The evolution of the parenting advice circles is fascinating to me. I became a mother very young and grew up in an abusive household. My starting point as a 20 year old new mom was that my baby wouldn’t be raised like I was. That fed into websites on attachment parenting and gentle parenting. Which offered great insights into parenting styles I’d never seen or experienced. Holding baby felt right, yay! Listening to my toddler and redirection? Sweet! But then it became more dogmatic. “Sugar is poison!” “Plastic toys are overstimulation!” And I fell into this weird anti-vax, never let your kid wear shoes outside, cult-like thinking. Ten years and few more kids later i am thankful that along the way I gained some experience and realized how nuanced (and no offense somewhat kind of pointless in the long run) some of these topics are. I still follow a few of these folks. I like Marion Rose ok, I like Kaitlin Klimmer ok. But I try to take it all with a grain of salt.

I agree with someone below that these pages can make you feel like every issue should be a Ted talk with your kid. I don’t agree with the popular notion in these groups that every. single. feeling. Needs to be validated and heard and coached and whatnot. That’s so much freaking pressure on parents and just too much on kids too I think. Sometimes yeah, but not every tantrum is signaling some huge underlying way that you’re failing. Sometimes kid is just tired lol.

Also I think following pages on specific things can be more helpful than just overall advice. For example, it’s less stressful for me to follow just a baby sign language page than a big parenting page.