Being a parent throws you into a world of controversy. Although there were a lot of things that I did not expect as a new parent, this was probably one of the most surprising.

There are so many aspects about parenthood that are controversial and leave room for a lot of judgment: not vaccinating or injecting them with autism, "no cry" sleep solutions or "cry it out" and ruin all trust that your baby has in you, schedules or no schedules, discipline or allow your child to "express themselves", breastfeeding or poisoning your child, cloth diapers or ruining the earth, become a stay at home mom or abandon your child...I could go on and on.

Just for those curious on the topics above, we decided:
- Autism is better than dying from a deadly disease.
- Crying it out is the only way we saved our sanity.
- Schedules do not work for us.
- We're stumped on discipline.
- We poisoned our kid from day one.
- We are ruining the earth.
- I have abandoned my child so we can pay our bills.

It's amazing to me how you can never be right about the way you raise your child. Someone is always going to disagree with you. This isn't the type of disagreeing like you would disagree on whether Coke or Pepsi tastes better. This is right up there with abortion, religion and politics. Possibly worse in some cases.

Becoming a parent makes you instantly judgmental. This is evident by the comments I have received intermittently throughout the last 14 months. Things like, "SHE'S ONLY A WEEK OLD AND YOU BROUGHT HER TO A RESTAURANT??", or "Why don't you have a blanket around her?? {when it's June in Florida}"...both by complete strangers in public places.  And I cannot even count the amount of times I faced the looks of pity/speculation/disgust when I said that breastfeeding didn't work for us. Even talking with my closest friends, discussing vaccines is even a topic broached with extreme caution.

Opinions and judgments fly. I think I made my point.

I would love to sit here and type that I am not one of those judgmental new parents, and that I believe that everyone is entitled to how they feel about raising a baby.
I would be lying.
I find myself side eying in a lot of situations. I find it interesting that everyone has themselves so convinced that they are parenting the right way and are so quick to judge others- myself included.
It goes back to the ideology of parenthood being a brand new job to all of us. We've had no training, so what makes us all experts all of the sudden? Just because we read something on the internet that told us to do something one way and not the other?

Take breastfeeding for example. 33 years ago when I was born, it was not the social norm to breastfeed. It was even assumed that new moms wouldn't breastfeed and some were given a shot to deplete their milk supply right after birth.
Now, even when your newborn is still swimming in amniotic fluid, we are all told that "breast is best" and formula is poison. Why? Because research shows it. Similar to research saying on one given day that caffeine is the devil and the next day it suddenly has health benefits. The pendulum always seems to swing the other way at some point. I, by no means, am saying that breastfeeding isn't the most beneficial way of feeding your child. I'm just using it as an example of the contradictions that society sends our way.

When it comes to judging others so harshly as new parents, I believe the truth is that we are all just scared. Scared of fucking up our kids beyond repair, so we judge others. The truth is we don't know how to raise a child, just like our moms and grandmas didn't know. We grasp onto any information that we can by reading, researching, consulting friends and talking to our pediatricians. We identify with the information that we choose to, accept it as our own belief and judge others for not viewing it the same way. That's all we can do as new parents. It's really all we have. This might sound obvious to some but, to me. it's an interesting realization overall.

Now, go get your kids some chicken nuggets at McDonald's after skipping that MMR shot!