What are some obviously fake, innocent “modern parenting tips” I can pretend we are following with our baby?
charge 'em like a crystal
This was my thought. Charge your baby under the full moon for added effects and aural cleansing
PERFECT.
Vampire baby!
Werewolf baby!
Infant CrossFit.
He’s already doing that!
Then he needs to upgrade to ChildSoldierFit.
Tell them you're participating in the "It Takes A Village" child exchange program where every month you trade kids with couples of different race/sexual orientation/etc to ensure your child has a diverse upbringing.
Oh I like that!
Ooh! I’m doing this one right now!
Shipped off our two rugrats to a cute gay couple in SoCal; while currently taking care of the offspring of a quirky DINK couple from NY.
Tell me more about the DINK’s kids lmao
They’re… rather quiet. 😁
As a SINK...it's my damn cats. They don't play sports or need to do their homework, but they are picky eaters and follow me into the bathroom to watch me pee.
I don’t understand the thing about cats following their owners into the bathroom. Back when I had a cat, I would go in, close the door behind me, and get done.
Would my cat poke his paws under the door? Yeah. But would I let him in? Nah.
You don’t need to let your cat into the bathroom with you.
They see you as part of their clan and pooping in the wild is dangerous. They're making sure you don't get got while on the shitter.
My huskies will come open the door then turn around and set up a guard right outside the door until I'm done.
I really need to change the bathroom handles from levers to knobs, but I kind of appreciate that they've got my back (or side, as it were.)
It's nice when we're out backpacking, though. No one's going to catch me off the trail with my pants down. Not that my huskies would hurt anyone, even someone attacking me, but they desperately want attention and pets from everyone, so I'd known a person was approaching.
You don’t need to let your cat into the bathroom with you.
Lies.
If all your cat does is poke his paw underneath the door consider yourself lucky. My cat will scratch at the door and scream his head off if I close the door on him. For my sanity, yeah sometimes I do need to let my cat into the bathroom with me
My cat THROWS herself at the door screaming. Especially if I dare take a bath without her. For her safety, yes, she is invited to the bathroom with me. If she's a little freak that wants to watch me wash my hair thats on her
This is called the Open Door Policy and eventually you just don't bother shutting the door because of the cats crying to be let in.
Yup, same with me
Listen, it's hard to poop when there are three screaming cats clawing at the door. It's much less stressful to just let them stare at you if they want. A lot of the time they just check in and leave, or lay in the doorway. Also, it seems rude to lock the cats out when my teenager still barges in to show me some dumbass video or something. Gotta treat all my asshole kids the same, regardless of the number of legs they have.
My door doesn't latch all the way and my cat will 100% Sparta kick the door in..
the "no kids" thing means they keep pawning their kids off for other people to raise
offspring of a quirky DINK couple
DINK: Double Income No Kids
Some peace and quiet
You're going to give a republican a heart attack.
….. i can actually see this being a wildly popular reality tv series
i can see this being wildly popular court case when something goes wrong
I can see this being a wildly popular, often cited case law in law textbooks after the court case ends.
I'd like to trade my rowdy and unsophisticated kids (they have lesbian moms! We are diverse!) for a classic New York Lonely Boy please. Just for a little while.
we are using a variety of wet nurses, so they get a taste of other cultures.
You pasteurize your breast milk
But only buy unpasturized cow's milk. USDA be dammed!
Pasteurized breast milk is a real thing that we sometimes use in the neonatal ICU!
And now you're a terrible mother if you don't!
Ooh do this one OP.
I’ll tell her I’m pasteurizing his already sterile formula haha
Tell her baby breastfeeds equally on dad so they don’t grow up with gender expectations.
Would that have an actual effect? Like make it healthier or less nutritious? I know it's supposed to kill germs in cow milk, but human milk germs are good, right? Since some of the mother's antigens are mixed in?
The bacteria that is cooked out of cows' milk during pasteurization didn't get into the milk until after the milk came out of the cow. The danger comes from the processing and handling of the milk, not from the actual milk itself.
Ah, didn't know. Thanks!
You are practicing natural bathing. You only bathe your child when it is raining outside and you exclusively use rainwater. Also once a month, your baby gets a dust bath (a la chinchilla) to revive their connection with the soil. You save the dirt in a jar so that one day they can use it as a part of their wedding ceremony.
Ideally you don’t even bring it up. They discover this because you have a very visible jar of dirt in your house and they ask you about it.
I like this one 😂 I’m outdoorsy so I could sell it
What if I don’t know Klingon? ☹️
Baby doesn't either so they won't notice, don't worry!
Pig Latin?
Just growl from the back of your throat a lot. "Ba'H ta'Q tr'O 'me'H
If the person you're speaking to doesn't either then who cares. If they DO, then say a couple Yiddish words like they're a battle cry and hope they don't notice.
You're having the baby teach it to you
Oh right, right! takes notes
There's the perfect book for you https://laserphilly.com/products/star-trek-babys-first-klingon-words-board-book
That reminds me of Daddy Daycare. One of the kids they take in only speaks in what sounds like gibberish. Then they pull their geeky ex-coworker into the gig and he instantly recognizes it as Klingon. And the kid is so happy to have someone understand and talk to him.
You are gonna love this. I've spoken Esperanto to my six year old son since the day he was born. It's great watching him translate what he hears from me to his mom. When he was a toddler and his speech was hard to understand we could say, "Say it in another language" and often we could piece together his meaning from hearing the mispronounced words in English and Esperanto. I'm hoping this experience will help him acquire other languages when he's older.
You’re not letting your child have any screen time until they’re two years old except for watching The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, every day, for two hours a day. Mandatory.
Of course!
I mean, you want your kid to have a sense of humor right? It only makes sense.
That kid is going to have some interesting stories to tell about how his life got flipped, turned upside down.
And just reference “a study” that says this particular show helps with language development, makes your kids more likely to be a musician, stops kids from being racist, or something like that.
She's hot, she's cool, she's
YO BABY SISTER MAN
you eat thc gummy bears before breastfeeding so the baby sleep well
Chase them with some Jell-O shots for good measure!
Someone has gotta be doing this. Since sunning your butthole is a thing...
I gotta say, there are some times where being able to just lay down and sun my butthole sounds kinda awesome. I think I really just wanna lay down is all...
Just having enough free time while the sun is up to even consider...
Oh, thanks for reminding me to sun EVERYWHERE
There is at least one person who believes that sun exposure in the early morning doesn't damage your skin. They were part of this truly hilarious article about people who practice "wellness" (a.k.a. fake stuff/stuff that probably doesn't help mixed with real things and delivered with the same energy as activated almonds) that was also the focus of an episode of Sawbones.
EDIT: Oh I'm sorry, I was giving an incomplete story. She believes that the UV rays are also not harmful TO YOUR GODDAMN EYES:
I sun-stare because the UV rays aren’t harmful to my retina the first hour after sunrise
Is it worth asking what "activated almonds" might be?
Activated almonds are just almonds that have been soaked in water for 12 hours - but I reference it because of this meme.
Ha! I love how "homemade coconut" is underlined for the muffin. WTF is everything else though. (I say, while eating a cup of microwaved Easy Mac for breakfast.)
This is wildly inefficient. Just microwave the baby for 4-7 seconds each day, twice a day.
Sure, but how does one determine if it's 4 seconds or 7 seconds? That's 177 seconds of difference per lunar cycle!
And while camping, you can use your camp stove ala the Sims
Just to get a base!
You ask your baby for permission before diaper changes and feedings
I already do. He always responds with “thank you mother for respecting my bodily autonomy, you may not proceed”. He smells pretty bad
you're following free range parenting and leaving your child to be reared by the bog witch.
you're not just listening to the babies emotions, you're using a psychic nanny who tells you what emotions your baby will have in the short term future
You signed an nda to protect your infants privacy, and the fees for breaking it are too much for you to risk saying anything
You've installed a 360 degree camera in every room in your house so your 24/7 family vlog livestream will be the most popular
you're using a psychic nanny who tells you what emotions your baby will have
This made me actually laugh out loud.
People DONT do this? How else am I supposed to know what “EeeEeeE ahhh babasabooo drool” means?
Lucky! The bog witch cosplayed as my "mom".
I am the bog witch... I mean it's not technically a bog but it sure is muddy and crawdads are everywhere.
She’s already hinted she thinks we feed him too much so I don’t need to give her any ideas haha
maybe brag about enrolling your child in a trial of baby ozempic??
Ooooh yes. Infant ozempic!
Ok. I get you're trying to be a little passive aggressive here, but seriously. You gotta put your foot down about this stuff NOW, or it's just going to get worse.
Parenting is hard enough without someone constantly trying to tell you that you're doing it wrong.
So yeah, some passive aggressive snark is fun and all, but boundaries are better for your mental health.
/end rant
Here's my snarky terrible advice: you've done a lot of research, and you've decided that since she thinks you're overfeeding the child, you're now putting the kiddo on a keto diet.
Well thankfully she’s sorta learned that if she wants to see the baby, she’s gotta keep her thoughts to herself lol. I have the upper hand cause my husband is on my side.
My toddler does this herself, one day she eats as much as me the next, she won’t even taste it.
Did my toddler learn the nibble-nibble GORGE diet from yours or yours from mine?
Mine is very susceptible to peer pressure so probably got it from yours.
You're preventing the future development of allergies by coating your child in peanut butter, and then rolling them in things like pollen and other common allergens. Sort of like tarring and feathering.
Letting them loose in an apiary to develop a tolerance for bee stings
Oh, that reminds me. Coat them in catnip and snausages to attract dogs and cats, to prevent allergies to them
IIRC, the particularly funny thing is that you are reasonably likely to develop an allergy to bee stings if you are stung by bees a lot - which is why beekeepers are more likely than the average population to be allergic to bee stings.
The more you're exposed to latex, the more likely you are to develop an allergy. The reduction of use of latex is the medical setting has actually reduced the number of people that have latex allergies. I am not one of those lucky bastards without an allergy but god do I envy them.
Does it count if I just forget to vacuum and have cats?
I mean trying allergens early does reduce risk of allergies
SNE - Shared Nurturing Experience. Proven to improve the father-child early bonding in clinical trials in Switzerland, Norway and Australia.
The dad has a small battery powered Bluetooth device attached (taped or pierced) to his nipple. Every time the infant breast feeds, the mother uses her app to register it and the father will share the experience wherever he is.
When teething begins a small exacto knife blade can be fitted in the device.
Good lord 😅
To recharge your baby's positrons you let her sleep outside every full moon
You are reserving your child's right to be an influencer by registering them under their birth name for all popular social media platforms. Passwords and security questions will be left with the family's lawyer for disbursement should the unthinkable happen before their 18th birthday.
This has been happening since the early days of the internet before there were influencers. I gave it 2 seconds thought way back then and decided not to.
Gender Reveal parties are so passé and presumpuous. You are instead throwing a Genetalia Bacchanalia. Because that is really what people are curious about. Instead of pink and blue, all attendees shall also be pantsless.
"Genitalia Bacchanalia" is a phrase I will definitely be using in the future, thanks
"Genitalia Bacchanalia" was my cousin's band's first album!
I fell like most bacchanalias were probably already pantsless so that’s a reasonable expectation
Works for me, that's how I attend every party
Like I always say, "If it matters how I'm dressed, I'm not going."
"Whenever one co-parent catches the other 'helicopter parenting', the other will knock them down, flat on their back and call out 'LANDING PAD' and put babby on them."
This one is hilarious.
"We've swapped baby formula for biodynamic kombucha to promote a holistic gut microbiome"
"Instead of bath time, we're taking the baby to wade in natural hot springs every night for optimal mineral absorption and lunar energy syncing"
You are raising your baby to call you by your name instead of Mom and Dad
Ironically, my husband and his brother did do this in their highschool years as a joke and it kinda stuck lol
I worked with my mom in a professional setting, and we called each other by first names there. Sometimes, it still slips out.
Same. It freaks people out- both when they find out we’re related and when they hear my call my dad by his first name
Yes, my husband was also a little shook by it when we started dating, and he began to spend time with my family.
I think first name is less weird than having to call him "Mr. Nerd" though
My youngest at 4 started calling me my first name and he kept it up for over two years. Up until my Dad passed this year he had kept calling my my first name to only him for years. It made him so mad; I on the other hand thought it was funny. I knew if we just let it go he would either go back to calling me Mom or not. It wasn’t worth fighting about. I fought more with boomers who couldn’t understand why I wasn’t mad.
What a silly thing to be mad about. Growing up, I called my mom's siblings by their first names (no prefix).
Now that I have neices and nephews, my in-laws keep correcting their kids to call me "Auntie Lotus". <shudder> "Lotus" is fine, thanks.
My kids have 2 moms and often call us by our first names, as well as variations on mom, mama, mummy...
It's not uncommon for firstborns especially to call their parents by their first name cos it's what they hear the parents calling each other
I've often wondered how families with two moms or two dads decide on what they'll each be called. Do the parents usually decide, or the kids?
Or do they each have the same title when talking about one to the other, but first names when they're in the same room? I'm sure it depends, but I'm just curious.
Every family's different as far as I can tell. I have friends who purposely called themselves "mummy & mama" or "daddy & papa" or similar from the start so their kids would learn to call them that. That usually works.
We were a bit more loosely goosey about it. We have 4yo twins, one more frequently calls us just by our first names, the other mostly "mom/mum" for my spouse and "mama" for me. But they switch it up a bit. Our kind of "full names" they use for us are "Mama Myname" and "Mummy Spousename". And a call of "Maaam!" from the other room usually means they want a snack or something and they don't give a fuck which parent fetches it for them 🙄
I need more context for this. Who are you pretending to? This seems like it has to have a story involved.
My MIL she questions every decision we make so I want to start throwing random absurd ones out there. Might as well make it fun!
Oh my God, this makes this thread SOOOO much better! 😂
Buy a copy of Javascript for Babies and show it to everyone, saying it is so they can start a side hustle.
My kids loved it!
My son will be going into women studies, thank you tho.
You heard oat milk was better for people so you eat a large quantity of oats before bed every night to alter your milk.
Uncooked oats *
Human daycares are out, mixed programs at doggy daycares are in: the staff is trained in both dogs and babies’ handling, and there are several benefits to it as babies learn to develop a love for animals, socialize, and drink from water bowls which will surely come in handy as adults.
Man, this sounds like it would actually exist somewhere lol
It was kinda inspired by puppy yoga
Slather the nipple with different sauces and syrups when breast feeding so your child expands their taste buds early.
If you always dress the kid in different colored socks, every time he looks at his feet the confusion will stimulate faster cognitive development.
Newborn babies are used to the natural sounds of their mothers bodies. So to calm a baby mimic the sounds your body makes, like when you are hungry or gassy.
"Our baby only sleeps when I fart next to them, not my husband (giggles)."
Why mimic sounds when you can simply fart or sneeze on the baby?
The baby’s book is and will only be the dictionary.
Can we throw in the encyclopedia when he’s 6 months?
Encyclopedias have pictures! We don’t let imagery downgrade the child’s language skills.
You are prioritizing balancing your baby's chakras every day.
You can pervert emotion focused parenting and say that you are doing emotion mirroring parenting and that you are starting to find it hard to create tears on demand to mirror your baby's but that farting on command is pretty easy.
To combat the risk of skin cancer when the child is older, you'll be placing them in the microwave for 4-7 seconds on low, twice a day until they don't fit anymore.
The new trend in helicopter parenting. "Artillery parenting" you're keeping your distance from baby and only feeding via catapult.
In order to combat infant obesity you're training baby to run a 5k by 6months
In order to improve baby's reflexes and speed you've been adding small amounts of cocaine to feeding time. To counteract this at nap time you're introducing small amounts of thc
Ley line perambulation. Babies are sensitive to ley lines but they grow out of it when they start to walk. You can maintain the attenuation by only taking them out in their strollers along routes that follow ley lines. The benefits of having a toddler who is attuned to the ancient geomancy wisdom of Celtic druids are self-evident and don't need to be explained.
Also madrigal therapy. Which is also self-evident.
Hell yeah I got my baby chipped! Tracking chip AND V-chip!
You will be chewing all their food for them and spitting into their mouth like they’re a baby bird. (I think this is actually a thing.)
Before puréed baby food was a thing it was pre-chewed food
Poop Play teaches children not to be afraid of their turds. A 30 minute session twice a week of playing with your poop has been shown in one study to encourage healthy development of antibodies, promotes less trauma and fear from using the toilet and gives kids a healthy way to engage with and learn about accepting certain kinks and avoid accidental kinkshaming without there being a sexual component too advanced for their young psyches to understand.
I should do this when he’s older and then have him sit in chocolate pudding before she comes in to really sell it!
Ugh....the artwork you'd get to hang on the wall...or, the wall itself...sweet biscuits that's scary lol.
You keep a little dirt under their pillow to give them a strong immune system.
I remember a friend that let their baby hold their clutch, with some light prodding could unzip it and pull out everything in a one fist full.
She lead on and let randos believe their baby had earned the money themselves and was paying for stuff.
I, a woman (afab), took surprisingly too long to realize you meant a style of purse and not a car part. I was so confused!
They can only have their therapy approved psilocybin guided medicinal mushrooms trips after their homework is done.
We plan on having a rule (or already have the rule, depending on baby's age) that they are not allowed to speak until they use a grammatically correct full sentence, and we won't be responding to any other kind of speech. In fact, we will totally ignore it. Good grammar is so important, you see!
Or the child-led model, taken to the extreme.
We are raising our children with a child-led model, which means in part that the children choose all of the family's meals. They are also in charge of grocery shopping, which usually means we wheel the cart around and buy whatever baby is pointing at.
The child-led model also means the children choose the family's bedtime. So we go to bed when baby does. We want to build her confidence by showing that we feel confident in her decisions.
There are probably more extreme child-led ideas you could come up with too.
We aren't planning on bossing our children around or corralling them inside a cage. When they're old enough to walk, they will have free reign to roam wherever they like. They'll quickly learn not to step in the road, right?
We will have no meat dairy or other animal products in the house until baby is old enough to learn about slaughterhouses and decide for themselves if they are okay with eating meat, given its source. Probably around five or six years old.
Related to the above, we subscribed to a pet rental service, where we will swap out our pets twice a year. The service includes non traditional pets sometimes too, and it's like a subscription service where you won't know what you're going to get. Maybe a parrot, maybe a pig, maybe a cat. The swapping makes it so you don't ever have to deal with pets getting old and dying, which is so heartbreaking for children! We want to avoid that heartbreak for baby.
We have read that a dark blue (any darker than royal blue) is bad for babies' eyes, so we're avoiding that in all clothing and decor and toys.
In order to encourage a charitable heart, we want to encourage giving. So every time baby gets a present, they will have the opportunity to choose what org to give their new present to.
We've been feeding her diet baby formula. We didn't want her to get too fat. We make it ourselves.
We've already got her an iPhone. We want her to keep up with the modern tech!
Not only are you NOT circumcising the baby, but you are engaging in treatments to elongate the foreskin.
By the time he’s an adult, he’ll be able to throw it against a wall like one of those sticky stretchy hand things… WHAP
You’re saving the gender reveal for when it is 6 years old and can choose for itself, also whatever name you gave it is just temporary, baby’s are humans too and it’s their right to choose their own name on their third birthday.
Also books are the devil, we’ve survived as a species for the whole 2024 years we’ve been on this earth and didn’t need to know how to read, that’s just the patriarchy trying to control our kids.
Third birthday seems early for deciding what you'll be called. There'd be classrooms full of "Thomas" and "Bluey" and "Zuma" and "Spike".
...Which I just realized is not that different than dozens of "Emma" and "Ava" and "Liam" and "Noah".
Too funny. I would love to see the friends’ expression when they hear some of this.
I mean the first one isn’t far off from common methods. My sister has a gender reveal where the reveal was a sign in all the queer flags that said “human! error 404: gender not found try again later”
That whole thread sounds like Fallout vault experiments
You only communicate with your kids through a wall, Love is Blind style, so they don't grow up to be superficial people who only cares about looks.
You are practicing "AI Language Immersion" by only communicating with them via ChatGPT so they will be fluent in the new AI economy.
To keep the kiddo from being bitter you have to dust the babies feet with sugar each evening
That once your child is toddling around and getting into things that you've ordered a Gerber Pediatric Taser. Uses lower voltages to mildly stun toddlers up to 35lbs.
Put a mobile over their cot that plays Through the Fire and Flames by DragonForce when they're going to sleep so that by the time they're 3, they can play it perfectly in Guitar Hero.
My husband would actually want to do this lol
No knives or forks allowed in eyesight of the baby. You don't want them to develop violent tendencies.dont worry toy guns and bows are still fine. (Actually knew someone who did this)
The baby cried a few times so we put her on cannabis therapy. Should be okay as long as she smokes no more than two per day. So far so good.
Next we are looking for an alternative therapy for a nasty hacking cough she seems to be developing.
We will switch to edibles!
This is fun to do. I was shopping with my wife, daughter in-law, and my grand daughter who was dress all in pink. I was holding the baby while everybody else was in the store. This older lady walks up an says oh, what a pretty little girl. I look at her and say it's a boy. She just gives me this weird look, so I say it's alright he was born gay. She just turn around and stomped off.
I've enrolled our infant into a deescalation and negotiation class. I we just want to make sure we're doing everything we can to fight infant mortality.
You put the baby to bed in copper shoes. Which are then attached to a copper wire that leads to a grounding rod outside so your baby can benefit from the Earth's natural grounding which has been stripped easy from humanity thanks to Big Shoe.
I’ve always thought “communication elimination” was a joke. You’re supposed to talk to your baby and hold them over the toilet for pre-walking potty training??
Tbf a large portion of potty training is having the kid not be afraid of the toilet. Most even tiny babies have a certain face they pull when about to poop. Taking them to the toilet every time does save you clean up and apparently helps the kid automatically associate the toilet with pooping and feeling safe in that setting to do so. My one sister did it with her kids and I can definitely say none of her kids ever pooped into a diaper during the day and were all potty trained before 2. That said the amount of work she out into it, unreal. Other sister did 2 weeks of normal potty training and it was fine. Seems way easier compared to 2 years of work
It makes them associate the toilet with pooping, makes them much more willing to use the potty later when they've learnt to control it
This seems more fit for r/AskReddit
I tried thrice. Was denied many times.
You can use whiskey as a teether... real advice I got 17 years ago... hopefully by now it's fake enough for this.
This is hilarious and one of my favorite questions ever
Make sure to let them breastfeed equally on dad so they don’t grow up with gender expectations
Have a gender reveal party every month, switching to random colors and letting the party goers guess.
You havent given them a last name yet you're waiting for them to grow up and choose the favorite parents last name.
You know goop candles? Tell them you made some from your personal fragrance because it helps the baby sleep to be reminded of home.
You’re not planning on introducing solid foods….. I mean milks cheap and healthy he can live on it forever right?
The price of food at the supermarkets is ridiculous lately, save some money. Kids only going to waste it if he’s fussy anyway.
You only communicate through animal sounds to encourage emotional development
Insist that anyone who speaks to your child use their full name and only approaches the child from his or her dominant side. Don't tell anyone what side is dominant and if asked comment they should have paid attention to the press release.
You're rebelling against Big Diaper and letting your little one... uh... free ... uh... express themselves.
By sprinkling fresh-ground Himalayan salt crystals all over the baby’s mattress you can ensure that all the negative energy gets nullified.
Ughh, all this hippy parenting nonsense is so tired. Why not just open a brokerage account for your child and let him make stock picks to teach them financial responsibility and/or consequences?
The Mowgli method. Baby attends a class hosted at the local zoo for one afternoon a month to learn the Bare Necessities. Brag that baby can now float down the river on his back without assistance.
Tell them you're strictly adhering to the "vertical cribbing" method to promote early athletic development. Also, you're pioneering "moonlight sleep training," where the baby only naps under direct moonlight to enhance their circadian rhythm.