I'm fortunate that I haven't gotten many negative comments on this blog. And when I do I have to decide if I just want to ignore it (most are probably from trolls), respond in another comment (what I would usually do) or take the time to write a whole post about it like I did with an anti-formula comment months back.
Well this one was pure gold so it gets it's own post. The comment was on a post that was basically just a picture of Miloh as we found him one morning...about 2 feet from his bed sucking his thumb.
Said comment was a little rant about how horrible it is that we are allowing him the independence of a floor bed. Seriously that's what it's about...independence = bad.
Here's the deal...I don't pretend that I think that there is a best way to raise a kid...I'm open to whatever works for others...so I get kind pissy when other people tell me what we're doing is wrong...because the floor bed is working for us, safe and great for Miloh
I thought I'd publish the comment and then rip it a new asshole...please join me in this journey.
You young parents... Well Margie...you struck out on the first three words. I wouldn't call us young parents...not that we're old. But seeing that I'm 37 and my lovely wife is 35 I'd have to say you are wrong. From what I could find in the U.S. the average age that a woman has her first child is 25. We're 10 years over that.
You young parents are so excited about how fast you can get your child to be independent. We're not excited about how fast we can get our kid to be independent. We're excited about his development in general. Yes he is independent but we're not trying to push him out of the house on his own any time soon.
My children when they woke up (in their cribs) they just picked up their "safe" toys and played with them. If you bothered to read any of my posts about floor beds (you can find a convenient label on all my floor bed posts that will filter only said posts) you would have learned that his whole room becomes his crib. It's a safe area with "safe" toys in it.
We opted for only safe toys at his reach as our original plans for having broken glass, loaded guns, sharp knives and explosives at his reach just didn't seem right.
The moral is he crawls out of bed and every thing he can get into is safe and baby proof.
The giggled and oogled and spoke to them, but at least they were safe in their cribs, when I would go in to check on them, that's the way I found them and either I could pick them up and play with them or leave them until they had had enough. I don't charge for vowels. You could have added the 'y' to 'the' but don't worry I figured out what you were trying to say. I pretty much dealt with this a second ago (opted for no guns and broken glass and instead offer age appropriate toys and books) but we don't really have a problem finding him when we go into his room in the morning.
Yes he does have a large room but as you can see from the photo in the original post he's not super hard to find. We're lucky that his floor isn't covered with grass and that the only PJs we can find are grass camouflage.
Also we have the ability to pick our son up and play with him or leave him to play on his own...not sure why you thought a floor bed would be any different but...whatever.
What's actually really nice about using a floor bed is we can also lay with him as he goes to sleep...that's amazing.
What happens when the baby is a little bigger and he's already bored with discovering everything their is "inside" his room. When Miloh is bigger and is "bored" with discovering everything in his room we'll switch things up in his room. We don't keep all his toys out. That's actually one of the things you're supposed to do when you follow the Montessori method...change things up so the child isn't bored.
Plus we have things here that they may not have where you are from. I'm talking about safety devices that make it so a kid can't open the door. That will keep him from getting outside when we don't want him out...you know...so he's safe.
FYI I think you meant "there" not "their." Don't worry we all make mistakes.
He ventures out into the kitchen? Heaven forbid their may be a stray roach or worse something falls on his head. You should be glad I'm the one writing the response and not my wife. If she was writing you would get some more hard facts about why a floor bed can be a good thing for childhood development...that would be good. But you'd also get ripped a new asshole by suggesting we have stray roaches.
Seriously what's with the stray roach comment? Yeah I've lived in places with roaches...it happens...they were old places in Chicago...but in our area there just aren't any in a clean home...and we keep our place clean.
Also, if we had a stray roach and it fell on Miloh's head I'm not really sure what harm that would be. Not sure if you've seen a roach but they don't weigh a lot. It's just a bug...if it fell on your head you would hardly notice. Plus roaches don't bite...yes they can carry diseases but they aren't crazy contagious with any.
As far as the something else I'm not sure what that something that will fall on his head. We don't have huge chandeliers, mounted deer heads, ceiling gargoyles or anything else weird that would randomly fall on his head should he explore the house. We have tried our best to keep it child proof.
Oops...it happened again. You meant "there" instead of "their" you might want to work on that. Here's a link that might help.
And then the baby is a teenager and he is used to all this "independence", he wants to go out in the middle of the night, cause he's just bored;only satisying his curiosity, what is he or she going to find? What can you tell him or her? You don't go out in the middle of the night? Okay...a couple typos there but I'll forgive you. I'm not sure why Miloh changed from him (or he) to "him or her." Do you know something we don't? Will he get gender reassignment when he's a teenager? That would be odd.
Here's one of the biggest things you aren't understanding. Independence doesn't mean lack of boundaries. He has boundaries...right now it's the door to his room. Like I said his room is kind of like a really large crib.
He will have rules. We already set boundaries...so if he wants to go out in the middle of the night because he's bored we will in fact say you don't go out in the middle of the night.
Do you think we are freaking idiots? I mean that's common fucking sense.
Also, not sure how old your kids are, but I have a surprise for you. If they want to go out in the middle of the night they will probably find a way to do it where you don't know...unless of course you keep your kids in some super high crib until college. Here's an old post that shows an illustration of how that will work.
Where are the boundaries? If the "baby" has been doing for himself for so long, don't say, we didn't see that coming. I pretty much covered this already. Independence does not mean no boundaries. Did you really think it did? Or were you just bored and instead of walking into your kitchen, because a roach or something worse might fall on your head, you decided to troll on blogs? Also not sure who the "we" is...I think pretty much everyone who's read my blog has been supportive of the floor bed...if not very intrigued or thinking of trying it themselves.
It is all cute when they are small, but they don't stay small and they grow up faster than you will ever believe, just remember the boundaries; there MUST be bounderies. Margie This is where you sound like you care a bit...like maybe you weren't trolling and were maybe concerned. But like I said a few times here...we have boundaries, always will have boundaries and independence is not the lack of boundaries.
Anyway A big thank you for giving me something to write about this week. Also I'm always open to comments that agree or disagree with my views...just keep in mind the way they are delivered.
Well this one was pure gold so it gets it's own post. The comment was on a post that was basically just a picture of Miloh as we found him one morning...about 2 feet from his bed sucking his thumb.
Said comment was a little rant about how horrible it is that we are allowing him the independence of a floor bed. Seriously that's what it's about...independence = bad.
Here's the deal...I don't pretend that I think that there is a best way to raise a kid...I'm open to whatever works for others...so I get kind pissy when other people tell me what we're doing is wrong...because the floor bed is working for us, safe and great for Miloh
I thought I'd publish the comment and then rip it a new asshole...please join me in this journey.
You young parents are so excited about how fast you can get your child to be independent. My children when they woke up (in their cribs) they just picked up their "safe" toys and played with them. The giggled and oogled and spoke to them, but at least they were safe in their cribs, when I would go in to check on them, that's the way I found them and either I could pick them up and play with them or leave them until they had had enough. What happens when the baby is a little bigger and he's already bored with discovering everything their is "inside" his room. He ventures out into the kitchen? Heaven forbid their may be a stray roach or worse something falls on his head. And then the baby is a teenager and he is used to all this "independence", he wants to go out in the middle of the night, cause he's just bored;only satisying his curiosity, what is he or she going to find? What can you tell him or her? You don't go out in the middle of the night? Where are the boundaries? If the "baby" has been doing for himself for so long, don't say, we didn't see that coming. It is all cute when they are small, but they don't stay small and they grow up faster than you will ever believe, just remember the boundaries; there MUST be bounderies. MargieOK...I'm going to take this point at a time...
You young parents... Well Margie...you struck out on the first three words. I wouldn't call us young parents...not that we're old. But seeing that I'm 37 and my lovely wife is 35 I'd have to say you are wrong. From what I could find in the U.S. the average age that a woman has her first child is 25. We're 10 years over that.
You young parents are so excited about how fast you can get your child to be independent. We're not excited about how fast we can get our kid to be independent. We're excited about his development in general. Yes he is independent but we're not trying to push him out of the house on his own any time soon.
My children when they woke up (in their cribs) they just picked up their "safe" toys and played with them. If you bothered to read any of my posts about floor beds (you can find a convenient label on all my floor bed posts that will filter only said posts) you would have learned that his whole room becomes his crib. It's a safe area with "safe" toys in it.
We opted for only safe toys at his reach as our original plans for having broken glass, loaded guns, sharp knives and explosives at his reach just didn't seem right.
The moral is he crawls out of bed and every thing he can get into is safe and baby proof.
The giggled and oogled and spoke to them, but at least they were safe in their cribs, when I would go in to check on them, that's the way I found them and either I could pick them up and play with them or leave them until they had had enough. I don't charge for vowels. You could have added the 'y' to 'the' but don't worry I figured out what you were trying to say. I pretty much dealt with this a second ago (opted for no guns and broken glass and instead offer age appropriate toys and books) but we don't really have a problem finding him when we go into his room in the morning.
Yes he does have a large room but as you can see from the photo in the original post he's not super hard to find. We're lucky that his floor isn't covered with grass and that the only PJs we can find are grass camouflage.
Also we have the ability to pick our son up and play with him or leave him to play on his own...not sure why you thought a floor bed would be any different but...whatever.
What's actually really nice about using a floor bed is we can also lay with him as he goes to sleep...that's amazing.
What happens when the baby is a little bigger and he's already bored with discovering everything their is "inside" his room. When Miloh is bigger and is "bored" with discovering everything in his room we'll switch things up in his room. We don't keep all his toys out. That's actually one of the things you're supposed to do when you follow the Montessori method...change things up so the child isn't bored.
Plus we have things here that they may not have where you are from. I'm talking about safety devices that make it so a kid can't open the door. That will keep him from getting outside when we don't want him out...you know...so he's safe.
FYI I think you meant "there" not "their." Don't worry we all make mistakes.
He ventures out into the kitchen? Heaven forbid their may be a stray roach or worse something falls on his head. You should be glad I'm the one writing the response and not my wife. If she was writing you would get some more hard facts about why a floor bed can be a good thing for childhood development...that would be good. But you'd also get ripped a new asshole by suggesting we have stray roaches.
Seriously what's with the stray roach comment? Yeah I've lived in places with roaches...it happens...they were old places in Chicago...but in our area there just aren't any in a clean home...and we keep our place clean.
Also, if we had a stray roach and it fell on Miloh's head I'm not really sure what harm that would be. Not sure if you've seen a roach but they don't weigh a lot. It's just a bug...if it fell on your head you would hardly notice. Plus roaches don't bite...yes they can carry diseases but they aren't crazy contagious with any.
As far as the something else I'm not sure what that something that will fall on his head. We don't have huge chandeliers, mounted deer heads, ceiling gargoyles or anything else weird that would randomly fall on his head should he explore the house. We have tried our best to keep it child proof.
Oops...it happened again. You meant "there" instead of "their" you might want to work on that. Here's a link that might help.
And then the baby is a teenager and he is used to all this "independence", he wants to go out in the middle of the night, cause he's just bored;only satisying his curiosity, what is he or she going to find? What can you tell him or her? You don't go out in the middle of the night? Okay...a couple typos there but I'll forgive you. I'm not sure why Miloh changed from him (or he) to "him or her." Do you know something we don't? Will he get gender reassignment when he's a teenager? That would be odd.
Here's one of the biggest things you aren't understanding. Independence doesn't mean lack of boundaries. He has boundaries...right now it's the door to his room. Like I said his room is kind of like a really large crib.
He will have rules. We already set boundaries...so if he wants to go out in the middle of the night because he's bored we will in fact say you don't go out in the middle of the night.
Do you think we are freaking idiots? I mean that's common fucking sense.
Also, not sure how old your kids are, but I have a surprise for you. If they want to go out in the middle of the night they will probably find a way to do it where you don't know...unless of course you keep your kids in some super high crib until college. Here's an old post that shows an illustration of how that will work.
Where are the boundaries? If the "baby" has been doing for himself for so long, don't say, we didn't see that coming. I pretty much covered this already. Independence does not mean no boundaries. Did you really think it did? Or were you just bored and instead of walking into your kitchen, because a roach or something worse might fall on your head, you decided to troll on blogs? Also not sure who the "we" is...I think pretty much everyone who's read my blog has been supportive of the floor bed...if not very intrigued or thinking of trying it themselves.
It is all cute when they are small, but they don't stay small and they grow up faster than you will ever believe, just remember the boundaries; there MUST be bounderies. Margie This is where you sound like you care a bit...like maybe you weren't trolling and were maybe concerned. But like I said a few times here...we have boundaries, always will have boundaries and independence is not the lack of boundaries.
Anyway A big thank you for giving me something to write about this week. Also I'm always open to comments that agree or disagree with my views...just keep in mind the way they are delivered.
Roaches falling on his head? Seriously? That comment was starting to sound like a MadLib. But, hey, maybe she has a weird roach phobia like on "Maury". She sounds like one of THOSE kinds of loonies.
ReplyDeleteDude, you totally forgot to add, that cribs are dangerous to early climbers. Falling from that height is highly dangerous. Soft heads and all. I was born in 68 and have an Irish twin so I was an early walker, climber etc. My bro made me do everything he did.
ReplyDeleteI was on a mattress on the floor by 7 months. Too many cracked head scares. THAT may explain my imaginary glasses come to think of it. HMMM.
Well, you definitley made your point. I think if I were going to try and insult someone on their blog, I would use spell/grammar check. (notice 'their' being used in the correct context)
ReplyDeleteDude. Sorry you got a commenter who didn't bother with a basic understanding of your concept before telling you how to do your job. Margie, I think the US Government could use your help... somewhere.
ReplyDeleteHoney, you make me proud. I would love to comment on the Montessori Method and why the floor bed is our "crib" of choice. I would also go into the benefits of independence at an early age, how to do so while setting firm but loving limits, providing love and logic to the young child. And yes, I would troll away at all the fault in the entire comment (including alluding to the fact that there might be roaches in our house and that there would be big items that could fall on Miloh's sweet head). but kenny you did a fine job at it. Oh and if he does get out of his room, walks downstairs to the kitchen, there will be a lovely MONTESSORI set up there too with a pitcher of soy milk or juice some bowls small jars of cereal for him to help himself to. Oh the nerve - (bring it on Margie here's the kicker...we are raising Miloh to be vegetarian - what do you think about that??),who do we think we are allowing our child to feel like he is a part of the house, a part of this big world, a part of our life...but I digress...I Love you honey....sharp objects and all.
ReplyDeleteTwo things:
ReplyDelete1. You are great parents.
2. Jeez, Kenny, you're old.
I love it. We have a very nice floor bed and at least 5 people saw it and said "what if she crawls out?". All I can say is that's the point. Now I can't wait until she gets out to pour a glass of water, or make a sandwich.
ReplyDeleteLMAO, your response is fantastic, Kenny.
ReplyDeleteMargie: little ones that learn independence early on often have stronger feelings of trust and comfort and are actually more likely to NOT be the kids escaping in the middle of the night. I'm sorry your kids ran away from you and you're regretting the choices you made.
You had a roach troll. Heh.
ReplyDeleteBut really? The best part is that she posted as "Anonymous" and then "signed" her name at the bottom.
ReplyDeleteMargie: Thanks for the mention.
ReplyDeleteXo- The Roaches
You may be my favourite dad ever, after my own, of course, and my husband, who is not yet a dad but will be in 4 months.
ReplyDeleteI think you both are awesome, actually. Miloh hasn't said much, so I can't comment but I suspect he is becoming quite awesome as well.
I love how people think because you have a blog about your experiences as a parent people can critique your performance as such.
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing Margie is a BIG fan of Christine O'Donnell.
so in all seriousness, i told my boyfriend about you (specifically that you live in mn #thatswherehesfrom) and floor bedding. now he wants to try it for our 6 motnhs old and i feel i have to humor him cause he almost never has an opinion about how i parent. so, tips? the musts?
ReplyDeletehibabyblog.com
I've never commented on your blog, so I suppose that makes me a "troll", but whatever. This post is awesome! I've never heard of a floor bed before reading your blog and I like the idea. I love it when somebody takes the time to comment about something they think you're doing wrong and can't even pay attention to a simple little thing like grammar and/or spelling. I hope her kids didn't learn to spell from her! *gasp*
ReplyDeletethis is the best post ever. when you sent me the comment i knew it'd be good, but this is better than good. it's like, literally good.
ReplyDeleteliterally.
p.s. they're their Margie. it'll be ok.
LMAO @ "its a bug, they don't weigh that much"
ReplyDeleteI'm in the middle of reading Mont. Method right now, and although we don't do the floor bed, its a great idea. I can't figure out how we would do it though, b/c we have no ceiling lights, which means we have lamps plugged in, and I don't know how we would make that "safe".
I have been doing some of the things from it, like having him drink out of little "cups" (shot glasses).
concern-trolls are the best. they are the ones who are "sad for your children". LOL
good job for sticking to your guns. quite frankly, I think the floor bed is an ingenius idea!
ReplyDeleteI recently wrote a post on this same topic as well, but mine was really borne out of a discussion regarding co-sleeping.
I don't see Margie on your comment list. I'm assuming she's on a rampage spouting off another tirade on another parenting blog :).
Love it! Why do the complaining blog commenters always put everything in "fucking quotations?" Funny that when you pull just those words out it says "safe, inside, independence baby." I think that sums Miloh up quite nicely.
ReplyDeleteAh... this made my day. The thing about the roaches made me laugh.
ReplyDeleteAwesome post, little brother! You've always been great at standing up for what you believe in (or, in this case, lying on a floor bed for what you believe in).
ReplyDeleteIf Harper thinks you're old, what would she think of my age of 42? (Kenny, where did you find the statistic on average age of first-time mothers? I could use that as an example in class sometime.)
Ah, but the one thing no one mentioned is that my dear brother still has no idea about the difference between "its" and "it's." For a cute look at the difference, check out http://www.its-not-its.info/.
Shall I send Miloh some broken shards of glass for Chanukah? We have some from our wedding glass...
Not so anonymous
Best response to a negative comment I have ever read!!
ReplyDeleteKenny, Ian has a small Badger football helmet that he would be happy to loan Miloh to protect him from kamikaze roaches. Let me know if you are interested.
ReplyDeletesometimes way better things than roaches just fall right on your head...like the complete and total assholery of some people. well played.
ReplyDeleteAwesome. Laughed my whole way through reading this.
ReplyDeleteConfession: I'm actually totally jealous of your floor bed. I often have to lay down with V in our bed to get her to sleep and then transfer her.
ReplyDeleteAh, this is why i read your blog, to snort wine out my nose at the end of a long-ish day.
ReplyDeleteI love the floor bed. It makes complete sense to me and although I haven't investigated each country in person, it's obviously how a big portion of the world already does things.
We would have happily gone down this route if we had: read your blog before buying and painstakingly sanding and painting our cot (with safe paint I assure you Margie...I triple checked!) and didn't live in a Shoebox in London where we can't remove all the child-safety-issue items.
Anyway, when you organise the floor bed rally....I'm there (never have so many commentators written there/their with such trepidation).
Dee
We didn't use a crib with either of our kids!
ReplyDelete**gasp**
The floor bed always made perfect sense to me. Cribs are dangerous - falls, entrapment.... and not to mention downright inconvenient. Baby wakes up when you move her from warm arms to a cold crib, plus, we can't fit into a crib to help baby fall asleep, and that's really annoying.
So we ditched the crib early on, babies each slept with us, then once each learned to move, the bed went on the floor, then when they were ready, moved the beds to another room.
Perfectly reasonable.
Kenny, Ian has a small Badger football helmet that he would be happy to loan Miloh to protect him from kamikaze roaches. Let me know if you are interested.
ReplyDeleteAh... this made my day. The thing about the roaches made me laugh.
ReplyDelete