to resent getting parenting advice from mumsnetters who are not actually mums?

[sweetuphoria]

Ok preparing myself for a barage of abuse here, this is something that annoys me in RL as well as Mumsnet...

Those people who are very forceful in their opinion about how to raise a child when they have none of their own. I mean I will admit I thought I knew kids until I had one of my own and then I realised how completely different it is looking after someone else's to having your own 24/7. Sorry but those without kids have NO IDEA!

so the nub of it is people give good/bad advice
not parents.people
ascribing or assuming values and positives just because one is a parent is daft.need to be more exacting and inquiring than that.

i certainly wouldnt think kate price has a great many tips id care to hear. despite us both being mums.it isnt a mums stick together thang

depends on person
depends on the advice

It just makes me wonder, how does someone get a job teaching a parenting course?
What qualifications do you have to have exactly?

But katie could have good advice about a particular subject...I'm just saying I can see why a person is more comfortable with another parent giving them criticism than a person without children...and I see nothing wrong with that..does not make them a bad person/parent..perhaps not as worldly or open as others but it's not unusual and it's not particularly wrong either...

preferences and how/whom one gravitates to is subjective.so yes some people will exhibit a preference for parents.isnt wrong.but isnt necessarily right either

some advice is good and should be listened to carefully and some isn't and should be soundly ignored, the trick is to identify which is which in time, Sadly there is no surefire way of doing this - ignoring non-parents and lkistening to paretns isn;t always going to work.

Smug non-parents who spout patently obviously unworkable advice are irritating though.

especially when you used to be one of them and wish you could ring round every person you ever gave advice to and apologise.

and been there done that mammy martyrs are equally annoying

That's exactly what I'm saying..and also it's not unreasonable to think a person who is a parent makes you feel more comfortable when they give you advice...

its not unreasonable but is higly subjective
and no i dont think motherhood imbues anyone with special wisdom.but then i dont like the assumption childless cannot opine upon children

I think sometimes it does...perhaps not ultimate wisdom but it give a different perspective you do not have when you don't have children..that's is not wrong...it is what it is...

Absolutely agree! I remember getting pissed off with my friend with kids for not coming out anymore/going home early/talking about her kids/being stressed all the time ... Really, I had NO IDEA!!

YANBU - with the exception of those in professional childcare who have no children of their own but have managed to amass a lot of relevent experience

People without kids have no idea what it is like to have kids - YA not BU in the least bit when you thus find their view annoying. In the same way if you, say, own a vintage car, you wouldn't go taking maintenance advice from someone who never learnt to drive - crass but you get my drift...the only thing you have to remember is that because people see and are with kids a lot in general life, they think they know what's best - they basically fail to make the distinction between knowing what children are and seeing them around, and being ultimately, constantly and permanently wholly responsible for those kids' wellbeing. Before I had babies I waxed lyrical about what people should and shouldn't do - then I had them and did huge U-turns in 90% of my stances. But it takes this event before you gain that wisdom -best bet is to say 'hmmm, interesting theory, thanks' and smile smugly knowing you are wiser than them :)

YAB a bit U.

Childless people can still have opinions, you never know they may stick to them when they have children.

Professional childcarers may have a lot of theoretical knowledge (and therefore the ability to say whether something is considered normal or not and a range of coping strategies) as well as practical experience of what does or doesn't work based on a large sample(which would make their advice statistically significant).

Advice from someone who knows you as a person regardless of whether they have reproduced or not may be more valuable to tackle a specific situation than someone with 5 sproglets who has no idea about you. I'm sure there are people with multiple children who have done all sorts of things I wouldn't consider and it's worked for them but my childless friends would never suggest those solutions because they know me. Conversely I, even as a mother, will suggest solutions that I personally wouldn't implement with my own child because they are still possibilities. Just not ones I think would work for me.

What most childless people (with hopefully the exception of professionals, although wellies woman isn't a shining example) lack is the understanding that parenting is a balancing act which involves 2+ people in a constantly shifting dynamic and it's never black and white.

What no childless person understands is the crushing responsibility, but sometimes that can be a good thing because you get an objective view.

Swings, roundabouts. If you don't like the advice, don't take it.

Also it depends what you mean by parenting advice. There's a difference between parenting and caring for children. The vast majority of the time those with experience of caring for children can offer insights/advice on situations because there isn't a parenting element per se. The parenting bit comes in the making of a choice which not even MNers who are parents can do for you.

Controlled crying, shush-pat, PUPD, gradual withdrawal, going with the flow are all valid approaches to solving sleep problems (in an older baby). Anyone is entitled to an opinion or to share their experience of those methods but only the parent can decide which approach to follow and that's where the actual parenting lies.

I haven't got children but I have spent the last 6 years working with them. I try not to be forceful with my advice because that's not really a very friendly way to behave. But I've had a lot of expensive training through work, why shouldn't I suggest strategies to others who might find them useful?

I work with people with SN, and most of my experience is teens and adults. So I'd be absolutely fecking useless on weaning, but I've got a fair big of experience dealing with tantrums. I can handle a non-verbal teenager having a meltdown and running off in the supermarket, surely tactics that work can be adapted for parents of toddlers to try?

Just because I offer advice where I can/if I've been asked doesn't mean you have to take it. But, you never know, I might actually be talking some sense from all that scientific research

the likes of "maggierose" is exactly why you are so U. Misplaced smuggery at its finest.

On one level YANBU, but then I don't have any children of my own but pretty much raised one of my siblings till early teens. I still have a lot of sway as a semi parental figure in this siblings life today.

It means that I actually knew more about raising a child than people I knew having their first without having any of my own IYSWIM.

I do think it's disturbing that there's a lot of very strident advice given forcefully by people who are talking out of their hat.

For example, whenever people ask about cranial osteopathy, a number of creatures crawl out of the woodwork to condemn it absolutely. In spite of the fact that innumerable parents swear by it. There must be hundreds of posts in the MN archives in support of it, if not thousands.

My own opinion is that any genuine parent would not be so dogmatic, or so determined to force their views on others.

Also I think people ought to be open about their non-parental status, by declaring that they are not parents, but have really strong views on the matter for x or y reason; obviously they're not interested in exploring the issue for the wellbeing of their own dc, which is the starting position many MN users might assume.

you sound like you ned a drink!

YABU. The thing to remember is that if you ask for advice, you will get a whole range of responses - and that you don't have to take any of it.
Sometimes people can post responses relating to their own childhood and how issues were dealt with then - are you suggesting those aren't relevant? Or useless?

Everyone has had something to do with children purely from having been one - but not everyone gives good advice.

No need to resent advice you don't like - just ignore it.

YABU.

When I first started posting on mn someone went off at me because I had no biological children. I chose not to "argue" - but I had in fact raised my partner's daughter for 2 years.

Just because someone hasn't used their uterus doesn't mean they don't have ideas.

You don't have to have children to understand them and relate to them...

To shun advice on the basis that someone doesn't have a child is just foolish...

Many people have nieces, and nephews (who they are involved in) or are teachers, nannies etc and may have more knowledge than you do.

No actually troisgarcons it was incredibly hurtful and upsetting to read that and I actually had it mulling around in my head stopping me sleeping last night.

OK turn it round - would you consider it acceptable to have your ability to do your job judged detrimentally because you have children? Or would you be crying discrimination and feel incredibly upset and insulted that issues other than your professional capabilities were being used to rank your "worthiness" as an X/Y or Z? You'd be livid and there'd be an utter outcry on here. You'd feel angry, you'd feel it was unfair, you'd feel insulted.

Yet it's continually perfectly acceptable to do the reverse on the basis of someone in the opposite situation. It feels like all of the above emotions, but in my case you can add in that it's excruciatingly painful because all of my children died. It's yet another example of how society feels it's perfectly legitimate to judge and bash those without children.

And I DON'T give parenting advice - I give advice related to school stuff, I give advice on trivial things like stuff I know works well with getting uniform and stuff organised for the maddness that is a reception class getting changed for PE, I give advice on miscarriage - but no, I will NOT be confined to the "acceptable" corners of the site to keep your face straight and I am a FUCKING GOOD teacher. Also all those teachers who you deem "worthy" enough because they have kids - most of them had their kids AFTER starting teaching... does that mean they had a Road to Damascus style moment where they transformed from shit to good in the delivery room? Nope.

No I don't think you've got any idea just how much you've offended and upset me over this one - I spent most of the evening considering requesting my nickname be deleted and that I got banned from the site over it. It is hideously insulting and upsetting to be told I'm crap at my job because all my babies are dead - you have utterly utterly NO idea.

You're a very nasty person.