations, when I found out what I did on them, I felt it was necessary to spread awareness. I almost vaccinated Luca, and I would have felt bad about that for a long time (I'm NOT saying any of the people who are reading this should feel bad for that. this is just me)
    I just don't know what else to say. we're both mothers. We do things the oposite way of one another. That doesn't mean anything. There is so much more to us then this one thing. So many other things we could get along with one another on if we could look past the choices we make as mothers. Never feel like I'm Judging you, Laura. I try hard to not judge, even when I feel passionatly about something for myself. I spend alot of time taking apart my thoughts, and trying to better myself as a person and I've come to realise that you can plant seeds, but not all will srout you know? Ultimatly, I'd prefer having an educted friend who disagrees with me then an uneducated friend who blindly foollows.

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  2. I would just like to make a quick point on the vaccines thing and the interesting arguement
    "but the viruses they are treating mutate so quickly, that they become obselete by the time they are given out."
    I'm currently doing a degree that focuses a lot on research, and I can guarntee you that that arguement is NOT case. I will not get into the flu shot arguement at the moment because that one is different. BUT childhood vaccines like Infanrix, Prevenar, Men-C, MMR, Varicella etc have had extensive research into them at the moment they are still doing a pretty damn good job of protecting children. and YES all vaccines carry risk, however, if you take the MMR, specifically measels as an example. out of 1 million people there is a chance that 1 child recieving the vaccine will develop a condition known as encephelitis. AKA it is unbelieveable rare. If a child actually gets measels the risk of developing encephelitis becomes 1 in 1000. Which if your math and mine are the same. All vaccines have similar statistics.

    Research is a VERY dangerous thing for people who are not trained HOW to research. google is NOT a valid research tool and you need to have the critical thinking ability to be able to adqequately judge an article, find its biases, find its strenghts, find other articles with valid credibility as well. Just because you find some video on youtube that gives you a few facts that you want to hear does NOT make it an arguement you should base a decision like vaccinating your child on.

    You can find anything you want to find if your looking hard enough, The challenge becomes knowing whether or not you should actually believe it.

    Critical thinking= Word of the day

    Thanks for reading :)

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  3. But you're so incredibly biased and I don't appreciate you attacking my judgement, nor the assumption that my beliefs are invalid and I get my information from google. I really DONT want to go into this here, out of respect, but if you'd like to go into this further, my email is uh_oh_tomato@hotmail.com

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  4. I do research... real (not simply googled) research plain and simple! that is NOT biased. I'm just giving my opinion, which I have formed based reading and critically evaluating what I read. That is not attacking you, and if you think it is, you are being waay to sensitive.

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  5. It's not worth my time trying to justify myself, I don't think I'm being sensitive, I think you're being rude. I've given you my email, as stated you can write me there. This is Lauras page and I'm NOT doing this here.

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  6. I must add, was the entire point of this blog that there are different opinions and different ways of raising a child? You're no different then the ladies at the playground who inquire about whether you formula fed or cloth diapered your children. Do not try to make me feel bad for my choices, and do not try to make me feel inferior with some unamed degree you don't have yet. You succeeded in upsetting me, you've called me closed minded but are you really any different, mr/mrs annonymous?

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  7. First off, I will admit, I have biases. I am a nurse so I am very pro vaccination

    That aside; I just want to comment on a few things. First off I do agree with annonymous in the fact that google is not synonnomous with research. It is not properly filtered, you can't really access peer reviewed articles and it is very difficult to find actual credible articles.

    2nd off; I would like to note that in NO WAY does not vacccinating your children make you a bad mother. I may not agree with it or think it is the best choice of action, but hey, they are not my kids. You obviously believe, for some reason, that vaccination is bad and are chosing what you believe is best.

    Finally; I understand that this topic of vaccinations is bit of a hot topic and people can get very passionate about their beliefs. However, that being said. When you have beliefs of such a controversial nature, both of you have to understand that a lot of people may find your views to be less than desirable. When getting into discussion of this nature, try not to let your emotions cloud your judgement. Stand true to what you believe, rather than lash out at the person debating with you. Just try defend your standpoint and keep your emotions out of it. Nothing clouds an arguement like emotions

    ******I am not attempting to offend anyone*****
    I used to be a very emotional person in arguements and the best thing I learned when debating a hot topic was to keep emotions out of it

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  8. Ps, Laura! Loved the article! it was amazing and I pretty much agree with everything in it lol!

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  9. I like what you have to say, Maddie! Your approach in the subject is effective and I don't feel attacked or put down I own a book called "Saying No to Vaccines" by docter sherry tenpenny, and this is where my research (not any google pseudo-research) started, although I have downloaded her other books, I don't know if Laura has access to these which is why I recommended the film, "vaccine nation". Not because I'm trying to coax her into being antivax, but in the case she may want to understand my veiwpoints better. We do have a family member who's daughter was a victim of a bad vaccine batch as well, and she'll never be the same. So we do feel passionate, but not to the extent I'd ever put another mommy down for making a decision as essential to their child's life as vaccination.

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  10. and i realize that Sherry Tenpenny isn't ro vaccine, but I don't know anyone who isn't biased when it comes down to it. As well as reading her books, I've read up on the history of vaccines and the cdc website on vaccines and a few pdf documents on how they work. I'm not going to just blindly agree with tenpenny on something that half the world says is an essential part of healthcare.

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  11. Interesting blog, Laura. I love the debate you sparked. I believe in selective-vax, cloth-diapering, breast-feeding, extended-rear facing, and co-sleeping, so I hope you'll still respect me as a friend, even though my views on parenting differ from yours.

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