The article makes the following guidelines about when to brag abut your child: (read article for details )
1. Brag about how good a child you have, not how good a parent you are.
2. Brag about effort, not accomplishment.
3. Brag in context.
4. Follow “the bragging formula.” Another common piece of advice — each time you criticize someone, you should give multiple compliments — applies equally well in reverse. Each boast about a child should come surrounded by three negatives. My son is on the honor roll (but still wets his bed).
5. Don’t brag about something everyone else struggles with.
6. In-and-out brag. Approach bragging as your child approaches cough syrup: If you must do it, get it over quickly.
7. Avoid double bragging. Parents are also not allowed to use their children’s lives to draw attention to their own past glories.
8. Bragging to Granny is allowed. Everyone agrees that boasting to your own parents is not just acceptable, it’s desirable.
9. Bundle brag. Be careful to compliment your own daughter, only after doing the same to all of her nieces and nephews.
Granted, some parents take the whole “my kid is so smart/athletic/great etc... bragging to the point that you get sick but let’s look at the flip side. I would rather discuss my children’s good points than to be the type of parent that is always complaining/whining about how rotten the kids are... I’ve dealt with them as well. “Suzy is just so fat and it is embarrassing” or “Jake is stupid at math, I don’t think he’ll ever amount to much”. Here is an honest to goodness recent one that I heard, “Poor Anna, she got her father’s looks instead of mine or my family. I don’t know what kind of man will ever find her attractive”. I guess there is a good level of acknowledging your kids great attributes vs going overboard.
When referring to your grand child.
as in....My son sired the most brilliant little boy in the kindergarten at First Church
Wrong.
I don't mind hearing a parent bragging about their child but I will shut them up the moment they start ragging on their child.
You should not rag on your spouse or your child in public. Ever. It is disrespectful and it is damaging to you and to them.
Bragging about children has been around for ages. Sixty years ago my Mother said that you shouldn’t HAVE to brag about your own children. If they are that good OTHER people will notice and compliment them.
It seems like most of the highly educated people in this country are actually morons who don’t know how to do anything any more, from have a conversation about their families to elect a president.
There is a difference between expressing pride about your children (or yourself) and bragging. I think most people know where the line is without having to be instructed by the NY Times.
I really don’t like boastful people, I find them quite tedious. But then again, it is not the worst sin in the world either.
Wow! Are there that many stupid parents these days that they actually need such guidelines?
A lot of this piece reminds me of so much girl talk among some whiny mothers. It was not until I had read the entire piece that I glanced at the writer’s name. Very surprised to see that a man had written it.