What is the worst advice someone has ever given you?

[abacucat]

I was told as a young adult to put butter over a bad burn I had got. I ignored it of course.
What about you?

OP I’ve seen a few times recently on MN the very same advice, including butter wrap it in tin foil - a fucking burn! There was a thread with all sorts of bad advice on how to treat a burn then an A&E nurse popped on to say “I’m the one who scrubs off the crap you put on, it’s very painful and distressing so please don’t do it cold water only.”

Eilaianne I know I really really hated my father for the utterly stupid ‘advice’ to my dc.

She had asthma very badly for ages because of that.

Unsurprisingly I’m NC with my parents.

"get a cleaner...it will be much easier for you"

I'm an able bodied, healthy sahm of school age children...and am always skint.

Fuzzywuzzy I think it's fairly well documented that dentists in the 70's and 80's were paid by the NHS for treatment given, hence there is some truth in what your parents said, I'll swap your good teeth for my mouthful of metal. I was taken to the dentist every six months as a child and would be given two or three fillings without anaesthetic every time. When we moved away from the area I never had another filling

"Life's hard as a single parent. If you can bear each other, stick it out"

My DM has pernicious anaemia - this means she can't store vitamin B12 in her body, which is needed for the production of red blood cells.
A few years back, she quoted me, dead-pan, the practice nurse who told her she had stored enough up by now, so didn't need to go in for any more injections. (My DM only found out she had it after breaking her hip; she had district nurses coming in daily initially to give her injections as her level was so low.)
I went bananas and gave my DM a lecture and informed her the nurse was ignorant. DM has gone regularly for her injections ever since.
The scary thing is that the nurse in question is still practising.

"School days are the happiest of your life."
OK , let me die now! They were, and are, the worst days ever 5-6 decades later!
If I had believed this I would truly have killed myself.Boarding school run by sad,foolish,heartless,ignorant nuns.The scars they left took years to overcome.

'You need to hit rock bottom'.

No you need to get better not worse to the point problems are irreversible! !

My mother told me never to refuse my partner sex......for years I never felt I had a choice over my own body. It was the only relationship advice she ever gave me, stupid bitch.

Family member, when I was in the sixth form in the late 80s : “You don’t want to go to university. It’s for posh people, not for normal people like us. You would feel out of place. You could get a job as a (sewing) machinist and make decent money like the other girls”

Fortunately, I ignored this advice and became the first person in my family to go to university where I soon realised that while I may have been in the minority, I certainly wasn’t the only student who grew up on a shithole council estate

@DesdemonasHandkerchief I needed braces and it would have been late 80’s early 90’s for those.

I am thankful my teeth are in good nick but I hate my smile because of my wonky teeth.

My other siblings one needs fillings and is too embarrassed/scared to go to the dentist for the first time in her late thirties!

‘Just put a few drops of lemon juice on her tongue, that’s the best thing for hiccups’. My mum, about my 3 week old baby.

Then I caught her trying to do it behind my back. She basically only remembers child care in one big lump, stretching from birth to teenage. No phases at all.

Cue her whining to the whole family that she never gets to see her granddaughter at her place, on her own. Correct, that won’t be happening.

And the other great advice was probably my dad, who wanted me to give him all the money I won in a big raffle ($30k) to invest on my behalf. Basically to add it into his shares portfolio. I was 22, and nearly did it. He said I had better do it because ‘You’ll only go and waste it buying shoes or something.’ Well, I used it as a deposit to buy the house I was renting. I paid off that house by 28 (while at uni, working part time and subletting 2 bedrooms). I’ve paid off 2 more mortgages in my life since then. Apparently I’m not such a crap money-manager after all!

Same (unhinged) aunt advised me to test how patient a potential husband is by teasing him until he lost his temper.

This is not totally wrong. Not really tease them, but take note of what potential partners do when they're angry and drunk.

Some of them were based on the reality of the times. Especially, washing on your period; considering the lack of central heating and abundance of fresh water, it was not unheard of to get sick and die with no antibiotics to help you. (Obviously, I’m not talking about the last 50 years but misconceptions stuck).

There has been an abundance of fresh, clean water in Britain for about 150 years. And how would washing make you more likely to get an infection?

I used to find a colleague attractive. I was telling my mum about it and asking whether I should make a subtle move on him or leave it as it could be risky what with it being work. She was all for it.

I then told her another colleague also liked him, although he had made it clear to me he wasn't interested. At the time I was a year out of an emotionally abusive engagement, really low on self esteem and was quite overweight. She asked what the other woman was like so I showed her a photo on Facebook. Other woman was slim, pretty etc. My mum said "oh dear. Yes you do have a problem. I wouldn't say anything".

Turned out he very much liked me.

There has been an abundance of fresh, clean water in Britain for about 150 years.
No there were still people using outdoor water pumps 60 years ago. Yes lots of water, but it had to all be carried in buckets inside.

That doesn’t mean the water wasn’t clean or unfit for washing in during periods.

Early 80's, my Granny said " Girls don't need to learn extra languages, you'll be much better off learning to type and then you can get a nice job as a secretary working for a man"

I still can't type now...

At my school, mid 80s, all the girls in my year were sent to the school hall - not the boys, mind - to be told by the shorthand and typing teacher that we should certainly choose those subjects for two of our options. Because the world would be our oyster then, you see. We could travel the world as secretaries.

The teacher in question was in her early sixties and had never worked outside Manchester.

Even at age 13 I thought, “stuff that!”. It makes me wonder how many girls absorbed that message, though. Pernicious stuff.

Fuzzywuzzy I was in the same boat and ended up getting train track braces aged 50!

When DD was tiny, and very fussy about what she'd eat, DM told me to hold her nose and force the food down!

Oh yes, and once, after my first DH failed to pick me up from a friend's house, the friend's mum gave me a lift home. I confided in her that my DH was controlling about who I was friendly with and regularly hit me. Her advice? "You've made vows. It's your duty to stay with him." I was 19.

@speakout - it made me sad to read that. I hope you've had a wonderful life regardless.

Limit your breast feeds to 10 minutes to make sure the baby learns to feed efficiently - from my community midwife. Made complete sense to me at the time but meant my milk supply never really established so I failed to breast feed again.

I've read most of this thread and some very odd pieces of advice given!
But can I advise that people should find out where the bridge of the nose is? It's not under the nose, it's between your eyes exactly where your glasses would rest and I can't imagine how putting Vick there would help ease a cold