Umm, no. OK, I take that back. I would totally listen but I would also totally roll my eyes. Not as much as I do when someone I know who isn't a parent tells me exactly how I should potty train Lil E, do Pilates to lose any lingering pregnancy weight, get out of the house quicker or have another child. I might nix the eyeroll if the man telling me his thoughts on good mothering were my husband and only if they were along the lines of, "You should really take more naps and buy more shoes." Even still, there are just some things the men I know -- God love him, my husband included -- just do not get about being a mother, let alone a good one.
And what if that man giving all the mama advice was a life coach? Would that change your mind? Some Scottish women think so. Edinburgh-based "parent coach" Allen Dunn has a thriving business based on clients who are in need of organizational strategies or want to apply their professional goal-achieveing techniques to their family life, Dunn says they turn to him for support because of confidentiality issues and because (wait for the mass generalization in 3...2..1) "[w]omen are very good at asking for help..."
I'm not saying that a man can't be an effective advisor to a woman nor that a man can't help a woman become a better -- even good -- mother. What I'm saying is that the difference in really getting the experience of motherhood is unavoidable. Almost as unavoidable as the way I cringe every time my husband dresses Lil E without supervision gentle guidance and the way he cringes every time I obsessively count sippy cup valves and tops. It is what it is and it's just not the same.
