Take My Advice (And Don’t Listen to Me)

A reader recently wrote in complaining about a column in which I expressed approval of my daughter’s choice in friends by giving her a dollar. My critic indicated to parents that concern about our kids’ companions is legitimate and serious, and my silly bribe idea was not helpful advice. Technically, it hadn’t been advice. It was just a mention of something I’d done. But the criticism was fair because I really do like to give advice. It makes me feel so smart — while I’m giving it, anyway. One day in the company lunchroom, a co-worker named Ron told me that his wife wanted to have a second child, and he didn’t know what to do. To advise him would be foolish, but his best course of action was practically written on the ceiling in letters of flame. I merely read it aloud. “You SHOULD have a second child,” I said. “How can you say that?” Ron asked. “You hardly know me, and you’ve never even met my wife or son.” “Because I’ve seen enough one-child families to know that kind of parenting experience is too intense,” I told him. “It makes people crazy — the kid and the parents, too, ESPECIALLY the parents. A second child makes you realize your limitations and takes the edge off your parenting to where you’re spread too thin to do much damage. But Ron, if you’re smart, you’ll negotiate. You should agree to the additional child on the condition that your wife gets her tubes tied afterward.” Ron looked dubious until I said, “Ignore my advice and you’ll end up with THREE children AND a vasectomy.” Ron took my advice home that night. The next day he was back at work, hunched over his desk looking like General Lee after Gettysburg — only grayer. I stopped by and asked, “Hey, what’s wrong?” He gave me a poisonous look. “I followed your advice. Then my wife told me she’s ALREADY pregnant. Then she stopped speaking to me. Thanks a lot,” he said bitterly, and turned his attention to some papers on his desk. “She shouldn’t blame you for not knowing something she hadn’t told you,” I said. “On the other hand, a pregnant woman is automatically one-up on her husband, and he is automatically one-down.” “I’m not listening,” he said, putting his hands over his ears and glaring down at his desk. “Go away.” Most times when I get asked for advice, it’s because there’s no one else available. When my daughter Marie was 12, she had a big problem and her mom wasn’t home. So she laid it out for me. Roxanne, a friend of hers since their preschool days, had moved back into town. Marie’s friends — the social elite of her school — shunned Roxanne as being uncool and goofy, and had flatly demanded that Marie choose sides. “What’ll I do?” she asked. Again, answer blazed above our heads in fiery orange letters that sizzled and crackled. I said, “It seems like your friends are not real friends, and your old pal Roxanne really needs you now. I’d say it’s time to come through for her.” She nodded and said no more. As the week progressed, she sided with Roxanne and was, as threatened, ostracized from the social mainstream. I was proud of her. But a couple months later, the girls in Marie’s old crowd changed their minds about Roxanne and accepted into their circle. Roxanne jumped aboard like she was catching the last helicopter out of Saigon, and left Marie standing there friendless. While Marie continues trying to piece together the shards of her social life, I’m thinking about going out of the advice business. But it would be a sin to curtail my cutting-edge research into parental roles and techniques. And it would be a crime to withhold my findings. Take this little experiment for example: One morning my 10-year-old daughter Sally was feeling queasy, so I handed her a dollar bill. “What’s this for?” she asked. “Well, I always feel good when someone gives me money,” I said, “Did it work?” “No,” she said. “Maybe I didn’t give you enough,” I said. “Here’s another buck. How’s that?” Her reply was to dart into the bathroom.