Monday, April 7th, 2008...3:57 pm
#21: Giving Unwanted Advice
The Best Parent Ever is better than you, and insists on telling you this every chance they get. You are obviously not raising your child right, because there is no way you can have the seemingly-endless reservoir of knowledge the Best Parent Ever has stored up in just a few hours of “attachment parenting” classes. “You’re feeding them THAT?” the Best Parent Ever says with a withering glance. “Don’t tell me you put COW’S milk in that phthalate-laden sippy cup? And how many vaccines did you say you gave your child? Oh, and you actually BELIEVED the doctor?”
Everyone and everything is wrong, wrong, wrong, regardless of academic degrees, scientific expertise, or previous parenting experience. Only the Best Parent Ever knows how best to raise not just their child, but yours as well. Normally accustomed to politely withholding opinions on politics and religion, the Best Parent Ever jumps Frye Boots first on any opportunity to verbally bitch-slap those procreators failing to live up to their ever-shifting standards in terms of vaccines, diet, discipline, and respecting the inner child within the child.
Yes, the lesser parent understands that everyone is entitled to an opinion. But isn’t that what in-laws are for? And isn’t that why so many parents moved away from their in-laws in the first place? What is it about expelling the extra-natal contents of a swollen womb that suddenly compels otherwise normal people to proclaim their infallibility in all things parental?
Why, they’re the Best Parent Ever! So take that, responsible lesser parent. The Best Parent Ever needs to inform you that they, and they alone, know how childhood is an almost constant deluge of emotional brimstone, threatening to turn their younglings into pillars of salt at the slightest glance at television, dairy products or pediatricians who actually practice medicine. So listen to them. Because we all know how unhealthy salt is, in pillar form or otherwise.
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8 Comments
April 8th, 2008 at 4:00 am
This is why real black mamas cant stand uppity white mamas, good stuff!
– http://www.anythingblack.net
April 8th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
I thought I was the best parent ever?!?!
http://www.platenuts.com
April 29th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Hmm really? Because in my experience, people are always giving ME unwanted advice about when to wean, stop co-sleeping, etc. etc. like everything I’M doing is going to ruin my child forever. Self-righteous egomaniac. ALL parents get unwanted advice reguardless of how they parent.
May 9th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
I think this pretty much just applies to all parents whether they be white, black, brown, purple, blue, yellow, green, or some weird hodge-podge melange of hues.
Also, I love this blog. Wandered over here from Stuff White People Like and I find it much more entertaining.
June 5th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
I know a parent like this and I can’t stand her!! She is so sure she is right about everything, even when evidence to the contrary is staring her in the face. ooooooooooooooooh I HATE HER
June 11th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
My husband is the best parent ever… since he has no children and is a step dad to my two girls. His best advice is to punish them on every. single. thing. I try to tell him if I did that I’d never leave the house bc I’d be punishing 24/7. He has no concept of looking the other way if they have an elbow on the table every once in a while but make sure they wear their bicycle helmet EVERY time. He wants to correct EVERY ASPECT OF THEIR BEHAVIOR!!!!! He has also NEVER been a 15 year old girl (my oldest) and thinks her way of thinking is the worst and we will end up supporting her for the rest of her life. Isn’t that what parents do anyway?? My 8 year old daughter is very moody and I know when and what to say to her to avoid a tantrum, but he thinks I spoil her. No, I don’t want to deal with a tantrum!! Duh!!!!
Thank you for letting me vent or I’m going to bitch slap the dog.
June 18th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
I have just stumbled across this blog. This post inparticular is right on! Every word you have typed is exactly what a fellow mum I know is all about.
She has driven me to tears. Because, I, am so obviously not the Best Parent Ever. It fills me with so much guilt.
Thanks for the best laugh I’ve had in a long while.
January 9th, 2010 at 4:50 am
to lori… complain less to us, more to him