Judgmental advice

Hello, everyone! I suddenly felt the urge to write about this, because I’ve had enough!

Being a parent is tough. I happen to believe that it is the most important job we have, because, frankly, we are just animals and we need to reproduce and raise our offspring, so we are genetically programmed to make a big deal out of it. Maybe this is the only way we can do a good job.

Everyone has their own idea of what being a good parent is. And being arrogant self- absorbed species that we are we all think that our way to do it is THE way and the rest of parents are crazy, because they raise their kids differently. Before I had a kid I thought it was funny how much people got invested in my pregnancy. They would ask me tons of questions, they would share their experiences, they would tell me what to expect and most importantly they would give me advice. A lot of advice I didn’t ask for, didn’t need and on subjects that were not their business in the first place. I liked it then. Talking about babies was exciting and new and I couldn’t wait to finally experience it all.

When I had my baby however advice suddenly stopped being nice and interesting and started being very judgmental and annoying. I started having a lot of stupid arguments with my family, for example, my mom and I nearly got in a fight because of potty training. People who had kids 20 years ago would give me advice based on something that they were told and that is already proven to be incorrect. People who don’t even have children would give me advice based on I don’t even know what. People I barely know would tell me what to do even when we weren’t talking about my daughter. The conversation would always go a little something like this: “Hey, your daughter is so big already! Is she eating solids yet? You know that you should give her vegetables first, right? Otherwise she will never eat them.” Or “Hi! Wow, I haven’t seen you guys in a while. Does Sofia have teeth already? No? You should have this checked, because my friend’s son is two months younger and he already has two teeth.” Or “Is she sleeping through the night? No? You need to cry it out asap otherwise you will suffer for the first 2 years of her life.” Or “You are giving her egg yolks? No, no, NO! When I had my baby (5 or 10 or 30 years ago) I was told that you shouldn’t give them eggs until they are 1 year old.” And so on and so forth.

And the worst part is even if I explain them that the reason I give her egg yolks is because only egg whites have proteins that some kids are allergic to. Or the reason I don’t want other people to touch her is not because I’m a dick or afraid of a curse or something, but actually because they haven’t washed their hands after touching money. Or that it’s ok she doesn’t talk yet, because she is learning 3 languages instead of one. Even then they still refuse to even consider that they might be wrong about something or that it’s ok that different people have different approaches to parenting and none of them are wrong.

And then it goes like this: “Well, of course she is getting sick, it’s because you don’t let her eat sand and build her immune system.” “No wonder she is so small, you don’t give her formula along with breast milk.” “You are not potty training her. She is going to wear a diaper until she is 18” and etc.

When people say something like this, I really want to be rude and say something like: “Mind your own business” or “First have children and then give advice about them” or even “Why don’t you take your advice and shove it…….” Well, you get the idea. But instead of saying that, I want to tell you this. No matter how many children you have or how early they started talking or how many diplomas in kid psychology you have, please don’t be so close-minded. Try to remember, how tough it was to be a new parent. Try to consider that you might be wrong about something if your knowledge is not updated. Try to imagine how many people have given advice to the person that you are talking to. Try to understand that they might be very tired of hearing them or might have another opinion about it and it’s ok. Try to consider that you might actually offend someone. And if they snap and say something rude, please keep in mind that they are not robots and they lose their patience sometimes and have emotions that are out of their control. Just try to consider another person’s feelings for a second.

I hope I didn’t offend anyone with this post. I just needed to let it out. The bottom line here is: Let’s all be a little bit nicer to each other and try to keep an open mind. Then, I believe, we will all be a little bit happier.