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Sink or Swim?

Wading Through the Sea of Unsolicited Advice

By Teri Brown

Susan Newman, social psychologist and author of Nobody's Baby Now: Reinventing Your Adult Relationship With Your Mother and Father (Walker & Co., 2003), believes that much of the problems with receiving advice from parents comes more from our changing relationship with them than anything else. "We spend our lives following our parents' instructions; one of the most difficult transitions is that of becoming a true adult and realizing we don't have to do what our parents say, when they say it," says Newman. "Having a baby is an opportunity to change how you relate to your parents and move the relationship in a positive direction."

Newman feels that this sort of advice is intrusive and annoying to most people when it is given too often, becomes repetitive and goes against what a new parent had in mind or how he planned to handle the baby or approach a problem. "Although this type of advice can come from friends, the irksome advice usually comes from a parent who belabors their point," she says. "In all likelihood, the parent acts the same as he or she had done when raising you. As a parent, the dad wants and needs to feel in charge, and it doesn't feel good when a parent is telling you how to put your baby to sleep or how to feed him and so forth."

"If you haven't done so before the new baby, now is a good time to recreate your relationship with your parent(s) – time to set boundaries if you find a parent invading and trying to take over too much care of your child or telling you how to do every little thing," says Newman.

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