Thursday, September 9, 2010

Pregnancy Commandments Part 5

9. Thou shalt not covet thy pregnant woman's baby name

If you're a friend or relative, and you like a name we picked out, don't say "oh that's a wonderful name, I think I'll name my puppy that." It's not a puppy name, it's a BABY name, more specifically, it's OUR baby's name and OUR intellectual property. OK, so most baby names are not our intellectual property, it just FEELS like it sometimes. Either way, name your puppy something else.

Penalty: We might yell out "COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT! I'M GONNA SUE YOU!" in a loud, angry voice. It might startle you enough to reconsider. Or, the conversation might go something like this, "Well, I'm glad that you like the name. However, it'd be too confusing to have 2 Jades in the family. I guess I'll have to give your daughter a nickname, like 'Wubby-wubby'."

10. Thou shalt not dictate to thy pregnant woman how to raise her child.

Maybe you've had 13 kids, maybe you just like to discuss childrearing despite having no real experience. But there's a difference between sharing tricks of the trade and dictating how someone else parents their child.

For example... Helpful: Using crisco or petroleum jelly on baby's bottom helps with diaper rashes. Unhelpful: If you let your baby sleep with you, he'll never learn to sleep in his own bed and become a dependent 30 year old still living in his parents' basement. Helpful: Sometimes leaving a fan on will help soothe babies to sleep. Unhelpful: Letting your baby cry for 5 minutes is cruel and wrong, if you do that you deserve to have your baby taken away!

Trust us, we have researched parenting methods and probably have figured out if we're going to spank or not spank, use cloth diapers or disposables, let our child run on the freeways or be strapped down in a padded room for their own safety. And if we don't know yet, we'll figure it out. Giving us tools to work with and use/discard as necessary is a lot different then judging a parenting method because you would never use it. If you have a solution to a common problem, by all means, we're all ears. If you want to put other parents down because obviously your way is better, shut it. We have better things to do than listen to such things. Like, painting the nursery for example.

Penalty: Bitch slap, with a "come to your senses!" in an imperious tone.

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