This morning P and I went to the pediatrician with the little man for his MMR shot and 12-month review. To Mama's dismay, the pediatrician was in astonishment and was frowning throughout the session when she heard that the little man hasn't spoken his first word. Although he has been going gibberish for a while now, it has been done rather indiscriminately. He doesn't direct his "Mama mama" only to me and sometimes he goes "Baba baba" in Papa's absence. The pediatrician reacted like the little man is having some speech impediment and was talking about speech therapy for him if the first word doesn't come out. What came as an attack on our parenting skill was for her to judgementally say that we should stop using IT gadgets with the boy and how we should speak more to him if not he would be progressing slower than his peers. That was before asking us how we interact with the little man in a typical day.
Seriously? My boy is only 12 month old. And hello doctor, we don't own ipads. In fact tablets are so underused in our household that we gave it away to grandpa. Mama only let the little man watches Baby Einstein or listens to nursery rhymes from the Samsung in the car when he gets fussing on the way home after an evening out. Considering the distance, maybe he spend at most 10-15 minutes watching them. And little man watches TV like once per week, never more than half an hour. I am not judging parents who do use IT gadgets, but P and I have decided long before we had the boy that we would be subscribing to animated pedagogical agents, i.e. face-to-face interaction in interactive learning environments.
What annoyed me the most was the "your boy is progressing slower than his peers". Do I even have to tell a pediatrician that kids develop at different pace and mind you, this is not a competition. He is not getting a prize for walking at 9 month old or saying his first word at 11 month old. My son is only 12 months old, please give him a break. So what if he is picking up things slightly slower than others? He has a life time to walk and talk (and shitting into the potty).
So yes, we are changing pediatrician.
This whole incident at the pediatrician's reminded me of a chatty lad who was entertaining the little man while sharing his parenting knowledge with us (being a father of 3) on our way back from Singapore. We were chatting openingly and then came the "Where is he going to school?", "Singapore or Chiang Mai?" question which we get quite alot since having the little man. Well, we were frank with him when we said we ain't that sure but Mama thinks that it is good to keep him by our side till at least he enters elementary school. And then he went "Oh, he will have a hard time coping with the syllabus in Singapore", "He will be asked to stay back for 1-2 years and will lose out to his peers". For one thing you know, I may have a genius son. Even not, what is the big fuss that he is 1-2 years behind? What exactly is wrong with us that we have to be driven by how our peers are progressing? Haven't we met enough people in our lives who were so motivated and topping their cohort but turning out to be people who were being slave driven and having not enough time to enjoy lives?
Right now, all I want for my son is to grow up healthy and happy. I will think about the rest later, thank you.
