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My Question of the Day for 11 January 2010
My Question of the Day: Should parents accept advice about parenting from people who don’t have children?
(this question was submitted by @md20737; thanks!)
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My first instinct is to say “absolutely not,” but there are cases where I wight take advice from people w/o kids. As others have said, simply having kids does not make you an expert on parenting. Conversely, not having kids doesn’t mean you don’t know how to raise and nurture them properly. It would definitely depend on the specific instance and who was doing the advising.
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LikeDislikeIt depends. Generally I listen to people who have other children, but I do listen to a few people who do not have children. Of course, the principal at my daughter’s school does not have children, but has A LOT of experience and so I listen to her.
I talk with my sister who does not have children and listen to her advice.
There are a few people who do have children who I don’t listen to their advice, because I look at the way their kids are and think “I don’t want mine to be like that.”
Generally I look to people I respect for their ability to interact with children and people that I think are wanting the best for my children. Of course I also look to other parents that I think are doing a great job raising their children for advice
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LikeDislikeI have to add to my comment on Twitter: “Of course! The ability to procreate does not define being a good parent or not. One has to consider intent, and intellect first”
I’ve seen many people who have children that are not good parents – I know everyone’s read about them in the news as well. Most animals can reproduce, so having children has nothing to do with parenting skills. On the opposite end, I’ve seen some wonderful people who’ve never had children that would make wonderful parents that I’d take advice from. (My husband is one of them! Never had kids, but he has a natural parenting/nurturing nature as well as an ability to see things more logically than I do with 3 children to my credit!) And again, many good parents out there one can take advice from and some who’ve never had kids I wouldn’t listen to for an instant. With all advice you have to weigh the intention of the giver, and the intellect of the person too. If they intend to help and not make you or your child feel worse or make the situation worse by all means, any “ammo” you can get to help your relationship or dealings with your child is welcome. By intellect, I don’t always mean scholarly either. Some of the most brilliant people I know have never gone to college. But they have something that is now an oxymoron: common sense. That’s worth it’s weight in diploma’s, degrees, and so called expertise. Ok, that’s it LoL
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LikeDislikeAlthough we all may have parental instincts, I still think that experience is the best teacher. Just because I can understand a book on brain surgery doesn’t make me a brain surgeon
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LikeDislikeA bit of a loaded question. Depends on the place/situation/persons involved.
If they are ‘specialists’ on children and such, of course…
Usually, on day-to-day interactions? I opt for the ‘have the kid’ advice.
Seriously – you really don’t ‘get it’ until you have ‘been there’ yourself, and then, everything becomes subjective according to social/personal decisions.
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LikeDislikeYes and no. I worked at a private school for years and witnessed teachers who didn’t have children of their own appear clueless on how to interact and manage a classroom. Then there were the teachers who had no children but were raised within a large family that did fine with children. I feel people withou kids can give advice but only on a professional level such as school, mentoring, sports, academic clubs … When it comes to personally understanding the feelings of a parent, they can’t grasp that.
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