I'm 8 months pregnant with my second child and we are staying in accommodation 3 hours away from our home town because it's not equipped to have babies there. My first child being only 12 months old is now walking and takes off so quickly. There are 3 steps at the back door and the back door is locked all the time. Last weekend partner Ieft the back door open and while I was on the phone to his Mum, son goes straight out there and falls down the stairs. He was fine, I checked him over and he cried for a few minutes then was off running around again. That was the end of it, so I thought. Since then I had a friend from home town ask if my son was OK because she had heard he fell down some stairs, at first I was confused, my kid falls a lot at the moment so it took a few seconds to remember. I asked her how she knew about that? And that he's fine, cried for a few minutes then was off again. She said she heard it from someone who I don't even speak to or have anything to do with but this person so happens to be friendly with my partners mum. Partners sisters have both rung and asked how he was and how we should have taken him to hospital and that I should watch him better, even though my partner was home at the time. Then partners mother rings again to check up on him and to let me know that someone she doesn't like said to her I need to get my act together if I'm going to have 2 kids soon, referring to how I let him fall down the stairs. This is where I confronted my partners Mum and asked her how did all these people even find out? My child is fine. He fell, cried for a few minutes then was back at it again, he tries to run everywhere so he falls multiple times a day. She then tried to blame my partners friend for telling everyone about it because he visited us on the same day and we told him about the fall, only so he knew to make sure he locked the back door. It definitely wasn't him, he didn't even ask any more questions about it and was playing around with our son so he knew how fine he was. It has to be my partners Mum making a huge deal out of nothing, she has seen the stairs herself and she was told that he was fine as she rang back. What do I do about this? It feels like everyone back home thinks he fell down 2 flights of stairs and was unconcious for a day.
6 Replies
Many years ago i was training in childcare. One segment of my training was to spend a day observing a family daycare operation (there was me and 2 other girls from tafe).
In the split second it took the opperater to explain something to us, one of the toddlers fell down the 1 stair leading outside and split his chin open, 1 damn stair, 4 capable adults standing not 4 feet away!
Children = accidents, it's inevitable!
Let people think what they wanna think. If they care enough to ask you, you can set them straight!
The gossips will find something or someone else to gossip about before you know it.
Don't let this get to you x
Thank you x
Gossips are going to gossip!
I’m pretty sure people said a lot of terrible things about my parenting. My son was the one going down very high slippery dips head first at 18months old. He was just that kid with incredibly good motor skills. He never ever fell. Not because I was a good mother, but because he was just very able at that age.
That also meant he was the kid that scaled up a book shelf and out a window in the middle of the night when he was 2!
You’ve called them out and corrected the information so hopefully they puts a stop to the nonsense. BTW my parenting experience is so not the norm, and all my friends tell stories about how there kids fell over ALL the TIME. But hopefully you understand it doesn’t matter how good a parent you are, someone is going to judge.
It's someone that doesn't like you taking information and using it to make you look bad.
1. Those people shouldn't be telling you that people are judging you. It's not your business or concern. How someone chooses to see things is their choice and says everything about them.
2. If you think MIL gossipped but didn't badmouth you, then warn her that someone she told did because the story has changed a lot from truth and spread. People that are on your side would not be part of that.
My toddlers first day in daycare I got a phone call half way through because he’d run full force towards a cubby house, tripped and got gravel(?) rash on half his face. This daycare is extremely good and have many educators, toddlers are just accident prone. The problem these days is everyone’s a “perfect mum”.
Oh the stories I have from my 2 boys. Face first off the backs of lounges and retaining walls. Then the time the builder left the front door open and little mate was in next doors yard. That’s just my first boy! We are constantly on concussion watch. I am lucky that my family know we are good parents and that accidents certainly do happen! Take it all with a grain of salt. People will always judge you, you just have to work out which ones have your back- and it’s not the ones talking about you x