Responsible Parenting

[misfratz]

Here is a list of what I believe parents have a responsibility to do for their child/children.

Follow up-to-date medical advice on maintaining the health of the child, for example:

• Breastfeeding to at least the age of six months, where physically possible,
• Following national vaccination programmes, which are medically proven, rather than gormless

Comments

[cdaae]

Totally and completely agree, except have done very little reading on vaccinations as I will never have to deal with the issue. Don't see point in vaccinating against some things like chicken pox, as it can lead to a decrease in immunity in adulthood, when you then get a nastier condition.

[pofflewomp]

yes dunno about all this mmr stuff. apparently the science says it is ok. my mother insists i was a nice baby until my measles injection, after which i allegedly turned nasty and miserable. so my brother had measles instead, which was really cool coz he was covered in spots and used to scare old ladies away in the town when he sat up naked in his pram.
they should give parents the choice to have the mmr injections separately and stop all the fuss.

[pofflewomp]

only bit i would argue about at all is to say i think many working and middle class parents neglect to provide diversity of role models, and that working class people i have met have on the whole been a lot more prejudiced about class, gender and race than middle class people - lots of them claim liberalism is a luxury they can't afford, though they seem to manage to afford cars and sky tv and meat and stuff.
i think you are perfectly entitled to rant at anyone who does not meet your ideals - well, assuming they aren't trying their best! they're very sensible ideals. although the reusable nappies bit sounds very hard. many mothers i know say they just can't cope what with working as well and all. need more affordable laundry services.
why are so many parents so shite? i'm still for mass sterilisation, apart from the fact that it is evil of course.

[lordsuperfast]

The re-usable nappies bit wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, more a matter of being organised, and willing to get a bit mucky (which is pretty much a given with babies, anyway). We did need to use the washing machine and dryer a lot more, and so was consequently a pain when these broke down when R was about one week old.

The main problem came when R went into nursery, because they basically weren't willing to learn to use them; left them on too long so R's clothes became wet; eventually flat out refused to take R unless she wore disposables. Given that they came into daily contact with lots of babies/toddlers this was a bit unreasonable and unambitious on their part.

Obviously it does require some extra effort, which is difficult if people decide they won't help with it, but disposable nappies just about doubles your waste going to landfill (from my experience) so it makes a large difference.