Search Results for: blog unwanted advice and different children

Grandparents Day Scrapbook

Sunday is Grandparents Day. Do you have a gift picked out? If you are short on cash and creativity, then consider these tips to create a one-of-a-kind scrapbook for your child’s grandparents: Photos: Forget about cramming 200 photos into a single book. The task will take forever, cost a ton and lead to unwanted frustration. Instead, select a few of your favorite photos of your children and their grandparents and if you really want to include others, then place them in divided plastic pages at the end of the finished book. Memorabilia: A huge part of scrapbooks is the nifty … Continue reading →

The Miracle of Pregnancy and the Struggle of Waiting

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Earlier this week I talked about the pain and confusion associated with experiencing an unwanted pregnancy. Equally distressing is the agony of trying to get pregnant, dreaming of a child, and month after month staring at countless negative home pregnancy tests. Some would say this pain is much worse than facing an unwanted pregnancy. When my husband and I decided to get married, we set a date and a time, and that is when we got married. But when we decided to start a family, we quickly realized we were operating under a completely different set of rules. Even if … Continue reading →

Take Advice with a Grain of Salt

Advice, self-help, information, suggestions—every where you turn there are other people who want to offer up their advice. After all, as I write these blogs and articles here in the Parenting blog, I am participating in that very reality of American life. As a parent, however, you will get far more advice and suggestions that you could ever implement and in the end—it is up to you to make your own choices and decisions. Keep in mind that most of it is just opinion and it is coming from people with as many questions and confusions as you have! Whether … Continue reading →

Unwanted and Unsolicited Advice

Many of us imagine that when we get to be parents, we will be able to do things our way–raise our children and make decisions based on our ideas and values. However, it does not take long for most parents to realize that they are targets for plenty of unwanted and unsolicited advice from in-laws, family, friends and even strangers! As a single parent, we might be even more of a magnet for unwanted comments from the peanut gallery… I have found that it helps to develop a strategy for coping with the unwanted advice–come up with a pat answer … Continue reading →

Unwanted Breastfeeding Advice: My Spare Breast

This blog is inspired by two happenings. The first is a thread in the forums about us poor moms who endure countless quips about when the baby will start formula, how we have to supplement or various other myths about breastfeeding. The second happening is my own unwanted breastfeeding advice wrought down upon me by my daughter falling down the stairs and sustaining a large goose egg on the forehead. . .but let me back up. One of the twins fell down the stairs this weekend. As is my custom when my children are hurt like this, I proceeded to … Continue reading →

Unwanted Advice and Different Children

A far-away friend and I were talking parenting. She is a relatively new parent with a two-year-old and I am a relatively “old” parent with three teenagers. We are the same age and have gone about our lives somewhat differently–but now we have the fact that we are both mothers to give us something new and fresh to chat around. She was talking about how much she HATED unsolicited advice from strangers and others about how to parent her son: “Maybe they know what worked with their child, but they don’t know my child!” I couldn’t help but think how … Continue reading →

Three Simple Rules for Anyone Attending a Birth

 This post is dedicated to all of the fathers, partners, husbands, and others who will be attending births in the near future. While we, the pregnant women, appreciate your willingness and desire to be present at the births of our children, we do respectfully request that you follow a few ground rules during your participation in this important event. Here are a few suggestions to keep in mind when the time comes. Rule number one. Everything changes once those contractions start coming. It does not matter what I said last month, last week, yesterday, or even this morning. It does … Continue reading →

Surviving Thanksgiving With Your Relatives

Thanksgiving is a holiday that usually includes celebrations in the form of whatever traditions your family has established. Over time, families change, and this can cause conflict about how and where to spend Thanksgiving. Here is some advice that you can use to help survive another Thanksgiving holiday with your relatives. There are some Thanksgiving traditions that most people who celebrate this holiday choose to do every year. People gather together with as many family members as possible, and spend time with each other. One can expect that dinner will include a turkey, some stuffing, lots of vegetables, and maybe … Continue reading →

When Step-Parents Want to Tell You How to Parent

I have learned that for most of us, whatever side of the fence we are standing on, we think that our version is right. I think this is especially true when it comes to divorced and separated families. We live apart and we often live very different lives and how things look from our side seems right while what the “other parent” is doing may seem like it is wrong since it is not the same as us. When you add in the other parent’s new partner or step-parent, you may get even more versions of how a child should … Continue reading →