Advice Throught Life

Over the past week, my mind has been focused on one of my best friends in the world, K, who is getting married next week! As I write about newlyweds and the reasons it's worth it to stay, I can't help but think about her and her husband D, and the difficult first year they have ahead of them.  

Luckily, my mind has not been all consumed by wedding bells this week, I have also had the opportunity to study the scientific method and research in general! When we take advice, there are multiple factors we should truly consider. As we take advise from others, we need to take everything they say with a grain of salt, your parents, family members, field experts, peers, social media, books, movies, bloggers, and influencers often rely on their own personal experience and bias’s witch although valuable may not always apply to your family's needs. It is important to seek advice from our loved ones, but it is just as crucial to read books and articles that come from credible sources that have studies and social science to back them up. This will help you to locate less biased sources of information and advice. But even if you find less biased sources, there is still one crucial problem: credibility.  

It's important to take the methods of research that lead to your source's conclusion, if your mother had all girls, she would not give greater advice for boys, and just because one study formed a conclusion does not mean it was a credible conclusion. Some rather famous studies lack the right number of participants to be considered credible, the famous APA brief from 2005 is one of them.  

The American Psychological Association brief changed a lot of history as we know it. It was used as one of the main sources in the March 2013 Supreme Court hearing that ultimately redefined marriage and equality rights. The brief focused on Dr. Loren Marks' writing about same-sex Sex Parenting and children's outcomes. The study found that children raised by same sex parents were not any worse off than those raised by heterosexual couples.  

The true conclusion was that children fare better when they are raised by both parents as opposed to a single parent, but that is beside the point. The study was very flawed, it studied a very small group of parents, almost all of the participants were Caucasian so they did not represent ALL parents, most of the sample groups were very small so theymay not accurately represent the greater group, many of them were convenience samples, and the study focused on Gay dads but lacked a focus on heterosexual fathers.  

Each of these reasons chips away at the famous study's credibility, and this was a source that changed the definition of marriage as we know it today! If a study that took so much time and effort to create it isn't entirely credible, imagine the advice you're taking from blogs like my own, from influencers, and even from scientists!  

If you hold all advice to standards as high as those examining the APA brief, it will be nearly impossible to find advice for most of life's day-to-day problems, it's simply not realistic. So, what are you supposed to do when your mom gives you advice about your marriage then? Simple, take any advice from any and all sources with a grain of salt.  

As we are all individuals with unique personalities and circumstances no advice, method of teaching, or style of food will fit everyone perfectly. Thus, non-credible advice may be useful to us, just as credible advice may be terrible!  

As I think about my friends K and D, I can't help but think about all of the unknowns they will experience together. The advice they’ll receive, like the advice we all get, will come from people who love them, people who mean well, and sometimes, from people who simply don’t know their full story. I remember receiving boatloads of helpful and unhelpful advice on my own wedding day. Some of that advice will be helpful; some will miss the mark. And that’s okay. What matters most is learning how to listen with an open heart, but a thoughtful mind. Whether it's from a parent, a professional, or a well-meaning post online, every bit of guidance deserves both gratitude and discernment. So for K, D, and the rest of us —let’s stay curious, stay humble, and remember to take it all with a grain of salt. 

( This week's picture is a traced version of one of their bridal photos! I actually did the art myself.

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