Is AUTHOR wrong in the post ? POST : As a bit of a background - both my wife and I are professionals, earning a good wage and have a two year old son.  We've never been one to splash cash, or show off... and we have a variety of friends.  Most of our friends however fall into the category of professionals and I'd assume household incomes in excess of £100K were fairly common.  I.e, they aren't struggling.  This will become relevant later.

Now, we're good friends with a couple who live near us, who also have a two year old (a couple of months older than our son).  So it makes sense that we hang out a bit, given the kids go to the same nursery, and seem to like playing together etc.  So we do family outings to the zoo, or go on walks together etc.

Everything was fine until my son started talking.  Like a real chatterbox.  We spend a lot of the time on these outings talking to our son, and teaching him new words.  We also try and do the same with their son.  The thing is he's not a talker.  Yes, people say our son talks beyond his age, but i also know he was amongst the last to walk amongst his peers. I've always prescribed to the "Kids do things at different ages philosophy", and as such have never really gave it much notice.

A couple of times now I've received passive aggressive comments from these friends about constantly proving my son can talk better than ours.  They even said once that my son was "acting like a trained monkey".  This pissed me off.  A lot.  I am not showing off, he asks questions about what things are called, and repeats them, and understands them.  He enjoys it.  It's also what's best for my child.

We have now also started to get comments about the price of things, and whether we should really be getting our child a certain toy, or take him to so many places as he'll be "spoilt".  This is also something I'm acutely aware of and yes my son gets gifts, sure... but we have never, ever brought him something when he demanded it in a shop, and have taught him manners.  From when he was a year old we let him look at toys in the shop, but made him say "bye bye" to them, and put them back on the shelf himself.  Going back to one of my first points... they have plenty of disposable cash themselves it's not like I'm sending my kid of horse riding whilst they're struggling to buy food.

I can see where they're coming from, and my wife seems to think we should dial our communication down with our son when we're with them, and maybe hide some of his toys to prevent comment from them.

But I absolutely refuse to. I talk to my son the same way when we're alone, and I'm not going to cater to their wants.  If this was a normal "be aware of others feelings and circumstances" things, I'd think I was being an ass hole.  But as this will limit my son's enjoyment of things I simply refuse to cater to it.

So, am I entitled to my views?  Or am I blinded by my son, and being an ass hole?