Pull the Plug?

If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen me mention the very concerned mall kiosk dude. Clearly, he is moonlighting from his day job as a child psychologist or perhaps dentist, as mall kiosk cell phone salesman. Anyway, yesterday this nice young gentleman so kindly offered me the same sage advice that I have gotten 783,462 times before. Apparently, children over the age of, say 2, should no longer use a pacifier. Did you know that? Well, you do now.

You see, the pacifier has long been the bane of my existence. Yet at the same time, my saviour on many, many, many occasions. This is why I am so torn by this issue. I hear parents say all the time that "my child never liked the pacifier" or "we didn't feel like we should push the pacifier on her. She'd only spit it right out." Mmmmmmkay. I totally believe that for some parents this is definitely the case. But must we berate people for the parenting choices that they make, simply because it is not the ones that we make?

I have taken more than my share of criticism over the years for the pacifier usage. I've been told by nursing moms that I should never give the baby a pacifier because it causes nipple confusion (which it did not). I've been told that my kids are going to have with horrible, crooked, buck teeth (which they don't). And I have been scolded for letting them hold on to them for longer than I should have (which- okay maybe I am guilty on that one). But I liken it to a security blanket, lovie, or stuffed friend. My kids were never attached to those kinds of things. It was always, for them, about the binky. Surely they lost their biological need to suckle well before they let it go. Long after nursing was over and done with, they still held on to their little plastic pal. Even after potty training was over and preschool beginning, the pacifier was seemingly the last symbol of their babyhood that remained.

It is hard to let go of our babies. And it is hard to know what is right when we are swimming in a sea of mixed messages and misinformation. I would talk to one family member who would tell me that it is best if I take it away now, cold turkey, pull the plug! In the next moment, another would tell me that I should let them give it up when they are ready: that no kid ever went to college with their binky in their mouth. (Leave it to my kid to be the first) I even got mixed messages from doctors, dentists, the Internet (not the Internet!), and friends with children of the same age. And so, swimming in a sea of varying opinion, and nothing really concrete for anyone to back up their opinion with, I decided to follow my gut. The very exhausted little voice within me that said, "if I have to stay up until 3 a.m. with a baby screaming for his pacifier, I am going to lose what little bit of my mind that I have left." I cordially invited all the naysayers and advice dumpers over to sit with my kids as they went through their pacifier induced withdrawal symptoms. Oddly enough, not one person took me up on it. Not even the mall kiosk dude. In the end, the little voice inside me won.

If you happen to be at the mall, look for my kid. She'll be the one doing her back to school clothes shopping with a binky in her mouth.

My BlogHer '09 Recap Post

Confession: I didn't go.

So, really, I don't have much to say about it. Other than the fact that, from what I have heard, seen, and read, apart from a few bad apples who always seem to spoil the bunch, it sounded like a swell time. I am totally there next year, and will provide an ACTUAL BlogHer recap at that time.

Oh, and I have an actual post coming up shortly.