Since I didn't ask...

[beetiger]

Now that I'm pregnant, people seem to have a variety of opinions on what I should do about any baby-related topic, from what I should be eating to circumcision to sleeping arrangements to how long one should breastfeed to whether I should go back to work right away.

I'm trying not to be annoyed by this. In fact, I'm really trying to embrace it, since it's mostly well-meaning.

For this reason, I open this up to you. Please give me unsolicited advice, on any topic (not just baby stuff). Anonymous comments fine. No promises on whether I take any of it.

(I'd do this as a poll, but I wanted to leave the option of long responses.)

Comments

[jenett]

The best thing my parents ever did for me (general parenting, not specific-decision stuff) was to set some guidelines, but give me a fair amount of free rein on how they got implemented.

They made it clear I was expected to study hard, and do my homework - but once I got choices in what I took, I got to make a lot of those choices, and they didn't push a particular one on me.

The other big one is: encourage passion, and allow it to grow.

For my parents, for after-school stuff - they said that I had to be doing something meaningful after school every day (not sitting at home), but they kept it limited, and let me pick what I wanted (until I was 10, it was a combination of Girl Scouts, ice skating/soccer/softball/swimming and music lessons, after that it was pretty much all horseback riding all the time until I went to boarding school.)

This had an additional extra side benefit they hadn't quite realised (and which won't be an issue for you for quite a while, but...): my riding instructor was such a major person I respected that when he said "Knock out being rude to your parents, I know you're a teenager, but you know better", I knocked it off quickly (not that I'd done anything even horribly bad: just a bit of being whiny).

It also provided a very handy "Well, if that's how you're going to talk to me, I guess I won't be driving you to the barn for the next few days" threat. I don't think they ever put that threat into place: it was enough for them to say that, and I'd stop being a brat.