Well, since you asked...
I try hard not to give advice in real (offline) life, unless it's really asked for. I recognize that just because someone's complaining about something, they don't necessarily want my take on it; they may just want to vent. So whether or not to share my wisdom is often a tough call. Sometimes I make the wrong choice, but I'm trying.
HOWEVER, when someone asks for my advice or opinion clearly, I take that request at face value: that someone wants my honest opinion and help. It's a big responsibility, and I take it seriously. I assume that the person asking actually wants to hear the truth. Just how stupid am I? I fall for this over and over again.
In the past two weeks alone I've been asked to read three different pieces of writing. Out of those three, I'm pretty sure only one of the writers really wanted some constructive criticism. The other two probably just wanted an ego boost, since one received my critique rather coldly and the other one never even thanked me for taking the time. The third will be my friend forever because she incorporated some of my advice and thanked me profusely.
It happens even more often with parenting advice. While there are plenty of problems that I have no clue how to handle (the line of kids who have been hit by my son forms to the left, please), I am known for having kids who sleep. They sleep well, all night, in their own beds, with a minimum of fuss. I've had more than a few parents ask my advice about how I achieved this. Let me restate that: I've had moms beg me to give them my secret, because they've been living for years on hour-long chunks of sleep as their kids play musical beds.
My advice to these moms invariably starts this way: take back your bed, and put the kids in their own. I even have ways that can help them do that. It's not like I was born with children who magically wanted to sleep alone. I've got some tricks, I can help! But it doesn't usually get that far. They want to have their cake and sleep with it too, and if my advice means kicking their kids out of the room then they don't want to hear it.
The same thing happens when parents ask me how come my kids don't cry when I go away on trips or when I drop them off at school on the first day. They don't really want to hear that it's a result of years of training, of leaving them with sitters when they were babies and walking out of the door whether they were crying or not. Years of making them play by themselves if I'm busy and not carrying them around on me all day. I don't want to offend my friends, so it's not easy for me to say "Well, stop wearing your child like an accessory and give him some space!" But if you're going to ask, I'm going to answer. If you don't really want to know how I achieved it, don't ask.
On the other hand, I've made the mistake of asking other parents how they get their kids to eat a variety of foods, because if given the choice I'm pretty sure my son would live on Pringles and pasta, with some white bread thrown in for variety. And if their advice comes within 50 feet of anything that will a) force me to get junk food and white-flour products out of my house or b) force my son to try new things or face some kind of punishment, I stop listening. So why do I ask? I guess I'm holding out hope that there's a magic pill. Of course if there is, I'm much more likely to hear about it on twitter than on the playground.
Anyway, please don't ask my advice if you don't want the truth, and I'll reciprocate. My husband is the one exception to this rule. If I ask my husband how I look, I want him to say I look great, no matter what - I'm not looking for truth, I'm looking for an extra little ego boost as I head out of the door. But if I ask a friend how I look, I want the truth, really and truly.
This is an original post to NYC Moms Blog. Amy also blogs at SelfishMom.com and FilmingInBrooklyn.com.
