Remember when your kids were babies and everyone around you felt the need to give you parenting advice—even when you didn’t ask for it?
Well, the unsolicited guidance doesn’t stop as your children get older.
Case in point: The other day my daughter and I were getting a bite to eat at a local family restaurant. We frequent the eatery on a monthly basis because she loves the rotisserie chicken. And by love I mean she’s so obsessed she will not order any other entrée. Given her near religious devotion to the seasoned bird, I didn’t even bother to ask what she wanted and proceeded to order for her when our waiter came over to our table.
My daughter didn’t blink twice while I was speaking to our server, as she was too busy working on the word jumble game printed on the children’s menu. However, unbeknownst to me, a woman sitting in the booth next to us was apparently hanging on my every word.
When our server left our table, the woman unabashedly shared this parenting gem: “You shouldn’t do things for your children that they can do themselves.”
At first, I questioned whether the lady was speaking to me.
She was… and continued to do so.
“You should let your daughter order her own food,” the woman preached. “If you don’t let her speak for herself she may think you don’t have confidence in her.”
At that point I wondered whether or not the restaurant had changed its no-alcohol policy because clearly the woman was drunk.
Drunk with ignorance or at the very least a complete stranger clearly overstepping her boundaries in a public venue.
For the record, my daughter is very articulate and more than capable of ordering her own meal; however, during this particular restaurant visit she had more important business to take care of—conquering the word jumble.
She’s eight.
Did I mention that?
I didn’t to the woman who felt the need to share her pearl of parenting wisdom. In fact, I refused to engage her at all save for a smile and a muffled, “Thanks.”
How do you react when you are given unsolicited parenting advice?