Being a parent is absolutely terrifying.

Being a parent is absolutely terrifying. 

I'm not talking about one of your friends just jumped out and scared you, scared. I'm talking deep down to your core scary. Why? A human being depends on you. You are responsible for keeping it alive. More importantly, you are responsible for turning that little bundle of constant snot, poop and pee into a well mannered member of society. Terrified yet? I know I am.

Most people say by the second kid you have it down packed. I wouldn't know, since I'm still working on the first one. People assume that when you are a first time parent you know next to nothing. These assumptions are even worse when you are a "teen" parent. I was eighteen when I got pregnant and had my daughter. I walked down the aisle with my huge 7-month belly (we were engaged before I got pregnant). But even though I am an adult in the eyes of the law, most people still say me as a "child". 

When I first took the pregnancy test and the result was a little pink "+" I was honestly terrified. I had never really been around newborns before so I had no clue how I was going to take care of this new little life that was forming inside me. But I knew one thing for sure, I had made the conscious decision to have sex so I was going to own up to that and make the conscious decision to bring my baby into the world. My husband and I were (and are!) surrounded by an amazing support system. I seriously don't know how we would have survived without the help from our parents and other family and friends.

That being said, it's aggravating when people assume we don't know what we're doing. Even random strangers think it's okay to weigh in our parenting decisions. For instance, we went to the aquarium for Valentine's Day (best Valentine's date ever might I add!)  and an elderly woman came up to us out of no where and asked us how old Peyton was. We told her 16 months. To that she responded, "well then you really need to take the pacifier away from her." ............excuse me?! What I wanted to say was, "One, I don't know you. Two, I will ween my daughter off her pacifier when I want to. Three, it's none of your business in the first place." What I really said was, "we're planning on weening her soon." I don't understand why people think they have a right to tell me how to parent my child. When she was a couple months old someone told us that we shouldn't let her stand too much because we were going to make her bow legged. We shouldn't let her use a pacifier after age 1 because it would give her buck teeth. We shouldn't keep her crib in our room because it'll make her too dependent on us. The list goes on and on and on. My basic rules for who's advice I'm actually going to listen to is as follows:

1. Did you birth me?
2. Did you birth my husband?
3. Are you the one who planted the baby in my womb?

If you can't say yes to one of those questions, I'm most likely not going to take your commentary on my parenting very seriously. Also, the saying "I used to do xyz when I had kids and they turned out just fine" is most likely just going to piss me off. Don't do it. I don't care if you stopped teething pain by giving your kid a pot filled brownie and your pediatrician in the 70s told you it was okay. If I don't feel comfortable with something I'm not going to do it. Take putting baby cereal in the bottle at night. Everyone says it's safe. Even some pediatricians recommend it. I personally did not feel comfortable with it, so my daughter never once had cereal in her bottle. Did you put cereal in your kids bottle? No? Awesome! We think alike! Yes? That's awesome too! Want to know why? Because it's YOUR choice!

Being a new parent is scary enough without everybody constantly making you second guess ever decision you make about your child. You know what's great about our generation? We are the "technology generation". Meaning if I don't know something I can google it. I google so much it's not even funny. When I make a decision for my child, whether it be what kind of medicine to give her to what the healthiest food choices are for her, I'm doing it because it is what I think is best and in the end that's all that really matters.