They Call It Advice

You know that feeling when someone you love leans in, drops their voice, and says, "Can I just give you one piece of advice?" And before they even finish the sentence, you already know it isn't going to be advice at all, it's going to be a critique. It will be the thing they think you are doing wrong.

Let's start by naming what these words actually represent. Unsolicited advice is not help. It can come from a good place. The person offering it may genuinely believe they are lifting a weight off your shoulders, but intent and impact are two vastly different things. Help is something you reach for, while unsolicited advice is handed to you whether you want it or not. The fact that it's wrapped in love does not change what's inside the box. When you did not ask, and the "advice" arrives anyway, what's really being communicated is a quiet judgment: I see what you're doing, and I would do it differently.

Let’s cut through the wailing.  When you do ask for advice, are you actually asking for advice? Or are you asking for affirmation? Be honest. A lot of the time when we ask, "what do you think I should do," what we mean is "please tell me the thing I've already decided is okay." There's no shame in that. Reassurance is a real human need, especially when you are exhausted and outnumbered and running on three hours of sleep. You must recognize the difference because it explains why this “help” feels like a slap. Sometimes you ask for affirmation and you are offered genuine advice instead, and it stings. Some flood you with advice you never asked for, when you actually needed in that moment was somebody to say, "Hey Mama, you are parenting with excellence." Understanding what you really need makes it harder to knock you off balance.  It is also natural to desire affirmation because it can level up your game.  The entire cheerleading industry exists for this reason.

It is a harsh truth that the people you love and trust do not always know better. Not your mother, not your mother-in-law, not your sister who had one baby six years ago, not even, sometimes, the doctor. This is not a call to throw out every voice in your life. Some of these people are wells of real wisdom, and you would be foolish to ignore them. But love is not expertise, and outside expertise does not always save the day. Experience with a single baby is not experience with twins. A generation of parenting advice that has since been overturned does not serve your needs.

So what do you do with the avalanche of well-intended but horribly expressed words from your loved ones?  This is your takeaway: A huge part of the work is not the feeding or the diapers or the logistics. It is the labor of sorting. Advice is going to come at you from every direction, constantly, for years, and most of it is going to be useless or contradictory or flatly wrong for your kids. Your job is to sift like a gold rush prospector. To run each piece through your own filter and ask: does this apply to my children, my situation, my gut read of what's happening in this house?  You are not being close-minded if most of the garbage gets tossed. You are essentially a treasure-hunter, and every so often, buried in the pile, there's a real pearl.  The sifting is the skill. Nobody can do it for you, because nobody else is standing where you're standing.

Developing the confidence to make good calls on behalf of your kids is not a side effect of parenting. It is the journey itself. It is the thing you are building, day by day, decision by decision. You cannot spend the whole journey second-guessing, replaying every choice at two in the morning. Torturing yourself with indecision is not the same as good parenting. It feels like the responsible, conscientious thing to do. But constant self-doubt is not a higher form of care. It's just suffering, and it doesn't make your kids any safer or better off. A parent who trusts her own judgment, who can take in advice without being flattened by it, who can make a call and move forward, is giving her children something steady to stand on. That steadiness is the gift. Your agonizing is not.

Confidence is not the same as being closed. The most secure parents I know are the ones who can listen openly precisely because they're not threatened. They can let a piece of unsolicited advice roll past without it shaking them, and they can catch the rare good one without sacrificing confidence. That ease comes from trusting yourself first.

So, the next time someone you love leans in with that gentle voice and that one piece of advice, you can hear them out. Take what's useful, leave the remainder on the table. And then go do what you already knew, deep down, was right for your kids. You are the parent at the scene, and it is your job to sift and dispense as needed. They call it advice. You get to call it what it is, and then decide, all on your own, what to keep.