People Reveal The Most Toxic Comments They Received As First-Time Parents
HuffPost
“Anyone who can tell a newborn mom, ‘This is the easy part’ and ‘It just gets harder,’ is not your friend!”
It would be nice if people would filter the things they say to new parents, leaving out any comments that might not be received as helpful or reassuring. Unfortunately, plenty of folks — both those who have kids and those that don’t — see a vulnerable new parent as an open invitation to air their own grievances, insecurities or anxieties. Whether their issues are with their own parents, their own children or some kind of internal conflict, toxic comments generally reveal more about the speaker than the person they’re addressing.
If you’re new to parenthood and feel the sting of a thoughtless comment from a supposed well-wisher, rest assured that you’re not alone. When we asked the HuffPost Parents Facebook community what toxic comments they’d received as new parents, we were inundated with responses. Many are veiled with a guise of helpfulness or even empathy, while others are downright nonsensical. Here are some of the most horribly memorable things people heard as the adjusted to the demands of parenthood.
“Being asked if I was the nanny. My children are biracial, so people assumed a dark-skinned Black women couldn’t be the mother of a light-skinned child. This happened to me when both my children were little. Interestingly enough, my husband was never questioned about whether our children were his. He never experienced toxic statements. It is a significant example to me about how mothers are treated differently than fathers.” — Cindy Graham, Maryland
“‘Enjoy every minute.’ Unhelpful, unrealistic, invalidating.” — Robyn Falline, Iowa
“’You shouldn’t hold him so much’ — about my newborn. And, as he got older, ‘You should let him cry it out.’ Turns out he has autism spectrum disorder and he really needed all that co-regulation. As a new mom I had so many doubts and worries, but in my gut I knew it was what he needed. He taught me to trust myself.” — Liz, Miami