Useless Advice

All of it.

I almost stopped writing right there. But I know that such sweeping statements are generally untrue, so how about: Most of it.

Last week on the radio, the host was saying that she'd had a headache for 24 hours now. It wasn't debilitating but persistent. She said she'd taken all the ibuprofen she could and had slept, but it hung on. She Googled remedies. None of them appealed to her, especially this one: Count backward from 1,000 ... by 7s. Ouch.

I could feel a headache starting just thinking about it, and at the same time she was saying, "My headache got worse just hearing that."

Deep down in my analytical brain, where I kind of understand things that don't seem to make any sense, I assume that it is supposed to distract you from the pain and then the headache will magically disappear. But I had to wonder whether anyone had actually tried it. And been successful.

My heart really goes out to today's parents. Any problem they Google will give them thousands of answers to sift through, most of them useless.

The truth is that we all have likes and dislikes and that includes our children. People push what worked for their children, and that's the problem. For instance, They lucked onto something that got their kids to eat a wide variety of foods. That doesn't mean it will work for your child.

But parents, desperate to get their kid to eat something other than mac and cheese, are willing to try anything. This only leads to frustration.

The same holds true with advice about getting your baby to sleep more.

When I was a new mom, I had a favorite baby book and found many of the recommendations sensible. Except the ideas about getting your baby to sleep through the night. My baby simply refused to respond the way the book said she would.

I finally sat her on my lap and showed her the charts and explained how it would work and how happy Mommy would be if she (Mommy) had a little more sleep. But no dice.

I didn't even try with the next two. They all worked it out on their own and slept quite well by the time they were four.

I caught up on my own sleep a couple of years later.