Matty J: 'Please stop judging and shaming parents'

Social media can be amazing. It's provided me with a community that I admire, a place where I can relate to other parents and a creative outlet. But it can also be a place of brutal judgment.

I'm pretty lucky that for the vast majority of the time, I receive a very minimal amount of trolling. My skin has also become considerably thicker after being thrust into the reality TV limelight. So I was surprised when a simple question from a person (who I didn't know) made me second guess the way I was parenting.

A few weeks ago I posted a hilarious video (if I do say so myself) of Marlie-Mae who had gotten out of bed to let us know that Buster (our three-legged dog) was in her room. For a two-and-a-half-year-old, she actually speaks extremely well. However, on this occasion, she got the word 'barking' mixed up with a very naughty word starting with 'f'.

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The video quickly racked up thousands of comments, but there was one that instantly stood out to me. It wasn't hugely offensive and perhaps there was no obvious malice intended. It was just a simple question. A person asked, 'How is she still in nappies? ?'.

Maybe they've never had kids, maybe they had kids who had mastered toilet training in record time or maybe they assumed she was older given how eloquently she uses the 'f' word. For anyone who isn't aware, it's extremely normal for kids to wear nappies to bed up until the age of six (I saw a recent stat that one in six five-year-olds wet the bed either occasionally or regularly).?

Now I know what you're thinking, who cares? It was just one little message from someone who you'll probably never meet or speak to again. Even though I like to think of myself as a pretty confident person as well as an adept parent, I had this inner monologue that was the voice of self-doubt - am I doing the wrong thing, should I be worried by this!?

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Immediately I found myself googling 'When should I get my toddler out of night-time nappies?', which is when I came across the statistic mentioned earlier. Even after being reassured by the internet (not often that happens), I called my sister to double-check when her kids stopped wearing nappies. Again I was reassured that it was COMPLETELY normal for my daughter to be wearing nappies to bed. For reference, that is normally how I tackle parenting questions - panicked internet search first followed by a calming phone call to my mum or sister.?

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As I sat there on the lounge that night, I wondered why we're so much more vulnerable when being judged on our parenting? For most of us, the simple act of becoming parents ourselves will wash away any sense of superiority we might be feeling when it comes to raising children.

It would be wonderful if there was a universal parenting manual that applied to all children. I've come to realise that every single child (even my own) is incredibly different, whether it's sleeping, eating, disciplining or reaching key milestones.

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So it really doesn't help when people out there continue to judge parents without any facts or context. Now it's really important to admit that I'd be lying if I said I'd never judged another parent before I had kids. An arrogant time in my life when I thought I had all the answers on parenting despite having no experience.

There are so many occasions where I stupidly thought, 'that's not how I'd parent'. Whether it was seeing parents at a cafe with their child engrossed in an iPad or a toddler throwing a tantrum at the checkout of a grocery store.

One thing I am glad of, is that I never crossed the line and made those judgments public. Maybe people do this because there is so much pressure to be the perfect parent in today's society, that criticising others makes us feel better about our own choices. Or maybe people are just a--holes. I'm still trying to figure it out! But shaming someone else about their parenting does nothing to reinforce that you yourself are in fact a good parent.?

The message I have to parents - don't fear the judgers! Don't give them power by allowing them to influence how you parent. Tune them out and trust yourself - you know your child and their individual needs.

The message I have to the mummy and daddy mafia of judgers and shaming - we're all learning and making mistakes along the way (regardless of how many kids we have). Remember, when you comment on such a tiny snapshot of someone's situation, you don't know what came before that moment, or what's to come after it.

At the end of the day, we're all doing the same job just in different ways. The way one person chooses to do things doesn't affect anyone else but their own family.

As long as a child is fed, clean, safe, well cared for and above all loved, then that's all that should matter.

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