Different Shoes.
The hardest advice to stop is your own. She catches the adviser in herself – and her hand writes curiosity instead.
Bella knows the receiving end of good advice by heart: almost everyone with more than one child is certain she needs a second, and even a direct “I don't want to” gets answered with total confidence – “You will.” Then, mid-conversation with a friend, she feels the same sentence forming in her own mouth: oh, I said that too, and look at me now. And she catches it before it lands.
What she finds in that moment is the reason this site's About page leads with “Not a method – a companion”. Experience doesn't transfer: what proved true for me proves nothing about you. The most honest thing to offer another person's way is company and curiosity, not conclusions – your way is the way, and that sentence holds from the other side too. Their way is theirs.
The sentence her hand wrote instead of the advice is the whole post in one line. I'll let her say it.
I've noticed something: we often push our own desires, fears, ideas and so on onto other people.
For example, a friend of mine has two kids, and she gently but persistently advises everyone to have a second or a third. And really, almost everyone with more than one child insists that I need a second. Even when I say straight out that I don't want to, they answer with complete certainty: “You will.”
I've run out of words to explain to these people that I want one child. I've even had the thought of telling them I can't have any more children, just so they'd leave me alone – but I'm not ready to lie like that.
And then recently I was telling a friend about breastfeeding, and she said that if she has kids, she'll most likely feed them formula. I'm someone who spent half her life sure that formula was the answer to everything – and since my baby was born I've been breastfeeding only, and I'm very glad about it. And I felt the urge to say: “Oh, I used to say that too, and look how it turned out.”
But in that moment I caught myself: with that I would be devaluing her wish and her words in exactly the same way. Even if she changes her mind later – that's her right.
And my hand simply wrote: “It will be interesting to see how it turns out for you.”
Because I really am curious. And because I don't want to push my experience and my desires onto her.
And the point of all this is that we're all different. With different interests, desires, and experience. And however much we might want it, another person won't fit into our shoes. We could all stand to learn to hear others and to respect wishes that aren't our own.
Thank you for reading.
If her words reached somewhere mine don't – good. That's what this blog is for. Take what fits and leave the rest.
– Jan