That's great but...I didn't ask.

This week I’ve had a tirade of advice. It has somewhat influenced this blog. And my need for Gin.

Advice is an odd commodity. When you are asked for it, the recipient doesn’t want your opinion they want reassurance that what they were thinking in the first place was correct. When you ask for it-likewise-you are asking someone to reiterate your views-not share theirs. However when people do not follow these rules, all hell breaks loose. Never is this more apparent than when the “do you think this makes me look fat?” question rears its ugly head (this is really directed at men…). I recently asked a male friend an opinion on my dress, he answered honestly (and subsequently against my own opinion) and we have barely spoken since. But that’s another story. Back to my point: advice is a strange entity and whether it’s being given or received it should only be done so when requested and by those familiar with one another: preferably by friends, or acquaintances at the least….not by the local crazy on the bus.

From the second you are at the bump showing stage of pregnancy, every mother, grandmother, woman, man, beast feel it their god-given right to touch your tummy. I have often wondered how a non-pregnant stranger would react if I strolled up to them and touched their torso. (Admission: I’d be lying if I said I’d never walked past North Harrow Fire Station and wished I could do this…) To be honest I managed to control myself when people I didn’t know touched my expanding belly. What was harder to stomach (do you like what I did there?) was the advice: the never ending, constant stream of unrequited advice. Pearls of wisdom from those who had spat fairly formidable offspring into the world: the kind of kids with “666” branded on the back of their heads. Everyone has an opinion and this is something that I encourage. It’s when these opinions evolve into advice I tend to feel a touch homicidal.

Anyway, I have received many-a-snippet of advice from strangers. Old lady on the bus; pushy mum at toddler group; woman in coffee shop telling me what I need to do to discipline my child whilst her mischievous sprite is looking up the baristas skirt one minute and minesweeping Macchiato dregs the next. My favourite snatch of advice however came from an elderly woman regarding my daughter’s dummy. Now I know dummies are a source of great debate. I swore when pregnant that no child of mine would go near such a wretched article…then at four weeks when I’d had about -3 hours sleep in these 28 days and I was fairly certain my eyes were in backwards I bought a wretched dummy, and I could hear birds again. It was most liberating. Anyway- stranger on the bus: yeah, she had an opinion. Sadly it formulated into advice.

The nub and gist was “Cold turkey! That’s the only way! When my children were little….” (Probably in the late 1800s) “they didn’t need a dummy and I don’t see why mothers-especially young mothers-…” she called me young! Yay! “…insist on using them nowadays. What you want to do is get rid of it now…” This went on from Pinner to Harrow. I smiled, nodded and wrung my hands for the entire 23 minute journey to stop myself from chinning the chatty witch to my left.

Advice from strangers is rather grating. At least you know, as it did with aforementioned chatty witch, that it will end. Advice from mum (by the way mum if you’re reading this I’m not talking about YOUR advice-that’s always fantastic….honest!), mothers-in-law, friends etc is more difficult to avoid as it’s always there. Like dust on my TV. It’s harder to disregard and if you don’t follow it there is the chance they will know. Also, you leave yourself open to “I told you so” should you bugger a situation up against their magnificent advice. It’s always trickier to avoid advice from these people in comparison to those on the bus too. (For example I would suggest putting your earphones in when your mother-in-law looks like she may start talking).

Curiously advice usually starts with a similar phrase to “What you want to do is….” Rather ironically the drivel that follows is rarely what I want to do: because no one has ever ended this phrase with “punch me in the face”.

Anyway, advice is just taken. It is absorbed and stored until you can secretly dispose of it into the ether (Dear Bus Lady, yours has already been deposited). That’s nature’s way. We all have opinions like I said and this is a huge part of the greatness of our cosmopolitan and diverse society. The error occurs when we transform them into unrequited advice.

Of course this is all just my opinion…. ;-)