Tuesday 9 July 2013

A word of advice

The world is full of people who have an opinion for everything under the Sun and a solution to every problem in the world particularly when it comes to parenting. And I am sick and tired of such people sticking their nose in my life and pouring bucketful of free advice.
            For instance my daughter has a weight problem. I know every mother feels that their child does not eat but my daughter genuinely does not. At 2.7 years she weighs only 9.5 KG and is underweight by 3-4 KG. Wherever I go I am drowned in a sea of suggestions related to feeding and weight gain that leave me feeling overwhelmed. From suggestions to give her vegetable soup, to give her dry fruits, milk shakes to let her drink water during a meal the list is endless. As if I am some dumb mommy who doesn't know what is best for my child. While some people pity me, at times people have literally stopped short of accusing me of mal-nourishing my child. Sometimes I feel like pulling my hair out and screaming my lungs out asking these people to stop, I know what works for my child I don't need stupid suggestions that I know for sure don’t work on my child.
 Then my daughter had a thumb sucking habit which thankfully I managed get rid of but only after I was inundated with millions of pieces of advice.
Not only on child-rearing but people have advice on everything. And people are so judgemental. When I joined back work when my daughter was only four month old people were quick to condemn me for it. When I decided to quit when my daughter turned two people were again at my throat for throwing away a thriving career.
While having an opinion and expressing it in public is not something I disapprove, uncalled for suggestions and passing generalized statements without having an Inkling of the situation at hand irritates me to the core. Thinking your way of doing it is right and crucifying the other person for doing something differently annoys me extremely. People have to understand that every situation is different and what worked for one person may not necessarily work for another. Anyways if such people were so mature enough to understand this in the first place, perhaps there was no need to write this post.

So my friends, the world is full of people who are waiting for an opportunity to pounce on you and bog you down with their theories and suggestions and no matter what you say or do, there is no stopping these so called well wishers from offering their two cents on every matter in life. I don’t think there is any easy way to deal such individuals without insulting them or sounding rude, I guess you just reach a stage where you learn to live with it.

4 comments:

  1. Very well written Reshma :) As they say, aikave janache.. karave manache :)

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  2. Hi..my first time here...

    I was in the same boat for almost 4 years..my daughter was born premature and it took her about 4 years to start resembling a "normal 4 year old"...till then i was abused, criticised and what not...initially i felt guilty but now i have learnt to let go!

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    1. Hi Sri.. thanks for stopping by and commenting.. though its very hard I now understand that we have no control of what others say/do.. so better to ignore than hold resentments...

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