This season Manulife is creating a movement of gratitude and paying it forward kindness during the Christmas season. We hope that by sharing our stories of #LifeAdvice and #gratitude we can amplify the conversation and encourage more people to think of sharing these types of kind gestures over the holidays. 

When I think about advice-givers in general, I think about my dad. His mission in life is to be a fount of extremely useful advice… much of which he never follows himself. His other (more alarming) mission is to be a shining example of what not to do. His other children and I are already planning to have his favorite catchphrase, “Do As I Say, Not As I Do,” engraved on his tombstone.

In our most recent telephone conversation, Dad decided to bequeath his wisdom for dabbling in the stock markets. My dad is good for quality. The problem with his advice, however, is that it’s usually stuff I’ve already had to figure out myself–by research, or just the hard way–a decade or so earlier. This is why I call my Dad the Peddler of Post-dated Pointers.

Now that I’m an adult, the only advice I’m ever solicited for is about grammar and editing (and occasionally about using coconut oil in lieu of butter to make frosting). Since handing out advice as a parent is a thankless job, I’ll take what I can get. Perhaps this is why my dad preferred to wait as long as he did to give me the benefit of his wisdom.

…Or maybe he just assumed I wouldn’t listen until I was thirty.

Now that I have a six-year-old son, I’m beginning to suspect the latter.

Once you have a kid who is old enough to say “NO!” the thousands and millions and billions of pieces of advice which you have been told and forgotten come boiling back to the surface. Indeed, it feels some days like advice is the only conversation you have with a child:

Don’t bite others. How would YOU feel if Sammy bit you back?

Put your socks on BEFORE your boots. BEFORE. Of course it’s not working; your boots can’t magically teleport your socks onto your feet.

Get in the bath. You don’t want to be the stinky kid in class, do you? Nobody will want to hang around with you if you’re the stinky kid. 

Of course, none of it goes over very well with a child. I’m not sure why; their lives would be so much easier if they would listen and benefit from our ability to use logic.

One of the hardest things to accept as a parent is that sometimes it’s a good thing that kids don’t listen. If they always listened to us, they’d never learn to reason for themselves. And so the most important piece of advice that I ever got (which I’m sure I’ve been told before by someone, but ignored and have had to relearn for myself) is that you have to let people figure out things for themselves.

Not only is the lesson a thousand times better learned the hard way, but also it teaches another valuable life skill: learning to ask for help.

Come to think of it, maybe my Dad has it right after all. Not only am I doing no favors for my son by letting him miss out on life’s most “fun” lessons, but why should I bother talking to myself when nobody is listening? 

I think instead I’ll look forward to giving my son life advice when he’s my age and continue the family tradition of Post-dated Pointers.

Visit the Manulife blog for more details on what they are doing to share gratitude this month, or pop onto the #LifeAdvice hashtag on Twitter and start sharing the best life advice YOU have received! 

This post is sponsored by SPLASH Media Engagement on behalf of Manulife. 

@Manulife is asking you to spread some positive by thanking those in your life who have given you great #LifeAdvice. Take a moment to #PayItForward by thanking someone important to you.

Author

Anne usually speaks in memes and SAT words, and she frequently attempts to explain the laws of physics and high school chemistry according to the kitchen via her home blog FoodRetro. If you want to know why ice melts or pretzels turn brown, and you want to make food that you never imagined could be made from scratch in the process, she's your blogger. Her friends describe her as "hilarious when you get to know her," but it could be that they are just amused by the way she gets riled up when reading the paper. She can also be found playing the part of community editor and grammar nazi here on BLUNTmoms.

2 Comments

  1. Love the phrase Post-Dated-Pointers! Excellent advice Anne. My girls like to put on their rain boots and THEN their leggings. I will bite my tongue and save it for a dinner anecdote when they have their first boyfriend over – perhaps I should get a picture too.

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