Citizen Parenting Experts

veryone has parents. Whether or not they are involved with their children’s lives is another matter. But everyone has parents - at least two of them.

Which means for every person on the planet there are at least twice as many people who are parents. And a lot of those parents, even some who have only had children for only a few weeks, consider themselves experts on parenting. Just ask them. Or better yet, don’t. They’ll likely soon give their opinion on your parenting anyway. It’ll happen. Maybe even before your baby even arrives.

Expert Advice #1: Finding out Your Baby’s Gender
I had a mother tell me that it’s better not to find out what sex the baby is before it’s born, though my wife and I had already learned we’d be having a girl. “Don’t you want to be surprised?” this mother had asked. I answered that we were surprised… when we found out. And the birth itself would be enough of a surprise when it finally happened. But that wasn’t the response this mom had hoped for, so she asked again. “Don’t you want to find out when the baby is born?” I guess she just wanted us to know we’d made a mistake in finding out. And since my wife and I still hadn’t officially arrived in the world of parenting, we’d wondered if she was right.

With a new life at stake, any decision suddenly becomes an important one, and we’ve had no choice but to second-guess ourselves every step of the way. After all, who were we to know when it was the right time to find out the baby’s gender? What if waiting to find out until she (or he) was born would have been better for the child’s development? What if we were imprinting our knowledge on the child before she had a chance to figure out for herself? 

It sounds crazy, sure, but this was a mother - an expert - who was saying this to us. Shouldn’t she know better than two crazy kids who don’t really know what they’re in for?

Expert Advice #2: Naming Your Baby
The decision on what to name your baby is another one on which everyone - not only the parent-experts, but family-experts, neighbor-experts, the checkout-person-at-the-supermarket-experts - will give his or her opinion. If that baby hasn’t popped out yet, the name is fair game.

Suggestions will fly and when you add a name to the mix, it may be shot down before it even leaves your lips. You’ll really appreciate the more tactful experts who will ask, “Oh, is that a family name?”