grumpster

In this parental job you can feel a lot of pressure. I don't know of any other job where you get more unsolicited advice (except maybe politics) or where you get more disapproving nods for making private choices about the raising of your child. People i know who are ordinarily sane, productive, reasonable human beings can have passionate and borderline violent discussions on the pros and cons of a pacifier. It wasn't that long ago that these passionate dicussions would be about musicians and somehow that seems a lot more rational. You get a lot of pressure to measure your child against all the averages for key events such as reaching for objects (yup!) or rolling over (nope!). i buy into this more often than i'd like to admit and get excited when she laughs earlier than expected or i get slightly depressed when she doesn't know how to sight read "avocado" yet. Most of the time though, i just look at my daughter's face and i'm filled with clichéd wonder because i cannot believe i'm a Dad.