When it comes to our parents, it seems that their advice becomes more annoying and outdated the older we get. From the time we are children, we can’t truly make all of our own choices. But, as we get older and we start to grow up, they hit us with the “what you should do…” phrases and other unsolicited advice about our lives.
By the time we have kids, some of our parents really start to go overboard.
When we have kids of our own, our parents and in-laws begin to think they know best. Seeing as they’ve raised their own kids, they think they are parenting experts.
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Getting unsolicited advice sometimes gets under our skin.
When people give us advice that we do not ask for, it can completely bother us. It’s as though people think we are incapable of parenting our own children and that is simply rude.
When it comes from our own parents, it’s definitely worse.
When our own parents try to stick it to us, it’s as if they think we are not good at being parents on our own. Just because they raised us one way, doesn’t mean we agree with everything they want or do.
Even when we don’t ask for their advice, they are right there to give it to us.
No matter how many times we tell them we are fine on our own, parents just love to stick their noses in our business. Parenting isn’t easy, and with our parents continuing to helicopter, it makes it harder.
Unsolicited advice can be stressful and the opposite of helpful.
Most of us are more than capable of parenting our children on our own or with our partner. We certainly do not need another set of rules and regulations on our child.
We usually don’t necessarily agree with everyone else’s advice, anyway.
Outside advice can often be different than what we want for our own children. When it comes from our own parents, we feel extra annoyed because, well, we’re not them.
Recently, one mom wrote into Reddit explaining the advice her mother-in-law gave her about her toddler.
The mother has a reason to be frustrated. It’s one thing for our own parents to breathe down our necks but it’s a whole other story when our in-laws begin to do so.
The mom said that despite how little they see her mother-in-law, she’s always up in their business when it comes to raising kids.
“Fortunately, my MIL lives nowhere near us. She lives in a city very far from where we live and we only see each other in person on holidays – Christmas, Easter, birthdays, etc. However, that doesn’t stop her from making dumb comments on how we should raise our 2-year-old daughter,” she said in her post.
When they were on Skype with her recently, she had a terrible comment for the mom and her husband.
Apparently, she doesn’t love her granddaughter’s hairstyle. So, she told the mom she should shave it all off.
“Yesterday she was Skyping with my husband and she was like ‘You should shave (my daughter’s name) head. Her hair is so ugly and doesn’t suit her at all. Shave it all off and it’ll grow back looking better,'” she wrote.
Another parent said they just “didn’t understand the MIL’s logic.”
“Shaving your head doesn’t give you a whole new hair type, it grows back 9/10 the exact same way. If this was a matter of being uneven I could MAYBE understand suggesting a trim or something (even then no one asked you but ANYTHING is more reasonable then getting rid of all of her hair!) Just plain crazy,” they wrote.
However, some people said they understood the mother-in-law’s reasoning.
One person said that it had happened to them:
“Eh my grandmother did this to me regularly and since I was young it’s not like it bothered me. In fact I really prefer short hair as a woman today and think it suits me very well. But my grandmother would never imply it’s because my hair was ugly,” they wrote.
Others added it can be a cultural thing.
“My husbands grandma (south American) suggested doing that. It’s definitely cultural. I didn’t and my daughter still has thick gorgeous hair. I also didn’t pierce her ears because taking care of a baby is hard enough without worrying about ears getting infected,” they wrote.
Someone said she did it to her own daughters.
“I shaved both of my girls heads, each twice before they were two. In my family, the girls were all shaved bald. It’s believed to grow out thicker and nicer in Mexican culture, along with many others. Both of my girls have a nice ass head of hair but idk if that’s why lol,” she said.
Overall, it seems that the consensus is simple: it’s the parents’ choice.
While some believe it’s okay to do it, others say it’s not. But, whether the parents decide to shave their daughter’s head, well, that’s no one’s choice but theirs. One thing is for sure — it’s definitely not the mother-in-law’s decision.
For this mom, she was clearly not happy with her in-law’s advice.
“Who the hell shaves a 2-year-old bald? Yes, her hair is very fine, I think she got it from me because my hair is also fine. But we put some nice ribbons in or cute bobby pins and it looks neat. How stupid do you need to be to even think about shaving a small child’s hair for no reason?” the mom said in her post.
She snapped back at her mother-in-law.
“How about putting some color into those grey hair of yours or even better, use your own advice and shave it off instead of trying to make a little girl looking like she just had chemotherapy or something,” she wrote.
Despite how angry this mom and her husband were, the mother-in-law didn’t apologize.
“My husband also was like – mom, what kind of advice is that, of course, we’re not gonna do that. MIL didn’t apologize or nothing, didn’t even say it was a bad idea. She was just like ‘Well, do what you want. I’m just saying how it would be better.'”
People online agreed that this mother-in-law was out of line.
One person wrote:
“When you’re the parent of my child you can do whatever you want to her hair. But since you’re not your opinion goes straight into the garbage bin where it belongs.”
Amen!
