'Gentle Parenting' Mother Fires Back At Mom Who Told Her She Was 'Too Soft' With Her Child

Sep 27, 2021 by apost team

Raising children is no easy task, so it’s common for parents to turn to each other or other resources for advice. However, unsolicited advice is usually unwanted and can even come across as judgmental. This doesn’t always stop parents from trying to share their own ideas with each other and bestow their parenting styles on their fellow parent friends. 

There is no set way that all parents follow when it comes to raising their children. Everyone has their own parenting style and typically continues to find new ways to adjust it based on how their child reacts to their positive and negative reinforcements. While some people look at parenting as a way to build a great friendship with their children while still teaching them life lessons, others look at it as more of an authoritative role and are a bit tougher with their own kids.

A mother decided to take what she considers a “gentle parenting” approach with her daughter and criticizes parenting who opt for the tougher parenting route. She was called out by another mother one day for being too soft with her child.

This didn’t sit well with the mom, so she decided to give the other mother a piece of her mind and had a few choice words with her. It escalated past the point of respect, and the gentle parenting mother was left wondering if she had handled the situation poorly. She went to Reddit on Sept. 12, 2021, to seek feedback on how she handled the situation and advice on what she should do in the future.

Starting off her Reddit post, the original poster (OP) talked about what life was like being the mother of a 4-year-old girl who just started attending pre-kindergarten, specifically what her parenting style was like. “With my daughter, I practice gentle parenting,” OP explained. “I communicate with her and tell her that her feelings are OK but her behavior is not.” 

Rather than expect her daughter to do the right thing all the time or to always be on her best behavior, OP has focused on teaching her daughter that it’s reasonable to feel negative emotions and show her ways to overcome them without acting out. “...Although she and mommy aren’t equals on authority, we are equal on respect,” OP said.

OP noticed another mother by the name of RJ that had a very different parenting style from her. RJ has four kids, one of whom is in OP’s daughter’s class. “She constantly berates them and hands out big consequences for even the smallest of offenses,” OP explained. OP thought that RJ’s kids always looked sad and worn down, but it seemed like it didn’t matter to their mother. 

OP said, “She doesn’t even care about it, she’ll say stuff like ‘I don’t care if they like me, or hate me in the future, I’m just happy I’m not raising special snowflakes.’” She continued, “There is one dad who I’ve become close friends with, and we text each other about how we feel about RJ’s parenting. I keep my mouth shut since she’s stuck in her ways and it won’t do anything good.” 

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When OP picked up her daughter one day, the child threw a small fit, but it was resolved with OP’s standard parenting methods. “RJ saw this and confronted me telling me I was ‘too soft’ with my daughter and am ‘what is wrong with parents today’ and gave me parenting advice which that I could never imagine applying to parenting my daughter,” she explained.

OP had reached her limits with the other mother and went off on her. She said, “Yeah, well enjoy your nursing home when you can’t take care of yourself anymore, that’s where the parents who emotionally abuse their kids go.” OP quickly left afterward, but texted her friend for advice because she felt like she had taken it too far. He told her that RJ had called her some rude names and some other parents felt OP stepped out of line, but the majority of the parents were actually on her side. “I know I may have crossed the line but I feel like I said what had to be said,” OP reasoned. “And she criticized my parenting in the first place.”

The majority of Reddit users agreed that OP was not in the wrong in this situation. One user wrote, “Unsolicited advice means unsolicited answer.” However, several users gave OP some advice on what to do in the future. Another user commented, “Pay 100% less attention to what a person you don’t even like has to say about you and you’ll be less likely to lose your cool over her eye roll-worthy comments in the future.”

What do you think about this mother’s parenting approach? Do you think she was right to call out the other mother? Let us know, and be sure to pass this along to your family members and friends, too.