This Mother's Day, Stop Telling Moms What To Do

If you ask me, every day is Mother's Day — just not in the nice, dandelion bouquet sense.

No, in the sense that every day, someone somewhere has some great advice that she just has to give to the next mother she sees. This advice comes from other moms, from books, from hysteria-tinged warning labels. And it comes from that mother of all mothering advice: the parenting magazine, overflowing with solutions to the problems you didn't even know you had. So here is what I would like for Mother's Day: a day without advice.

Most of the moms I spoke to would appreciate that, too.

"My cousin was over, and I was just slicing up pizza for my daughter, and she had to run over and show me: 'You shouldn't cut pizza with a knife! It's a mom thing to cut perfect pizza bites with a scissors so they're not too big,'" newish mom Suzanne Driscoll said.

Forget about the fact that her cousin thinks precise pizza pieces are critical. Think about the fact that she believes it a "mom thing" to obsess over pizza-bite perfection.

Moms are officially in charge of over-obsessing these days, which is too bad because moms always have obsessed. (See: "preservation of the species, comma, mother's role.") But now we are expected to obsess more than we were in the time of saber-toothed tigers.

Just look at one of the helpful articles in this month's Parents magazine: "The Great Outdoors." "Now that the weather's warm, go outside with your baby and get moving!" the article enthuses. "We've pulled together the gear and accessories you need for a fun (and totally safe) day in the sun."

Thus begins a FOUR-PAGE SPREAD on that very difficult and demanding activity: spending a day outside with your kid.

Wait! Did I say day — as in an uninterrupted series of hours? Of course, the sun's rays are far too damaging in the middle of the afternoon, "so plan your outdoor activities for the early morning or late afternoon, when the sun isn't as strong," the magazine says.

It goes on to suggest all sorts of accessories you'll find useful for this Sir Edmund Hillary-esque expedition, from a set of $16 "Clip-It-Alls" — plastic clips that "keep your stroller blanket from getting caught in the wheels" — to a "Cool Bike Trailer" that will set you back $590.

If you are so foolhardy as to borrow someone else's $590 stroller or baby backpack, the magazine's "tip" is this: "Go to cpsc.gov to make sure it hasn't been recalled."

So before you even head out the door, you now are supposed to be worried about a dangerously defective stroller, a child who is ripe for skin cancer, and a blanket that just may get caught in some overwhelming tangle with the wheels. Time to turn around and hit the Scotch.

But hey — this is all helpful advice, right? Just trying to make sure you don't screw things up!

The problem with all this advice, of course, is that rather than helping, it ends up killing whatever self-confidence you had. Susan Linn, author of "The Case for Make Believe," cites the baby bath thermometer as a good example of what parents are up against these days.

Until this gadget came along, parents tested water temperature by dipping in their wrists. If the result was, "Yeoww!" the water was too hot. If the result was, "Brrrr!" it was too cold. Parents did not need a thermometer giving them advice.

"Corporations are doing everything they can to convince us that we need their products in order for our children to flourish," Linn said. But for our children's sake, as well as our own sanity, she says, "We should trust ourselves."

That's great advi … uh … that's a great Mother's Day message: Trust yourself. Play in the sun. And enjoy your bouquet of dandelions.

Lenore Skenazy is a columnist at The New York Sun and Advertising Age. To find out more about Lenore Skenazy (lskenazy@yahoo.com) and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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