Do you respond when you don't know

peace2

Wed, Feb 21 2024, 6:11 am

Not totally sure which forum to put this under
The thread about the woman getting separated got me thinking. One poster responded that she should leave and take her little kids with her, and a poster who was divorced and has experience in this said don't do that, you'll hurt yourself in court if you leave... I'm sure the first poster was very well meaning, but she was giving advice about a situation where she didn't have experience personally and could have potentially caused harm to OP's situation with the best of intentions. On the other hand, people come on here looking for advice and perspective, and you can have an opinion about something you didn't experience personally.
I'm wondering what the proper balance is. When do you respond in a situation where you don't know? Is it right to respond to a parenting question about a stage I haven't personally reached yet, but feel like I have a good point to share about?
I'm interested to hear how others approach this

singleagain

Wed, Feb 21 2024, 6:14 am

I used to do this a lot more often when I was new but I would always say

I don't personally have kids but this is what I thought/ observed/ heard from someone with more experience/ experience the one time I was a camp counselor for two months

I think it's very important, especially if you don't know that there may be legal or other sort of ramifications that you put a disclaimer in your post, but people won't. So as a reader and original poster, kind of asking for advice. You really have to be very careful with the advice that people give

amother

Pink

Wed, Feb 21 2024, 6:15 am

I see it all the time and people give really ignorant and dangerous advice. I think it’s fine to say a good point you might have if you preface it with lack of experience. You can say I’ve never dealt with divorce but I think I’d leave. Or I don’t have kids that age but I think I would xyz. That way the poster knows it’s not based on real information and she can decide if she likes your thought anyway.

flowerpower

Wed, Feb 21 2024, 6:21 am

I cringe when I see posters that have only toddlers give advice for teenage moms all confidently or strong mil advice when they are only married 5 years. It can be very harmful for the op to be reading such advice. If I didn’t go through that stage in life and actually experienced it or if I read a question that doesn’t pertain to my life experience then I really refrain from answering

peace2

Wed, Feb 21 2024, 6:24 am

flowerpower wrote:

What if it's a common sense kind of question? Or a young-20s poster who remembers their teenage years very clearly and feels like that gives validity to their opinion? If someone asks a question about parenting teenagers and says their doing xyz thing that I hated that my parents did when I was a teen, can I chime in and say that might cause resentment even if I'm not a parent of teens myself?

flowerpower

Wed, Feb 21 2024, 6:27 am

peace2 wrote:

If you reply that as a teenager you hated when your mom did that or that you’re a young mom but you would suggest ….. is totally fine. I have read about a very distraught lost mother of a difficult teen asking for advice and a young mom that has only an infant posts some harmful advice which made no sense. The desperate mom would listen to it and I’d cringe knowing that it would probably make things worse. See the difference?

amother

Oak

Wed, Feb 21 2024, 6:29 am

No one has any idea who they are responding to and what the other details are. And there are always many other details. One paragraph can never communicate an entire history for any problem. I have gotten good advice and great recipes from this site, but and the very very big, but is that you are responsible to analyze people's comments and decide if its good for you or not. The onus is on the person who takes action. Of course, people should use words carefully, but I really hope that a random internet response isn't going to be the basis of a life-altering decision. To even entertain the thought that it may be is frightening.

singleagain

Wed, Feb 21 2024, 6:32 am

amother Oak wrote:

No one has any idea who they are responding to

This is definitely one of the arguments against people anonymous posting all the time. As I post under my username, I think people get a pretty good idea of who I am which is one reason why I stopped disclaiming all the time that I'm divorced with no kids because I figure most people already know that about me.

amother

Holly

Wed, Feb 21 2024, 6:44 am

Op, specific to the thread you are referencing about the wife considering leaving, the poster that recommended the wife leave, didn't know that she didn't know.

Meaning there were legal ramifications involved over there that the posters was simply unaware of. It wasn't a situation where a person was giving advice even though they weren't an expert.

99% of the threads here are not legal. So it's ok to give parenting advice, workplace advice, intimacy advice, or advice on how to make chulent. The op of any thread realizes that she is opening the floor to a group of random people and should consider all responses accordingly.

peace2

Wed, Feb 21 2024, 6:51 am

singleagain wrote:

I've started posting under my SN more when it's not private information because I feel like having a persona on this site gives credibility to a certain extent. There are definitely posters that I skip over because I know that our views don't generally match up, and posters that I take more seriously because I think they're smart and have good things to share.
When I read thru old threads where 99% of posters used their SNs I wish I would have been on the board at the time. A million amothers just isn't the same

peace2

Wed, Feb 21 2024, 6:53 am

amother Holly wrote:

But if she was never separated or divorced, why was she chiming in with her thoughts? I didn't know there were legal ramifications of leaving the house without legally separating, but I wouldn't be giving advice about it because I'm aware that I have no experience to share and it's a sensitive matter

amother

Poinsettia

Thu, Feb 22 2024, 9:44 am

peace2 wrote:

I would answer with a caveat that I've got no experience in this but I think that..or heard this..