Mother shares how some slight alterations in the house can go a long way in ensuring a peaceful meet-up with new parents and their toddlers.
Parenting is an extremely difficult job which becomes harder when people around you refuse to develop a basic understanding of the situation. Brianna Knight (@briknighttt) points this out in her video as she details her frustration with friends and family who invite parents with toddlers to their homes and do not baby-proof it. She explains how the whole scenario becomes a problem for parents, as they have to constantly be in two places. They have to keep a tab on their child and also try to socialize with others. It destroys the entire purpose of the visit as parents are unable to interact freely. In two weeks, the video gained more than 200k views, inviting contrasting opinions.
Being a parent, she knew that her suggestion would not be expected wholeheartedly. Therefore, she began the video by saying, "This is either going to be extremely relatable or I'm going to sound like a b**ch." A common complaint amongst families of new parents is about their socialization. Families suddenly find that the new parents no longer have any time for them. Parents, on the other hand, need to go the extra mile to make themselves available for such meet-ups. Hence, when such meet-ups take place, both parties need to put their best foot forward and be prepared. Unfortunately, that is not the case most of the time.
The mother shares, "If you make a big stink about us coming to your house and bringing our toddler... if you didn't even try to baby-proof that place, there is nothing worse." Jennifer Kelly Geddes defines baby-proofing the house as having the safety essentials in the home to make it appropriate for the baby. The mother is not asking for specific renovations or appliances, she just wants her hosts to take care of the little things, like putting away things made of glass as well as porcelain and keeping plants out of reach.
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She explains how such ignorance will automatically lead to parents staying "for 20 minutes because your toddler is like running around wreaking literal havoc." The parents have to prioritize the safety of their children, as they cannot be kept in the vicinity of things like glass and dirt that are dangerous to their lives. Her solution is, "Just come to us; we would love to have you over. Please don't make us come to your house and just wrestle our alligator the entire time."
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As expected, the video earned a lot of divisive takes. "Interesting...in my culture baby proofing a house is not a thing. the parents just make sure the kids don't touch anything," commented @namiswwwantwitch and @kpnerdrum wrote: "I think it just depends on everyone. I don’t baby-proof my house. Neither are my in-laws. They just learned they couldn’t touch certain things." In her follow-up video, Knight tried to make her take clear. Her second part focused on the fact that she was asking for this courtesy only from her 'family'. She mentions how such an environment will be distressing both for the babies and the hosts. The precious things owned by the hosts will be vulnerable during such visits.
The comment section also had people who supported her stance. @kayla_21_xo tried to explain how hard it is to keep an eye on children who are extremely quick in their actions, "The people saying 'just watch your kid' clearly do not have kids..." @lvl7hufflepuff explains how the mother is asking just for simple adjustments and wrote, "She doesn't mean bumper edge and attach everything. She means... Move the vase off the bottom shelf and scoot the knife block back."