> I'm not saying that none of this is true or that it's not important at all, but this just seems like classic overthinking to me. My parents didn't know any of this and turned out...

Yeah, reading back, my "bitter irony" line overstates my case. It's not that you ARE going to screw up. It's just that you aren't *necessarily* going to get it right just because the baby comes and your parental instincts suddenly kick in with flawless perfection. Even the very best parents are going to make mistakes.

> But I also often wonder how many people go into parenting thinking they're much better prepared for the task than some others, only to find out the book told them one thing and their kid behaves a completely different way, and get a little snippy with people who suggest the "book" method they've already tried and failed with?

Probably a lot. And maybe that's exactly where all this comes from. A few inexperienced people think they know it all and try to share information in a judgmental way, and that makes frustrated parents get snippy with people who know a thing or two and are trying to share knowledge in a more constructive fashion. But it's not good to respond to know-it-alls by getting snippy with everybody. And I have to think at least some of it is a matter of pride. If you're struggling over something, whether it's parenting or anything else, the last thing you want to discover is that someone you perceive as having less experience knows the answer.

Again, it depends on who's talking and why and how. Some people really are just pompous book-learned snobs. Others may not have kids but might still have not just book knowledge but practical experience as well. I have an aunt, for example, who is not a parent, but she's taught second grade for as long as I can remember, and darned if she doesn't know more about raising kids than half the parents of her students do. Of course her expertise is in that age group, and not everything she knows might apply to teenagers, but it's just like anybody: different people know different things, and if you want to be smart instead of insulting, listen to what they have to say.

My own area of expertise is in those aspects of raising children that correlate with raising animals. No, it's not the same, and it's considerably less complex, but the principles overlap more than you might think. An example: If you tell a dog not to beg at the table 25 times in a row, then, on the 25th, throw a scrap of meat at it to make it go away, congratulations! You've just trained the dog to ignore your commands to get what he wants. Do this even once, and it's VERY hard to undo. If you hadn't screwed up, maybe on the 30th reprimand, the dog will have learned for life, but now that you have, it'll take orders of magnitude more effort to undo the damage.

Kids are smarter than dogs, more adaptable, and more able to understand complexities and change, so they're a little more recoverable from mistakes like this (though also more clever at searching for loopholes to exploit). But many parents screw their kids up this way ALL THE TIME. I see it in supermarkets everywhere I go. "Mom, can I have this?" / "No." / "Mom, can I have this?" / "No." / "Mom, can I have this?" / "No." / "Mom, can I have this?" / "OK, JUST BE QUIET!"

I don't need child-raising experience to tell me this is teaching the kid to nag and ignore what you say. It's common sense. And I've seen first-hand, repeatedly, how kids turn out in the long run when parents do this and when they are conscientious not to. On the other side of the coin, I also don't need parental experience to know that it's harder actually dealing with nagging children than knowing how to.

How DO you get a child not to whine and nag? I know some things to try, but now we're in territory where it only makes sense to defer to parental experience. The best answer is probably different with every kid anyway.

The point? You may be a parent, and I may not be, but that doesn't automatically mean you know the answers, and I don't. Maybe I do, and maybe I don't. Maybe you do, and maybe you don't. If we don't make any stereotypical judgments about each other, we'll be able to share our opinions and find out.

--

True story: a couple weeks ago, our new neighbors left food outside their door for one of the neighborhood cats. Now the cat comes by and meows at the door every night. They knocked on our door and complained to Leen about it, even though they know it's not our cat.

Leen shrugs apologetically. "Sorry. I'm not sure what to tell you."

"He meows all night long and keeps us awake!"

"Well, you put food out for--"

"That was my daughter, and she only did it once!"

"Duh! Once is all it takes!" Leen wanted to say, but all she said was, "..."