Who Needs Advice?

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

This was the prompt exactly a year ago and I answered it back then with something a tv mom told her daughter. “Don’t analyze it, just enjoy it.” I thought really hard about what other advice is good that I’ve received. But, I’m tired today. I’m in a mood that feels like anything I say is going to be snarky. So rather than try to be insightful and philosophical with my answer, I’m going to lean into the snarkiness and refer back to the tv mom. My answer is simply…any advice. Any advice that my mother gave me when I was growing up would have been the best. Because I loved my mom. She didn’t treat me as horribly as my father did. But the thing is, she also didn’t parent me. She gave me no advice. I suffered through high school figuring out everything on my own and often to my own detriment. Any advice from her would have been great. Any little pearl of wisdom would have helped me. But there was nothing. In her defense, she was suffering from her own mental illness demons, which, I can certainly understand. But I definitely suffered along with her.

I was obsessed with two boys in high school. Neither of them initially went to my school. I lost my virginity to one of them and when he got kicked out of the Christian school he attended with the other boy and started coming to my school, I was pretty upset by it. Lots of reasons for that. But ultimately, my grades started slipping and when I told my mom why, I don’t remember what she said to me, because honestly, I don’t think she said anything. My dad wasn’t any help either. When he found out, he said, and I quote, “looks like he used and abused you”. A big part of the reason I was upset by this boy was because he never acknowledged me at school after we had done such a big thing. High school was rough! And yet, I got nothing from my parents in the way of helpful advice. Thank God they didn’t let me ride in a car with a boy until I was 16. That solved everything.

I’m not a mom. I don’t know anything about being a mom. But I know what kind of mother I wish I had had. And I know what kind of mother I knew I wanted to be if I ever had kids. So, my wish for anybody reading this today, if you’re a parent, talk to your kids. Give them advice even if they don’t ask for it. They might not remember everything you tell them, but they’ll absolutely remember if you don’t say anything at all.