I used to watch my sisters kids Mon-Fri. She literally had HER kids sat and sun. That was it. I STILL didn't know a lot about raising a baby till I had one. But my advice was always taken onto consideration.

Yeah, no... Being a nanny is *almost* never the same thing. I was an early childhood teacher and licensed nanny... And I thought I knew it all. PP put it best by pointing out the love/guilt thing but I'd like to add selflessness. You just don't have the same perspective as you do when a child's future depends largely on how you raise him or her. Now THAT'S pressure.

Being a parent is all consuming.

Even though I'm a mum and I used to help look after my nieces guess what? Please don't come up to me for advice cos sometimes I still don't know sxxt! Being parent is like being a blind person expecting to find their way in the dark!!

I agree with you! This lady told me not to hold my newborn baby too much because he'll become spoiled, but she doesn't even have any kids. Goodbye✌️ Smh.

I listen to one person who doesn't have children. My mates daughter who has been a nanny for many years and is so well loved and upto date the family she used to work for in England regularly fly her over for family trips to other countries and to visit them. They miss her now she's back here working.

Whilst I don't take all on board she does have some great advice with feeding and other issues that arise. She has been with the kids since birth and came home when they went to school.

Other than that I cannot stand the textbook mums who spout off their advice. If it was as easy as reading a book then we'd all have perfect little robots running around.

It really pisses me off when people assume a childless person knows nothing about kids. Do you know if they were the oldest of 7 kids? Had a s*** ty parent and basically raised their siblings? Had a ton of experience watching children in one form or another?

I worked in a daycare and my kids (2-3) who were basically double the legal ratio were the best behaved group in the center. I had no kids at the time but made more $ babysitting outside of work over the weekend than in my 40 hours there because everyone wanted me to watch their kids. I won't go into a long drawn out story, but just because someone hasn't had their own children yet doesn't make their advice necessarily less valid. There will always be people who are just totally clueless and give advice, but don't automatically ignore all advice given.

I agree 1000%!

What really irritates me is when the non parent people judge other parents on their parenting.

I actually thought I knew a lot about kids. Between working in a daycare for awhile and spending quite a bit of time with my niece & nephew's I thought I'd totally have the parenting thing under control. I was wrong, it's completely different once you have your own.

Now that I have 2 kids I feel life I qualify for expert status though :)

Preach!

I agree. Non parents can have opinions, but they don't mean much to anyone that actually has kids. I had plenty of opinions about kids and parenting before I had kids and they were all wrong, lol.

Agree 1000%. I won't even talk to my kidless friends about the "struggles" I have being a parent. There is one in particular that thinks having a cat is the same as having a baby, and while I have a dog who is definitely part of our family and loved dearly by all of us, she is not an infant who grew in my tummy. Js.

@thenew sorry for the spelling errors. I don't proof read all the time so thank you for doing it for me lol

Absolutely agree.

Parenting* Techniques*

@sparkling yes, my phone weirdly corrected it lol.

I hate that if you're sure of your patenting technics you're a sanctimommy. Of course I believe my technics are right. I'd be an idiot to do something I thought was wrong

I definitely will listen, will I take your advice? Maybe, but I'm going to do tons of research on it first.

I hate the word sanctimommy. ?

I am willing to listen. Sometimes people without kids will have an outside the box perspective. Rarely, but it happens.

Add on question:

Would you take advice from a long-time teacher if she didn't have any kids of her own?

Agree. Being a parent who is there all the time is a whole lot different than reading about it in books/babysitting/ect.

I completely agree with you! You don't know anything about parenting until you are a parent yourself. I had a degree in early childhood education and development, experience babysitting, nannying, worked in a daycare AND was a Pre-K teacher all before having children and STILL wasn't prepared for all that parenting entailed. I had lots of opinions on how parents should parent, not gonna lie, I have many differing opinions now that I'm actually a mother.

I agree.

If you have no kids, I really dont want to hear your opinions because you have no real experience...and NO neices, nephews and baby cousins dont qualify you as having experience IMO. I'll hear you but 9 times out of 10 I wont consider what you're saying

I will listen to a parent about parenting advice. If you don't have kids I pay no attention to there advice.