Your grandfather tells you that if you keep picking up your 2-week-old son every time he cries, you’ll spoil him. Your grandmother just wants you to give your breastfed 3-month-old a bottle of Karo syrup and condensed milk at night “so he’ll sleep better.”

Meanwhile, an older gentleman at the grocery store told you that your 18-month-old looks like she’s about to fall out of the sling on your back. Repeatedly. But your great-grandmother tells you stories of how she taught her kids right from wrong — and her methods actually make sense to you.

You’ve done your research, you’ve talked to other moms and read all the books, and you’ve made your decisions about how to raise your child. And you know that the folks from older generations are simply trying to be helpful, or they may not know that as times change, research changes as well.

But how do you address these people and retain your own dignity?
It can be very tricky when it’s a family member who is actively criticizing your parenting choices. Briana Stewart, who lives in Powder Springs with her two children, found that she had some resistance from her mother regarding co-sleeping.

“My biggest challenge in this parenting choice has been my mother. She tolerated it with minimal comment until I learned that I was pregnant with [my second child],” Stewart says. “My first child, Katie, was 15 months old at that time.

“From that moment forward, I was subjected to a running diatribe on how impossible [co-sleeping] was going to be with a new baby, how I needed to start training her immediately to sleep in her own bed, that nap times would be a disaster and I’d never get any rest. She also suggested that it was unhealthy and made it impossible for Katie to sleep anywhere else but at home, with me, in my bed, and what on earth was I going to do while I was in the hospital having baby number two?”

Sometimes the situation is a bit more benign. Lindsay Mast, a Decatur mom of two, recalls a time when a stranger approached her about the mei tai, an Asian-style baby carrier, she was wearing. “I love to talk up babywearing, so I told her how great it was, and that I wore my daughter out and about as well as at home while I vacuumed,” Mast says.

“My older daughter, who was probably 15 months at the time, was very startled by the vacuum cleaner’s noise. I told this woman as much and that wearing her allowed me to vacuum without scaring her. She responded that my daughter really had me fooled.”

So how should you respond to situations like these? Paula Bloom, PsyD, a practicing clinical psychologist and frequent contributor to CNN en Español, as well as a wife and mother of two, suggests looking inward. “One of the first things to look at is why you are getting so angry,” she says. “When something is irritating you, it’s because it’s getting traction.”

Her advice? Make sure you are confident in your parenting choices and don’t worry about what anyone else thinks or says. “People’s intentions are usually good. And when you’re making the decision about whether to educate someone about a topic, that’s a calculated decision. If you want to educate somebody, you can say it first gently,” she add. “But if person’s not getting it and nobody’s life is in imminent danger, drop it.” Additionally, “the key is not just to not outwardly say anything, but inwardly to not fume or seethe.”

Stewart struggled with her decision to co-sleep at first. “Throughout the pregnancy, when my mother was bullying me to make these changes, it really bothered me,” she remembers. “I even reached a point where I felt I needed to make the change because surely my mother was right, right? Because, you know, she’s my mother.”

Stewart realized, however, that co-sleeping worked well for her family, and she eventually found peace with it. “Once I spent a few days trying to figure out how to implement the changes that would get my daughter out of my bed, I realized that I didn’t want her anywhere else,” she says. “I wanted her there with me, close in the night to nurture and comfort as needed. And because she comforted me in return. I was trying to fix a problem that didn’t exist. We were happy, it was my mother who wasn’t.”

Meanwhile, Mast recalls that when it came to the stranger in the market, “I gave her a not-too-friendly smile and went about my business.”

Katherine Anderson, of Salt Lake City, Utah, has a similar approach when people give her unwanted or unsolicited advice. “Generally I thank them for the suggestion, and change the subject. For most of my older relations, I simply don’t tell them about the objectionable things, like not vaccinating or extended breastfeeding, or co-sleeping,” Anderson says. “If someone finds out, I just gloss over it and move on.”

And both Bloom and Mast point out that older folks aren’t always out to criticize. Bloom reminds mothers that the older generation “had a lot of wisdom, while we think we know everything. There’s tremendous wisdom to be offered by older people.”

Mast says many older people have complimented her for what she’s doing. ”They marvel over how much better cloth diapers are now, or how cool my Ergo baby carrier is. They even mention how wonderful it is that more mothers are nursing their babies now than when they had children,” Mast says. “That is very refreshing — especially when younger people I know who don’t have kids are sometimes the ones turning up their noses at things they perceive as different, just because it’s not the norm.”

So in the end, it’s important to do your best to be comfortable with all of your parenting choices. The next time someone from a different generation offers you advice, whether solicited or not, listen carefully, take from it what you want, and then gracefully change the subject. Perhaps you can instead point out how adorable your child is?

The comeback

Dr. Paula Bloom offers some statements you can use the next time someone offers you advice that you may not necessarily want to take:

•  “There are lots of different ways to parent, aren’t there?”
•  “You know, that’s interesting. I appreciate that.”
•  “I had never thought of it that way. That had never occurred to me.”
•  “I’ll take that under advisement. I’ll do more research about that.”

For when you want to give your statement a bit of oomph:

•  “While that may sound true to you, it doesn’t feel true to me.”
•  “You know what, it’s not that I don’t understand, it’s that I don’t agree with you.” [A smile after stating this is optional.]