Perhaps you have a favorite answer ready, or just the one that you wish you'd said the last time someone told you how to take care of your child? I'm the queen of coming up with answers 5 blocks later :). Any crazy comments that made your blood start to boil? Do tell!

I had this kind of thing happening quite a bit, especially in Japan because people want to share their culturally specific advice. However, I can't ever say that I ever let it bother me or even necessarily remember any of it, except for one very notable incident.

I woke up from a very short nap on the sofa once to find my two year old had been playing with a packet of my husbands allergy medication!!! I was so shocked, and I didn't have a car, so called an ambulance because I had heard it's quicker than a taxi and you get treated more like a priority patient. My daughter really enjoyed the ride and was irritatingly happy all the way.

The doctor advised that if we didn't know how much she had actually swallowed (and we didn't... there were empty places in the packet but didn't know how much had already been used when she got them) and so we could either wait for symptoms, or pump her stomach. I decided to go ahead and pump her stomach because he also said if we wait for symptoms then it also may be too late to prevent some real damage.

So, long story short we went through this HORRIBLE experience of pumping out her stomach, her screaming as the tube went down, vomiting up black charcoal liquid in her hair etc etc etc... and so after the high drama of that we headed down to the hospital cafeteria so I could buy her a drink (her throat was really sore).

I bought the drink and in that short time she had grabbed a small packet of something near the register. I didn't particularly want to reinforce her "eating small tablet" behaviour by buying her small candies, so I said "no" and put it back.

She cried, but it was more about the experience she'd just been through than the candy itself. So we got over that and she was walking up the hall sucking on her drink, when a patient in the hospital who'd witnessed the tantrum came up behind us on crutches, and put the packet RIGHT INTO HER HANDS!!!!! And..... it was GUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So then, in order to get the gum out of my two year olds hands without causing more trauma, I had to go back and buy chocolate which was the lesser of the two evils, and the gum went in the bin. So it was not unwanted advice - she actually acted on her own advice and cut right across my actions as a mother!

I did not have one thing that I could say, and honestly, I don't know what I could have said that would have made a difference. I was just so SHOCKED at the time!

Now that I am a mother of older children (9 and 8) I don't get the gratis advice thing so much, and I guess when I do I just ignore it as "different strokes for different folks".

I humor them! And TRY to not take it to heart. Everyone has an opinion I just don't get why people seem to think they need to give it out so freely!

I can honestly say that if I have ever received advice on parenting my little son, it was so harmless that I don't remember it. I guess I have been lucky.

Either that, or as a new Mon wanting to hear advice, I wecomed it, and it was GOOD advice, which didn't upset me so I don't remember it as a negative experience. I remember getting good advice meant to help, but never comments which might have made me fee a if my parenting skill were lacking, like the one that sanemom said someone told her that she should have hats on her kids. THAT would have pissed me off.

I probably would have told her that my kids had a terminal disease and their hair fell out if they used hats, so I didn't want them to be bald in their caskets in 6 month!. Let's see if SHE makes another comment like that!! But as said before, I too would have thought of that 5 blocks later :-)

Some people need to be shocked out of their self-righteous attitude. I shocked someone who made a comment about my weight when I was pregnant, although they didn't know I was pregnant because they were only seeing me from behind, so their comment was directed at me for just being plain overweight. She said really loud across the room at the DMV, "You could be really pretty if you would just stop eating bread!" So I turned around and shoved my big pregnant belly out even farther...as far as it would go, and said, "I might end up being prettier, but I would never starve my unborn child of needed carbohydrates as you suggest!" Her jaw dropped and she had nothing to say. I smiled the whole way out. (after getting over my initial anger)

Anyone else have a story like this???

I'm looking forward to coming back here to sanemoms.com EACH DAY AND hearing some really good "doozies" here! Yes, it's a Cheap thrill, but that's about all I can afford nowadays!! :-)

I don't have anything as traumatic as these, but I know a LOT of other moms in my community. Fortunately so far, comments have been made tactfully enough that they are not jibes on my own parenting but are just their personal experience. So far. I'm not quick-witted most of the time, but, like all mothers, am defensive of my choices! I get a lot of strange looks from people who find out that I cloth diaper or that I get fewer shots for my baby. Maybe they aren't confrontational, but I know there are people who think I'm wrong or making a bad decision. Luckily, dirty faces are usually easy to ignore!

Now that our children are 20 & 16 I'm past the child-raising advice stage. I like to learn from others and ask lots of questions. Perhaps that's why it doesn't tend to bother me much when people give unsolicited advice. I do have strong convictions though, so if the advice isn't something I can bite into I just let it go. You know we all only walk this way once and we can learn a lot from other people's experiences, good or bad. Now I'm moving into a new area of my life where I'm needing to understand how to be a good mother of teenagers and adults. Perhaps someday I'll be a mother-in-law and grandma. I'll always be learning.

What I always try to remember is that nothing happens by chance, even someone giving me advice. I think of King David and the time he was cursed by Shimei. Even in such a nasty situation, David acknowledged that God had allowed it to happen for a reason. Although king, David was still human. And the Holy Scriptures say that God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. Proud people are self-righteous, look down on others, are independent and self-sufficient. Humble people are compassionate, forgiving, see others as better than themselves and recognize their need for others. I constantly have to check my attitude to keep myself humble before my God. More than anything, I do not want to find myself on the other side, resisting the One who made me, loves me and died to set me free.

I really don’t mind receiving advice of any sort, now (I didn’t always feel that way). I learned that if someone gives unsolicited advice and it makes me angry, they are not steaming over it later, but if I am, it has wasted my valuable time and mental energy. So I just try to learn from it in some capacity. Sometimes I need help seeing things a new way, even when I can’t see that it’s needed (hence my need for “unsolicited advice” at times). Just because I may think something is right for my kids, doesn’t mean it is, because I am not the end-all be-all to knowledge and what's best for my kids. I am secure enough to not be threatened by advice that I don’t agree with, or advice that’s hurtful, or advice that is hard to hear but necessary, etc. There are several older, wise women in my life who pour very loving, yet unsolicited knowledge into me and I accept that they are in my life for a reason and learn from them. I take the Proverbs to heart where it says "fools think they are doing right, but the wise listen to advice".

Although I believe most unsolicited advice is really given with the best intention, when it’s not I do two things; 1) consider the source, 2) find what positive I can take from it (my husband taught me the completely freeing attitude of finding the positive in everything). People who say hurtful things are usually hurting inside themselves. I pity them, give them grace and believe in killing them with kindness. I am only responsible in my life for what I say to others, not what they say to me. I think giving and taking advice is part of this human experience that can be a beautiful communication and relationship building experience between givers and receivers.

I had an in-law tell me I COULDN'T name my child what we had jokingly called her as a fetus ("Cletus"). I took it as an oppy to set some boundaries and said "you raise your child, I'll raise mine"

I also like saying "well, my pediatrician said..." to strangers to get them to shut up. I get alot of strangers giving advice I think because I look pretty young...