Parenting Advice, sort of...

I am going to take a rest bit from my current trend of socio-ecological ranting and take a parenting tangent for a while. I have received an inordinate amount of advice from a wide range of people recently. But it all turns out to be crap in the end. It is almost like the litigious aspects of our society permeate everywhere and effect even any tip or suggestion we can possibly think of. Everything is punctuated by "no offense" or "within reason" even statements like "moderation" and "with caution" are just constant in our vocabulary. It is so tiring to talk about anything these days.

I am just sick of everything being a "not really". Take, for example, talking to experts or "people in the field" about 3 year old behavior. Everything is punctuated with statements like activities which are age appropriate or age appropriate behavior. When you talk about age appropriate behavior your are then told that all children vary. This basically means that each child's age appropriate behavior is individual to the child... so, basically, that means the answer is a statement which will not answer any of you questions but make the professional feel helpful. So much for toys marked for 3+ years and older.

Advice just seems riddled with new and broader aspects today. No one wants to offend someone or misunderstand the situation or to offer any advice which could possibly make them liable for anything that might conceivably happen after they open their mouth... It is too the point of craziness these days. I have written in another blog post about greenwashing and included a little rant about a baby blanket I bought...

I am going to paraphrase here... Although I do not know if it is in bad taste to paraphrase your own blogs... bear with me. When our son was born in October of 2008 we were given a number of gifts. One of the gifts was a blanket. Since my kids have been born I started reading a lot more labels. The label for this blanket was ridiculous!!!! It was a cheap little thing but the label on the blanket clearly stated, in bright and decorated type, BABY BLANKET. The funny thing is that the care instructions label then stated "Danger, suffocation hazard. Decoration purposes only. Not for use as a blanket."

Let me try and parse this so I understand it: This is a baby blanket which cannot be used as a baby blanket? Am I missing something? If my baby had suffocated (knock on wood, genuflect, cross fingers and hope to die) while using this blanket would that statement hold up in court? Why put it on there? Why even get yourself in the business of baby blankets if your own advice is not to use them? Why can't anyone answer these questions without a Ph.D. or a legal disclaimer?

So I am sure that you can see where I am headed here. I am finding it hard to be a modern parent, having to weed out the legalese from the real intent, so much so that you can get lost in it all. I wonder, sometimes, how we ever survived... Think about it for a minute will you? Our parents did everything wrong... we slept on our stomachs, we ate home made baby food and even played with wooden or metal toys. For God's sake we drank tap water straight from the faucet!!!

I am just so tired of trying to find the real message under all of the other bullshit. It is like having an additional day job.