A Little Comparison Might Be a Good Thing
One of the best pieces of advice we got when our children were little was not to compare them with other children and not to compare ourselves to other parents. There are so many milestones ripe for comparison when you have babies. Is he crawling or standing yet? How tall is she? How much does he eat? How much does she weigh? Do you nurse or bottle feed? Do you leave him in day care? Do you read to her every night? Is he in a play group? My husband remembers being grilled at the park like this by an absolute stranger (perhaps stranger than most). The woman sized up the child my husband was babysitting, then began comparing her to her own. "When did your baby start walking? Speaking? Eating solid foods?" My husband guessed at answers he didn't know exactly, and she scoffed and gloated every time her baby won this pointless competition. "Nine months? Mine was seven." Each time Tom's baby "won," she said he must not be corr...