The best advice for new parents: Ignore all advice

You do a lot of things you’re not proud of when you become a parent, writes Darren Levin. That’s why when first-time parents ask me for advice, this is what I tell them.

It takes 10,000 hours to be an expert in your field but I’ve been a parent now for more than 50,000 waking hours and guess what? I still have no idea how to parent — or code.

Which is why it’s curious, but extremely flattering, when first time dads think I’d actually have something useful to tell them.

Perhaps they’ve checked out my Instagram feed and noticed a proven ability to keep three kids alive. Maybe they saw a picture of them in portrait mode with expressions on their faces that seemed to indicate joy.

What they didn’t notice is the person behind the lens bribing them to smile with a Kinder Surprise.

Sometimes a little bribery can go a long way, like an entire aisle of a grocery store without tears. Picture: Supplied

And that’s the perfect segue into my #1 tip for prospective parents: learn how to bribe strategically and well.

You can’t just go in all guns blazing and bribe kids with a bike for some far-off event like Christmas or their birthday.

Pick manageable, realistic bribes at reasonable price points — I’m talking lollies or tiny toys that will end up in landfill four days later.

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You buy this nonsense at the start of the supermarket run, movie or road trip, then you dangle it over their sweet little heads like a sugar-coated carrot for the entire expedition.

It’s vitally important you don’t succumb to their sneaky manipulation tactics and hand over the contraband too early. If the pay-off happens prematurely you’ll need a secondary bribe to get through the rest of the day.

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Bribery is not really a piece of advice you should be giving to anyone outside jail or an oppressive dictatorship but you do a lot of things you’re not proud of when you become a parent.

Stocking up on various advice before bringing a new life into your world is only natural but be prepared to dismiss it all. Picture: iStock

That’s less advice than a pre-emptive warning, but knowing that in advance will save a lot of time planning out things you will abandon just a few weeks in.

For instance, you may have grand plans to only feed your children macrobiotic food sourced from your own garden until they’re old enough to buy McDonald’s. Then you realise the orientation of your unit isn’t really conducive to a macrobiotic garden, so you end up giving them fruit roll-ups and fish fingers for dinner every night instead.

There’s an old football saying that the game isn’t played on paper — and when it comes to children the paper isn’t for planning, but for colouring in at cafes when they’re bored and you’d like to finish your coffee in peace.

Every child really is a unique snowflake — to borrow a term from the agro right — and the unpredictability of whatever your DNA spits out in the world means that advice from any other parent is completely particular to them.

You may have firm ideas around breastfeeding, formula, baby food, child seats, sleeping, screentime, swaddling, co-sleeping, cots, sustainable nappies, and organic linen.

But you do whatever works for you in any given moment when you have kids — even if it means compromising some long held standards or ideals in order to get them to eat something/anything for dinner or make it out of a restaurant in one piece.

It’s why I don’t really have any advice to first time parents except don’t listen to any advice at all. Oh, and vaccinate your kids.

Darren Levin is a RendezView columnist.

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