What's the worst unsolicited parenting advice you've been given by a stranger?

[Gemed]

I'll go first... I was walking with my nearly 1 year old in the carrier. He loves to look up at the trees and the sky. A stranger said I need to be supporting his head. He's not a newborn for christ sake! I just said he has good head control and walked on. I can deal with the 'no socks' comments but this one got me riled up.

Actually this reminds me of a few weeks ago. I was at the park with my nearly 4 year old, and a lady walked past with her dog. Hers stops to poo and my DS finds it really funny and stands to watch (he's never noticed a dog pooing before presumably).
The woman gets really irate with me and says "You shouldn't let him watch, dogs don't like to be watched while they're going to the toilet. They're vulnerable".
I couldn't take her seriously and just sort of nodded and agreed and said "bless him".
I mean if your dog is too embarrassed to shit in public, take him somewhere private??

People can get very funny about long hair.

I had waist length thick wavy hair for years after DS was born, and he has inherited the same thick but fine wavy hair - Mother in law was forever asking that his hair be cut ''as he looks like a girl'' - he did used to get mistaken for a girl as a baby.
MIL was a good woman , but could be irritating {as I'm sure I irritated her!} -
Her idea of how a little boy should look is like Prince George- hair with a side parting-

DS would come back with his hair parted and brushed to one side {Pic of George}

My DS was exceptionally big for his age, 99 centile from birth.

In a shop with an old fashioned bell on the door, which he found fascinating so kept opening and closing the door.

'He should really be in school. Why haven't you sent him to school yet?'

'Because he's only 2'.

Bought my buttons and left...

When DS was going through a biting phase (biting me, not other kids) various people told me I should just bite him back. We worked through the biting. I did not bite him back.

Make sure the baby crawls before they walk!

How do you force a baby to crawl?

I got this from several people and never really understood what they wanted me to do.

When my DD was pointing at something she wanted to eat with her hands (before she could talk) my friend (whose twins were being raised like little soldiers) said "eat with your fork, you don't live in a cave"

My ndn said she bit her dc back.
I was horrified.

Was coming out of the doctors when I held the door open for an elderly lady.

As she passed she looked at my 4 month old daughter who was chewing on Sophie the giraffe teething toy and said "for goodness sake get that giraffe out of her mouth".

I was too lost for words to respond, in fact I think I felt so unwell I smiled at her 🤦🏻‍♀️ she said it as if she was chomping down on a real one.

When my dd ws crying on the bus home a woman told me I should have kept my fucking legs shut.
I got off few stops early. Burning with embarrassment.

God, the person who should have burned with embarrassment wasn't you! I'm so sorry someone was that dementedly unpleasant.

Oh yes...Evil MIL has now turned her sights to DN's curly hair which "needs cutting, it's ridiculous for a boy to have hair like that." She's been after taking him for a short back and sides since he was about 9 months.

Some crazy looking lady in the shops walked purposely to DH and I. She said that we are going to kill the baby! It made my heart jump it was like something out of a horror movie. I never go past that part of the shops again without remembering the crazy lady.

Similar, but regarding a blue sleepsuit.
I said "good".
She persisted about my daughter thinking she was a boy if I dressed her in blue.
I told her I was raising her to be a lesbian.
She got all huffy and walked off muttering about my rudeness.

The same woman went to jail for assaulting an old lady in the Post Office queue... I got off lightly I think.

Any advice that came from my mother was shite advice

When it came to hair,girls have short bobs,boys shaved heads

My ds had gorgeous hair,shoulder length and a lovely conker colour

She nagged and nagged me to cut it-i kept refusing,so she ramped it up and I kept telling her to fuck off

Nipped out one day,leaving ds with her,my father and brothers for about 5 minutes (the one and only time I left him with her)

Came back and she'd given him a number 1 cut-it was shoulder length and I came back to bald and she'd slung his hair in the compost heap

I hit the roof-she had the nerve to tell me I'd asked her to do it!(which is the line she stuck to when I mentioned to friends how angry I was)

Other advice was
To stop breastfeeding (but if I insisted on breastfeeding,to only feed every 4 hours on the dot,and sugar water/pure orange juice if baby is screaming)
Don't use a dummy
Go for a walk when I ended up with pnd
Washable Terry toweling nappies only
If the baby/child played up give them a slap
Ditto when dd had night terrors-a slap with make her go back to sleep
To get baby dds ears pieced as 'nobody knows she's a girl otherwise'
Water down calpol (if I gave it at all) but not brand name calpol-it had to be the crap,out of date (by about 5 years) and non English stuff she'd picked up from a dodgy market somewhere
Put baby in their own room so you can't hear them screaming
Boiling water for bottles is unnecessary/using the scoop to add milk isn't necessary (just use a spoon)
Leave baby in buggy,outside in all weather's
Wean at 6 weeks
Letting them watch half hour of TV will give them brain damage
Picking a child up will make them clingy
Potty train at a year old (or in other words,dangle baby over the potty and catch what falls)
No baby needs to be laid flat in a pram,pushchairs are fine from birth and the '6 months upwards' was bullshit
No need for car seats-they where for 'over cautious parents who live in fear of everything' just shove baby in carrycot and shove on the backseat/on someone's lap
No need for safety clips on cupboards or the fridge-if they drink anything,they'll be fine
Ditto leaving her meds lying around-the ones that looked like sweets
Coke (the drink!) in a bottle is perfectly acceptable from about 6/7 months
(Ditto tea,coffee,diet coke,sprite and fanta-but oddly,drinking coke while pregnant will resilt in a yellow baby!)

It's a wonder I grew up ok!

I got told to lock my 2 year old in a bathroom with the light off for an hour or so to make him behave better.

My son has global development delay ,autism and severe learning difficulties. Colleague found out he wasn't toilet trained yet and told me to just stop putting him in nappies and he would learn because he wouldn't like the feeling of sitting in his poop or wee. Same colleague told me to pull his hair/ hit him back whenever he did it to me

I was in the supermarket aisle for baby formula and a woman came along and said “If I was involved you would be breastfeeding”.
I thought I was past the guilt of not being able to breastfeed, as this was 6 months or so down the line. I cried when I got back to my car.

" think of yourself as a tree"
Said at an open morning for a Steiner school when I was struggling with a 3 year old
On reflection probably wise - firmly rooted underneath but flexible on the outside?
I didn't appreciate it at the time.

But goodness , such horror stories on this thread.

So ignorant, terrible and inconsiderate.

You must've hard such hard time during those months. Sending you the biggest hugs.

You were wearing boots, or you were in Boots, the chemist?

I once had a lady take DS1's dummy out of his mouth when he was around 6 months old and tell him he didn't need it.

When he was about 3 he had lovely blonde hair that reached down to his shoulders. Someone stopped me in the street to tell me I needed to cut it because he looked like a girl.

Not exactly a stranger, but once had a neighbour literally dump a bin bag full of books on my doorstep and told me I had to start reading to my kids.
Their bookcase was (and remains) bursting with books, and she seemed quite offended when I told her thank you, but we don't have space for any extra books right now. We could have probably made some space, but her attitude that day annoyed me 😅

MIL suggesting that dehydration was the root cause of DS’s medically diagnosed ( neurologist and comprehensive tests) epilepsy. Apparently I don’t give him enough to drink and drinking water is basically a cure all for everything.
When she was diagnosed with colorectal carcinoma I also speculated whether it was down to not drinking enough water. I was told not to be ridiculous.
I have a medical qualification whereas MIL was a glorified carer. Nothing against carers but it doesn’t qualify you to make assumptions.

That's terrible from a nurse. I heard the same from the young woman in the next bed to me just after I'd given birth. Her baby was crying in the cot, her mother was with her and she said to her mum, "They do say you shouldn't give in 'cos it spoils them" and her mother sort of shrugged. Poor little baby! It really upset me.