My daughter is a cute midget who is growing up too fast. I sometimes am amazed of her progress and the choices she makes for herself.
For instance her language choice is at least weird when you hear about our situation. For almost half a year now, she only wants to speak English; maybe because all of our friends are English speaking people or because she hears me speaking English a lot throughout the day. She refuses to use Italian even though she understands it perfectly and sometimes she would grant a “Grazie” or “Ciao” to someone really special.
I avoid speaking to other mothers about the choices I make as a mother because at the end of the day we all judge each other and our choices as parents are mostly never understood. Let’s face it, our kid is the most important one and we all choose different ways of raising him/her that don’t necessarily apply for other parents. There are though some common rules that we all need to respect, but as I have seen here and in other countries there are always those parents who try and find excuses to go around them. The perfect example is taking your sick child to preschool anyway. I am terrified when I see that every time I have to teach a class in schools or preschools. I don’t understand why would someone torture their child and taking him/her to school when obviously he/she can barely stay awake and coughs all over the place. Also the healthy children become exposed to the virus and they too will eventually be sick and spread it further. Yes, I do know the common answer: “I have no one to leave him with.” or “He is not that sick, he only has a mild cough.” and I will say to that: Really?
First of all there are many families who have no help whatsoever with their children and still somehow, manage to do everything they have to do. We are one of those families and I would never take my daughter sick to school knowing that not only she will suffer because of it, but also the other children and teachers. Secondly, the “He is not that sick” excuse has trapped me into bed with a cold, many times this winter because they were coughing and sneezing in my face (a mild cough indeed) and in a week I had a fever. So, no, there are no excuses when it comes to health and this is just one of the many examples I see around me.
I am asked at least four times a week why isn’t my daughter going to asilo nido yet. Well, that is one of the reasons, I want to keep her healthy and safe for as long as I can. Although I am blamed for allowing her to spend more time with adults than with children and I have been told that this will impede her from making friends her age or being social later on, I ignore those advise because she has shown me in many situations that that is bullshit. I have also made a promise to myself that she will at least have 2 years at home with me and her father, like any child should in my opinion, before I send her off into the world. And she is only two (people often think she is 4 because she is so tall).
We have what seems a weird situation regarding language, opinions about raising a kid and her behavior, but that’s the thing, we all have that. We all have a what seems similar but totally different situation from the other person. We all see things differently from the outside and we all pretend to know what’s best for every one, but that’s so unfair and untrue. Just think about it, in the same second when you waste time judging some other parent’s choices, you are being judged by ten other parents too. Didn’t realize that, huh?
