Unsolicited Advice

As a parent I have found myself in a position to need to ask (beg) other parents for advice on a number of occasions. Everything from teething to newborn poop to first foods can all be pretty rough terrain for a first-time mom, and it’s nice to have a “mommy network” of sorts to turn to when you find yourself at your wit’s end. (And let’s be honest- that can practically be every week of that ridiculous first year) I cannot express how grateful I am for the women (and men!) who have offered me a tip on how to properly suck snot out of a screaming baby’s nose, a shoulder to cry on at the peak of sleep deprivation, or a book or article recommendation when the ear infections just won’t cease, and I’m halfway into packing my bags to move out of state. Alone. It’s absolutely vital to have somewhere to turn when the going gets tough in the trenches of parenthood.

The other kind of advice, however, that has been sent my way at least 10 dozen times since my son’s birth, is not at all appreciated. It is not helpful or comforting or even very often well thought out. It can be snarky and snide on a good day, and totally crushing and hurtful when you’re at your worst. Unsolicited advice is not unlike that one damn mosquito that got in your house one day and just wouldn’t leave. It’s obnoxious, it assaults you when you least expect it, and for the life of you you just can’t figure out what possible purpose it serves on this planet. (Aside from spreading malaria, that is.)

More often than not I find myself able to brush this advice off and carry on about raising my child. When the older gentleman in the grocery store looked at my son I was expecting the typical “How cute!” or “How old is he?” Instead, I was hit with “No socks, huh?”, and a disapproving look before he sauntered off into the frozen food section. Whatever. I know my son has no socks on his feet because, after he removed them for the 14^th time between exiting his car seat and getting into the shopping cart, I decided it was not a battle worth waging, and tucked the ellusive socks into the diaper bag before heading into the store. I know that we are in a temperature-controlled climate and my son runs a very low risk of hypothermia and subsequent foot amputation. I know that he will be seated in the cart the whole trip and won’t have his poor, sockless feet touching the germy floor of the grocery store, potentially resulting in gangrene or the like. I really didn’t give the Sock Police a second thought, and his “advice” of sorts was very soon forgotten.

Even when it comes from family or friends, you can sometimes brush it aside and chalk it up to “trying to help” or “not knowing any better”. When a particular person repeated to me for the 914^th time in the first two months of Ben’s life that my coddling him and responding to his cries was only spoiling him, I tried to tell myself that they really were attempting to “help” a silly, first-time mommy who didn’t have a clue. In their mind I was doing something I would later regret, and they were trying to save me from, what they perceived to be, a giant mistake. To this individual I should be thanking them, not avoiding their calls at all costs and hiding when they dropped by unannounced. 

But sometimes it catches you off-guard, and you lose it. I hadn’t slept in two days (literally, not one wink of sleep) as Bean was battling his first cold. He could only sleep upright and on my chest, and I looked more like a zombie than a human from lack of sleep, lack of showering, and lack eating anything other than half a banana and 43 cups of coffee. I wasn’t even a potentially attractive zombie. No one would have looked at me and thought “You know, I bet she was one hot piece before she was bitten.” Nope. I was even a total hag by the standards of the undead.

I stumbled into the pharmacy at 9pm, Bean in tow, to pick up a humidifier as I had been told this would be the answer to my prayers, and the thing that would keep me from moving out of the house. I push him in a cart to the back of the store just in time to snatch up the last humidifier in the store, (or possibly on the planet. When you’re that desperate everything seems a bit more dramatic.) when a woman comes up to me and starts touching Bean’s face and cooing at him. I was less than amused and tried to brush her off and head to check out with my Sanity Saving Humidifier tucked safely under my arm. She finally took her grubby hands off my baby long enough to ask me why I wasn’t using a cart cover. Wanting to avoid a total confrontation (and ending up on the news in my current physical state) I told her it was in the car and I just hadn’t thought to grab it. (Which actually was true.) Again, I attempt to walk away, only to be assaulted with some “helpful” advice and words of wisdom. “You don’t want him to get sick, do you? If you don’t want your baby to get sick you really need to use a cart cover. Why would you want your baby to touch all those nasty germs?!” 

Honestly, lady? First of all, at this point I’m pretty sure he has the plague anyway, hence our current run to the store and all that fancy snot he’s slinging. Second, whatever diseases he doesn’t presently have were just given to him care of your dirty, crusty hands all over his head and face, so thanks for sharing the Monkey Pox with us. Lastly, bite me. Just bite me. If I carried a concealed weapon you would be missing both your kneecaps by now, so move it along. At this point I tried to beat her to the check out so we could make it to the parking lot in time for me to slash her tires, but I quickly realized that a) I probably couldn’t outrun anyone until my next Red Bull kicked in, and b) I had unfortunately forgotten to pack a shank in the diaper bag. Dammit.

I really do try to take most advice in stride and see it as an attempt on behalf of a stranger to be helpful and caring. What it often comes off as, however, is that you know how to raise my baby better than I do, and frankly that pisses off Mama Bear faster than anything. You don’t know my baby better than I do (he came out of my body, for Pete’s sake. We’re sort of close, the two of us.) You don’t know our circumstances better than I do, either. Maybe he’s acting out because he hasn’t slept in a week thanks to a particularly heinous ear infection. Maybe he’s not responding when you talk to him because he’s only 9 months old and just kind of big for his age, not a severely delayed 2 and half year old like you assumed. Maybe he isn’t wearing shoes because I refuse to feed him on Tuesdays so he ate them in order to avoid starvation. Unless you see me doing something that puts him in grave danger, kindly take your advice and shove it, thank you very much. 

If I set him in the trunk of my car next to the milk and a carton of Marlboro Reds and go to drive off, feel free to offer me some car seat tips. If I take him into a store in the middle of a snow storm wearing a baseball hat and nothing else, maybe make mention of what aisle the diapers are on. If you overhear me offer to split a margarita with him at a restaurant (no salt, though. Salt is terrible for babies.) perhaps you could offer to share some water with him (while someone else in your party calls CPS). But please, please, please leave me the eff alone otherwise. He’s managed to make it all the way to 14 months despite my horrific parenting, so maybe he’s just tough enough to survive another 17 years or so of sockless, germ-filled chaos.