Just Ask Mama

When someone asks me for advice or opinion, I first ask them, do you want the skinny mirror answer or the truth?  Skinny mirror just tells you what you want to hear, but doesn't really offer constructive feedback.  Some people are just fine living in that world.  Me, I like the truth.  It might be a hard pill to swallow occasionally, but no one ever died from swallowing a pill.  I don't think anyway.  And it's probably your best bet in the end.

Suggestions and advice can be liberating.  But I'm sure we've all had our share of bad advice too. 

Yeah!  Those dance moves will make you look EXACTLY like Kevin Bacon in Footloose.  Do them.
No!  That color block sweater does NOT look like you took it from Bill Cosby's closet.  Wear it. 

Someone even once told me "don't leave the house unless you have enough food, water, and diapers for 24 hours.  Some days, I took my own advice, and shortened that to just plain "don't leave the house."

Having lots more experience under my belt now than this time a year ago, I can really appreciate the straight-talkin,' no-nonsense, candid words of advice from many of my family and friends.   

My sister Suzy put together a book for me after my baby shower last spring.  It contained tidbits of parenting wisdom, dos and don'ts, and other useful information written by sisters, girlfriends, moms, godmothers, and aunts, and most importantly--professional moms.  I read the book then.  So sweet.  And I just read it again now.  So true.  What a difference.  Good advice may be dispensed at any time, but it's best when you've really "got your ears on," as my father-in-law likes to say.

Here are a few from the pages of this awesome compilation...

 

Seriously, now how can you ask for a better self-help book than that?

P.S. One piece of advice I can now offer to other moms...make sure you put the dirty clothes in the laundry hamper and the dirty diaper in the diaper pail.  Do not switch for they are non-interchangeable.  For the record: Pampers are washable and virtually indestructible.