Giving Advice
by Roberta Maisel
Editor's Note: While this article addresses parents giving advice to their
grown-up children, it applies as well to any relationship or situation where one
gives advice.
Giving
advice is one of the points of greatest tension and conflict in our relations
with our children. Parents want to help their children out of scrapes and
difficult situations by telling them how to do it better. But giving advice
often makes matters worse.
Heather, 34, was partnered with Sally, 28. They had been living together
for three years and were planning a marriage ceremony. Heather wanted a baby
very badly and had found a clinic specializing in impregnating lesbian
would-be mothers with donated sperm. The problem, from Heather's parents point
of view, was that she had no health insurance. Her father, Carl, got on her
case without let-up.
"How come your job doesn't provide health insurance? Have you asked them?
Are you sure they are not discriminating against you?"
"They're a new company, Dad, and they just haven't gotten it together yet."
"Yes, but you're trying to get pregnant. You have to get insurance before
you get pregnant in order to get all your pre-natal and delivery costs paid
for. And what if you have some special problem in the pregnancy? Do you
realize what that can cost? Tens of thousands!"
"It's okay, Dad, trust me. The clinic is actually very inexpensive and they
cover the basics. Everything will be all right. And, anyway, I'm not pregnant
yet. It'll all work out."
"But ---"
"It'll be fine."
Where did Carl go wrong? Or did he? Carl's approach is probably recognizable
to all parents concerned about a situation which could result in financial
disaster for their child. However, he could have improved his chances of moving
his daughter in the direction of sensible decision-making around money with some
changes in his approach.
He needs to be aware that continual questioning is perceived by the person
being questioned as invasive. This will turn the listener off.
She will either no longer hear the questions or change the subject or walk
out of the room. She will probably not answer such questions honestly.
"Everything will be all right" is basically a dishonest answer. It is very
different from an answer she would give a friend towards whom she had no
animosity and with whom there was no power imbalance. It is a brush-off answer
that tells nothing.
Besides the questioning, Carl does too much talking and not enough listening.
He engages in the more-is-better system of confrontation, to wit, if you bombard
someone with unassailable facts and arguments over and over the listener will
sooner or later break down and follow your advice. This is a desperation move.
Carl's good arguments and knowledge of relevant facts collapse when he uses them
to bludgeon his daughter. If he listened to her story first, and saved his trump
cards for the end of the interaction, Heather might be able to hear and to
follow his advice.
If Carl is secretly worried that he and his wife will have to pick up the tab
in the event of a complication of pregnancy, he should say so. This may be one
of the causes of tension and irritability underlying his manner. He may not want
to bring this out for fear of appearing selfish in Heather's eyes. If he isn't
sure how he would feel about paying for his uninsured daughter, he should
express his unsureness. Everyone can understand ambivalence; it is part of our
everyday lives. He might have said something like:
"If you have a complication of pregnancy or delivery and you get a $25,000
bill from the hospital -- which is by no means unheard of -- I'm going to be
torn about whether I should pay the bill to get you out of a jam or whether I
should just let you sink or swim on your own. This is causing me a lot of
anxiety. I want to do the right thing, but I'm not sure what the right thing
is."
Heather would then have to mull over her father's honest statement of his
perplexity and come up with a response. She would also want to do the right
thing, partly because her father is modeling conscience and character for her.
She might say, "Don't worry, Dad, I will take financial responsibility for
everything." If a 34-year-old, able-to-cope individual agrees to financial
responsibility for her actions, her parents should honor that pact, come what
may.
What, then, are the guidelines for giving advice to our adult children?
1. Ask yourself, "Does my child really need my advice?" You may discover, on
reflection, that your son's messy home, with unwashed dishes in the sink and
mountains of unfolded laundry piling up, is a pattern that works for him. It
doesn't hurt him especially nor does it hurt anyone else. You are under no
obligation to do his laundry or wash his dishes to alleviate this problem, nor
do you have to advise him to get a housekeeper or find some other solution.
2. Ask yourself, "Does my child really want my advice?" This is harder than
the above because part of you thinks that, whether she wants it or not, she
should have it. This is the part of you that needs re-training.
Marty and Janet, a Caucasian couple, were planning to adopt a mixed-race
baby. Janet's parents fretted for months over this decision, thinking of all
the potential difficulties for both Marty and Janet and the baby. They
discussed this between themselves at great length, and finally decided that
their daughter and son-in-law were making this decision with their eyes open
and their feet on the ground. They decided to do nothing.
3. Trust your intuition. This does not mean acting on the basis of your
initial impression. A decision whether or not to give advice requires as much
thought and information as you can get. Intuition is not flighty or superficial:
it is an expression of our wisest and best selves.
4. Differentiate between advice to help your child (e.g., tips on study
habits, advice on investing) and advice to alleviate a conflict or sore spot in
your relationship (e.g., your ban on smoking in your own home). With the former,
ideally, you are a disinterested party. I say ideally because it is really very
tempting (and very common) for one's ego to become involved in one's children's
study habits, investing practices, or almost anything else. With the latter, the
advice may be larded with anger, attempts at punishment, or parental
problem-solving. If you tell your child not to smoke in your home you may be
subtly advising him not to smoke anywhere while, at the same time, enjoining him
to not smoke in your home. If you tell your child not to smoke in your home, you
shouldn't be contaminating the instruction with morality. Make it a
judgment-free command that says, implicitly, that what he does in his own home,
or anywhere else, is not your business. He will appreciate your not judging him,
but he will also get a keen sense of your opinion of smoking.
5. Give some thought to the thorny issue of embarrassment -- yours, not hers.
While this may have no relation to a crisis, it is germane to the issue of
advice giving. It also crops up at unexpected times and may loom so large as to
obliterate more important issues. Your daughter or son may embarrass you in
public with her choice of clothes or hairstyle, tattoos or nose ring. She might
exhibit behavior that you define as unseemly or rude. She may have personal
habits such as loud belching, passing gas noisily, or bathing irregularly which
make you want to crawl into the nearest hole. Paradoxically, this might be the
perfect place for advice laced with humor. "You'll never get nominated for
president with that nose ring. It says so in the Constitution." Humor lets you
both laugh together. Humor lets your child know that you still love her, in
spite of it all.
Tackling the issue of embarrassment over your adult child's behavior or
appearance is thorny because it forces you to separate from him. You may have
thought you had separated long ago, but all of a sudden your son's unkempt
appearance causes you embarrassment, anxiety, and, yes, even pain in the
presence of your friends. Something tells you that you cannot change him, at
least not right now and not with a frontal attack. The only sensible and humane
avenue open to you is to let him be himself. Any embarrassment needs to be felt
by him, not by you. These are his choices, not yours.
6. Finally, your decision to advise or not to advise falls largely on your
ability to keep your ego out of the proceedings. Your advice should be for your
child and only for your child. He will know if you have a hidden agenda, if your
needs rather than his are being reflected in your "advice."
This
article is excerpted from:
 All Grown Up: Living Happily Ever After with Your Adult Children
by Roberta Maisel.
Reprinted with permission of the publisher, New Society Publishers. ©2001. http://www.newsociety.com
Info/Order
this book.
About the Author
 ROBERTA
MAISEL is a volunteer mediator with Berkeley Dispute Resolution Service in
Berkeley, California. She is an enthusiastic parent of three grown children and,
at various times in her life, has been a school and college teacher, antique
shop owner, piano accompanist, and political activist working with and for
Central American refugees, homeless people and Middle East peace. More recently
she has given talks and workshops on aging, living with loss, and getting along
with adult children.
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