The oddest thing happened to me yesterday.
I took the Boy on a walk. That’s not the weird part….we walk almost every day. We walked our usual route and took a break in a new park to swing on the baby swing. Still nothing unusual. There was another mom there with her two children-one that happened to be about the Boy’s age. So, we struck up a conversation. That’s what new moms do. While we were talking, she asked what milestones my baby had hit. Fair question- I ask it a lot to other moms. So I told her.
Here’s the thing, at six months old the Boy is crawling, sitting up on his own, going from lying down to sitting up, rolling both ways, pulling himself up…he’s hit a lot of milestones right on time or early. I’m proud of him because he’s very determined and, yes, he’s physically ahead of the game. I think he’s awesome and I happily tell people the milestones he’s accomplished.
Well, I should have been looking at her face as I was rambling off my list of milestones, because as I was naming my fourth one, she grabbed her baby, called her toddler, stood up and declared loudly, “You are incredibly rude. Bragging will win you NO FRIENDS” and walked off.
Wow. I just sat there. Wow. Really? In my head I was stammering…”But, but, you asked me…then I was going to ask you…we were just having a conversation…”. What would you have done?
It was too late though, because she was storming off, probably muttering under her breath about that ridiculously rude mother she just had a conversation with, leaving me shell-shocked and wondering if Milestone Envy was an anomaly or something that we (= the Boy + me) will have to deal with for the rest of our lives. Perhaps I will have Milestone Envy when everyone else is singing the ABC song and the Boy is just staring.
Funnily enough, even though this was the worst encounter that I’d ever had with Milestone Envy, it’s not the first. Milestones are a big topic of conversation within mommy circles- they are always discussed- and I often get a few snide comments and/or glares when I mention the things the Boy has done.
So, what to do?? Perhaps I’ll deflect the question and ask the asker what milestones their child has hit, never mentioning the Boys. Maybe I’ll quickly mention that he has “NO TEETH! At 6 months, NO TEETH! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT??! TOOTHLESS!”. That will make the asker forget their milestone question. Maybe I’ll just say he
rolls and sits and leave out the crawling and going from lying down to sitting, which both seem to get the most glares.
What has really struck me, though, is that the longer I’m in this “new-mommy” life, the more I realize that it’s an awful lot like high school. It’s a social game. There are rules. Apparently one of them is to not tell anyone that your child has done anything out of the norm lest you look like a bragger. I’m going to have to learn these rules quickly!
Love the advice!!! Would any of you smart mommies like to move in with me?? Just for the next year or so?? LOL
I agree with the comments above – Melissa and Jen obviously speak from experience. But, I think it’s also really important to be proud of being proud of his accomplishments. All kids will eventually do all things, and get their teeth!
Just wait until these little people do much more complex things and it becomes comparisons of your child’s friendships, grades, athleticism, personality and overall likability that is being judged. Be proud of your son but be conscious. I have found out that if you want to keep the peace with some moms you need to smile and nod if your kid is ahead of the game. I have written about this a lot about my kids accomplishments in sports. When they are good you can be proud. When they are the best you smile and nod.
The Mommy Scene can be vicious, sad but true. I have found that honesty is not always the best policy, and if someone asks you a question about your child most of the time they are looking for a polite way to start telling you about their own child. My advice? Don’t even go there, deflect the question around to the other child.
Your son sounds like he is doing wonderfully though, wow! My son is eight months old, can sit and roll, but is still working on crawling. He spends lots of time doing the rocking-thing, so it should be any day! And he only JUST got his first tooth.
The thing I learned when my daughter was young about new Moms and milestones is that it is easy to loose sight of the fact that nearly all babies, at some point, will walk/crawl/sit/roll; in the long run it won’t really matter when. We are all so proud of our babies, so invested in them, and love them so much that it can be easy to feel competitive, especially when there is a black-and-white guide to when these things should happen. Plus I believe that the workplace competitiveness that many of us have just spills over to our kids because there is no other way to satisfy that need. The Mommy you were speaking to was probably very competitve, and felt needlessly inadequate… Much easier to get mad at you than deal with her own feelings!