4 Reasons Why Non Parents Should Stop Giving Parenting Advice

4 Reasons Why Non Parents Should Stop Giving Parenting Advice

Since we are now a family travel and food blog, we will write parenting stories like this from time to time. Not necessary our stories could be sponsored but just sharing our experiences as parents and hope it helps our readers out there. For this story, it is not so much in helping the parents but sharing the reasons why non parents should stop giving parenting advice. Yes, we are very annoyed by them and they should know why.

Often we hear about non parents giving parenting advice on how to control your child, what to do during the pregnancy and many other advice. There are many will brag on how to raise and control your kids and some even brag on giving tips for moms on breast feeding tips. Some will go on teaching parents on things like no tech like smart phones or tablets to their children.

Most of them will brag in social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Well, to be frank I was one of them before I become a father and I was told off by a parent before. I was told that I should keep quiet because I am not a parent. My intention was good but little that I knew what I did was wrong.

Now as father of two, I understand why non parents should stop giving parenting advice. Based on my experience, there are a couple of reasons and they are:

1.Non-Parents are a Virgin

The first reason is the most important of all. Non-parents are virgins. Why I said that? How can you teach a person how to drive a car when you can’t even drive one? Same goes like telling people how great sex is when you are still a virgin. A person could have ‘experienced’ parenthood as a family member under the roof is having a new born doesn’t mean you know everything. There are more than that. So non-parents, please stop bragging things that you think you understand and especially when you are still a virgin.

2.The Journey

Every parents journey is different and many parents are very secretive to it. Before pregnancy, the journey of making a baby differs from each and every single individual.

Making baby is not easy too. Getting the dates right to have sex for baby is stressful and we have friends who repeating the process for five to seven years. One of the main reason why couples are hard to conceive is due to stress (either from making baby, pressure from family or work).

We spent some time and money to have our first child. Of course we didn’t go brag about it on our social media as some things are better to stay in closet. Each and every individual is different and to conceive a baby is a responsibility of the parents not just the mother alone. Many would blame the women but in reality it’s the responsibility of men too. We went to almost all methodology we can think off, Chinese doctor, fertility centre and fertility temples (I am not kidding). At the end of the day, we didn’t what actually work but we are blessed anyways.

The pregnancy journey is not an easy one too but an enjoyable one. The nine months of journey is tiring for the mother but it is should be experienced by both parents. Sadly, we had friends who had miscarriages in their pregnancies and some had premature babies.

This journey never ends as it is a lifetime commitment like how our parents brought us up and a generation before them. So non parents, have you gone through this small portion of journey yet to qualify yourself as an expert? Think.

3.The Experience

The experience of the whole journey could be tiring, fun and memorable. Each and every parents have different journeys and experiences. Some parents might have post-natal depressions that could lead to severe impact in their life. For us, even our journey is tiring but we had a memorable experience.

For breast feeding mothers, there are many pleasant and unpleasant experiences and some moms are having issues feeding the babies. It is very stressful process and we been through it for our first child. The proper and right techniques and this is also another factor why pre-natal classes are very important for first time parents.

Imagine sleepless nights especially for the first few months for parents. Mothers will wake up to breast feed while father will take turn to feed using bottles in our case. Moms never had enough rest for the first couple of weeks and dads played a role to help out. This are the experiences that parents might not share it publicly and only to their close friends. With these experiences, we value our parents more as it is never easy.

Without these experiences, should non-parents give parenting advice probably learned from Google and Youtube? Think.

4.Every Child Is Unique

Before I become a father, I am always annoyed by crying babies on flights. Yes, it is not a fun experience and you might feel the parents should do more to keep their babies quiet. As a father now, I do understand that every child is unique. Of course there are still many idiotic parents who doesn’t care about crying babies on board.

I have two kids and they have different type of character, behaviour and ‘patterns’. We treated them different as they are unique.

Sometimes, some child might have special talents like autism and so on. You don’t really know about it and parents have gone thru a lot with them. When non-parents giving advice without knowing it, it hurts them like hell while some are fine with it. Remember, there are two sides of a coin so don’t assume you know and understand everything.

Thus, if you are one of those non-parents who enjoyed to brag especially on social media such as Twitter and Facebook on your expert parenting advice, please share this or tag your non-parents friends.

Please take note this is based on our experiences as parents of two and we loved our boys like crazy.

Wilson Ng