Once you find out your expecting your first child, its an amazing feeling! Your excited to experience being pregnant and feeling your child grow to giving birth and watching them grow. However, the moment you get pregnant, the unwanted advise will start to kick in.
Some people are very genuine, but there are others that will pull the whole, “When I was pregnant,” or “I raise my kids this way.” It can be very overwhelming and it does make you very cautious about how you will raise your kids because you’ll feel like you need to raise your kids the way they are telling you.
Best part, you don’t NEED to take their advise.
I would nod and thank them anyway. I was always raised to be kind and respectful to my elders or anyone in general. I would say usually, “Thank you for the advise, I’ll keep that in mind.” Saying something as simple as that is sweet and perfect to use.
As a mom, you will get told by everyone how to care for your child. From your family to doctors to strangers. Even before the baby’s born, you will be told how to even take care of yourself.
What’s important is what’s best for YOU. If you aren’t sure about something, whether when you are pregnant or kids, ask your provider, they would know what is best. Of course you can always go to your mom, but if you really are unsure, going to a professional would be the best advise that you can get.
When I was first pregnant with my son, I wasn’t as vocal as I wanted to be. It was all new, exciting, and I was scared shitless. I was worrying about all the wrong things that could happen with the pregnancy, especially with it being my first. I was even more overwhelmed when I found out my son was going to have a heart condition.
Even when they knew about his heart condition, I still got the unwanted advise. I don’t think many people understood that with his heart condition, it was all together going to be a different situation. I just kept to myself and thanked them anyway since I was more worried about if my son was going to make it.
My daughter, it was completely different. I put my foot down to a lot of stuff. I’m still trying to make sure that peoples advice doesn’t change the way I want to raise my kids. Plus, we as moms, get judged on everything.
With my more recent daughter, I did get some advise, but honestly I did take most of it in consideration since there has been a huge gap between my oldest daughter, to my youngest and there had been a lot of changes since she was little.
To me, I will take the advice into consideration, but if it’s something that I, as a parent, will not do to parent my child, then I speak up. Sometimes, I can’t speak up to others about this because I’m afraid of hurting their feelings, but I have learned that when it comes to you parenting your kids, the only feeling that matters is your kids and yours.
There are three ways you can handle unwanted advise:
- Ignoring it – This is what I usually do, if a stranger were to approach me with unwanted advise. I usually will nod my head. Sometimes, I do it with family, its easier to do, if you don’t want to make a big deal out or you know it will turn into a giant fight, this would be your best go to.
- Speaking up, in a polite way – If you are a person that voices your opinion, but don’t want to offend anyone. This would be more towards close friends, maybe family. Telling them in a polite way, will make it seem not as harsh as bluntly coming out and telling them what is what.
- Bluntly telling them straight up – I only go this far, if I’m frustrated. If I have had a bad day and didn’t have any coffee, I snap. I usually will only snap at family, because they have been in my shoes. Plus they understand that they would rather me snap at them versus my kids.
There is one thing that we always need to keep in mind. How we parent our kids, may not be the same as other, but we should respect how others parent. The world we live in now, there are too many people judging before they know the full story, but when it comes to advise, we need to handle it as we feel comfortable.
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