Your kids are great. But....

Here it is.  You've been waiting for a rant, I'm sure.  And today, I oblige.

(Before I begin, allow me to preface:  this is NOTNOTNOT about any one person.  This is a culmination of feelings begotten from well-meaning suggestions that I'm too polite and well-bred to turn into a backhanded compliments.)

Please don't tell me how to raise my kid.  If I want (or need) advice, I'll ask for it.  I promise.

But your unsolicited suggestions, your passive aggressive hints, and your outright judgemental reactions are hurtful.  And honestly, detrimental to my mental health.  It can't be safe for me to imagine you burned at the stake for your (in my opinion) bad parenting advice.

Just because you raised, or are raising, a child doesn't make you T. Berry Brazelton.  Having a child older than mine didn't unlock some mysterious safe in which ALL secrets of parenting were stored. 

The best piece of wisdom I've gotten on the subject?  "Yes, they raised a child...but not YOUR child."

My child is just that: MINE.  I know her better than you.  Not to be immature, but nanner nanner boo boo.

Sure, I've only been at this parenting thing for 6 months, but I have 27 years of observational experience, books galore, the internet, and what was that other thing???  Oh, right, MILLIONS OF YEARS OF BIOLOGICAL INTUITION.   If it doesn't feel right to my instinct, I'm not going to do it.  And if I'm not doing it, it's because it doesn't feel right.  So that suggestion I receive contradicting my feelings?  In one ear and out the other (I've been practicing that manuever since age 12).

I know it takes a village.  And I appreciate my village.  But I'd prefer to reach out to the villagers.  And sometimes it seems like the only villager available is the town idiot.  And you can't deny that, as parents, we ALL feel this way at one time or another.  We want the best for our children, and we want our own decisions validated.  So when we receive suggestions that go against what we feel, we react defensively...because what we hear is that our decisions are BAD, we are BAD parents, we are HARMING our children.  Sure, not what was said....but that millions of years of instinct is telling us otherwise.

I think I might just have to develop a code phrase.  It will sound very polite to the suggestion giver, but in my head it translates to vicious profanity.  Hmmm....more on this code phrase later!