Can we move away from black and white thinking around parenting choices?

WHY WHY WHY does everything have to be either/or in parenting? And why have parenting choices gotten so polarized in social media, and thus outside of social media in conversations with other parents? People have such strong opinions about breastfeeding vs formula feeding, purées vs baby led weaning, sleep training vs whatever the complete opposite of sleeping training is, etc.

It is wildly unhelpful in my opinion. In almost every parenting decision I’ve made so far, I hear about/learn about what the options are then usually find some kind of combination of the options that works for us. Some examples: I offered my baby solids to feed himself from the start but also offered purées on a spoon at many of his meals. I helped my baby learn to self soothe by waiting around ten minutes (depending on the intensity of his crying) to respond to him crying in his crib once he was about 5 months old - but then once he had the skill of self soothing and getting himself to sleep at night I always go to him in the night if he seems unable to for some reason and therefore might need support (usually means he’s sick). An obvious one and hopefully increasingly accepted version of this is combo feeding, which I started around 6 months with my breastfed baby and will possibly start earlier with my next. FWIW: there are infinite possibilities for how to not be overly attached and obsessed with one of the polarized options!!! These are just the ways I ended up doing it!!!

I think social media is the biggest culprit here, because extreme takes get more clicks, but I really think it’s a huge problem that makes parenting so much more difficult for parents today. It reminds me of diet culture when “experts” tell you how/what/when to eat and you completely lose connection to your own intuition and needs around hunger and fullness. Rather than trusting themselves to parent to their own strengths, values, and personalities, people are picking a side and just grasping onto it so aggressively and doing it because it’s “the right side”.

As a therapist I work with clients every single day to unlearn unhelpful thinking patterns like black and white thinking and catastrophic thinking, and I see all of these unhelpful thinking patterns in the general parenting approach today.

I feel the need to say that making a choice to exclusively breastfeed is not BAD, choosing any of the more polarized ends of the options is not wrong, but getting overly attached to these ways of parenting to the point of complete overwhelm or guilt if you “break” the rules seems so unhealthy and unhelpful to me.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

[EDIT]: Also want to add that I actually see a lot less polarization on Reddit than other places like Instagram. The subreddits I’m a part of are generally supportive of all kinds of parenting approaches. Good job Reddit!