ozarque ([info]ozarque) wrote,
@ 2007-12-29 07:57:00
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Giving advice across the Generation Gap(s); the consensus...
I had said that your posts on this topic demonstrated a robust consensus, with no sign that anyone felt any need for help from me. And [info]rosefox commented:

"Would you mind at least summarizing that robust consensus, for those of us who are very pressed for time and can't go back and read through all the comments?"


I'd be glad to do that, as best I can. I went back again this morning and read the comments one more time, trying to be sure that I wasn't missing something important. And the consensus that I perceive can be summarized in just two propositions:

1. Nobody -- of any age -- ever wants un-asked-for advice.

2. When you're giving advice across a Generation Gap -- in either direction -- age is irrelevant.


I'm just reporting my perceptions, by the way; I'm not recommending, or agreeing with, those two propositions. [And I should add that my impression is that they weren't being stated with reference to language interactions between adults and young children. My understanding of the comments was that what everyone had in mind was the various Generation Gaps -- in either direction -- that exist among individuals roughly 16 and older.]

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[info]uuesti_ajutine
2007-12-29 06:30 pm UTC (link)
I cannot agree with "Nobody -- of any age -- ever wants un-asked-for advice." - I , personally, have been so frazzled (or intent on attempting to get this something right) with my actions that it would NEVER had entered my head to ask for help.

The advice that was offered unasked turned out what I needed to change for making things work more than once. I may find unasked for advice irritating sometimes, but I welcome it as something that can come in useful surprisingly often.

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wanting advice
[info]maggieno
2008-01-01 06:02 am UTC (link)
Reading through all the discussions over the days, my reaction has been similar.

Sure, advice can be intrusive, but over the years I've found myself longing for more people to be willing to offer advice, to be willing to take the chance of getting in trouble by offering advice. I know that often I only see one side of a question/puzzle and that my friends -- and even acquaintances -- can see pertinent aspects to which I am blind.

But, the idea that all advice unless requested is unwanted (and seriously annoying) prevails and people don't offer. Sure, some people mean to deal out slugs as they deal out advice, but why limit ourselves according to the less pleasant sort of people? Why not assume good intentions, harvest what we can, and simply throw out the chaff when it proves ill meant?

godsheknows, I've gone off to lick my wounds after some advice has revealed something about myself that I hadn't realized/accepted, but many of the best lessons I've learned have been from such advice. A person doesn't have to read instructions or documentation, but why resent the offer of such?

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Re: wanting advice
[info]ozarque
2008-01-01 02:29 pm UTC (link)
Response soon -- my word on it. Thank you for the comment.

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[info]porcinea
2007-12-29 07:16 pm UTC (link)
Also, "advice is most digestible when encapsulated in a tasty parable (personal anecdote)."

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[info]rosefox
2007-12-29 07:56 pm UTC (link)
Interesting. Thanks!

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[info]crossfire_
2007-12-29 08:16 pm UTC (link)
Yeah, as usual I don't agree with either of those, particularly given the absolute way they are stated.

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[info]ruth_lawrence
2007-12-29 08:28 pm UTC (link)
Me either :-/

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[info]fibermom
2007-12-30 01:47 am UTC (link)
Me neither.
This says something about concensus, probably. Or about commenting. Or, at least, not about advice.

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[info]labelleizzy
2008-01-01 02:46 am UTC (link)
Milady,
I have a question that combines feminist/femalespeak and Generation Gap issues, possibly.

Flylady.net has a yahoo mailing list where they send out reminders. In case you're not familiar with their system, Flylady is a group to help people, largely women, to get organized, keep their homes clean, take care of self and family, communicate more clearly, and incidentally, usually raise one's self esteem.

So the Flylady's husband, Robert, is a Judge in North Carolina. He wrote an essay this week on what he calls "womanspeak". I get that it's his perspective and that his perspective is going to be different than mine. However...

I find myself more and more vehemently objecting to the term because he's basically calling all forms of passive-aggressive communication "womanspeak", and I'm just getting angrier and more insulted the more the term is being adopted by the list. I know he's old enough to be my dad, I know he means well, and I certainly do grok the essence of what he's saying. I guess I just object to the name of the thing, and I'm finding it gets under my skin.

And the fact that many other women on the list have been using the term (internalizing it?) just irks me also.

ARGH.

Do you have any thoughts on the subject? I can work to find a link to his actual essay, if you would like.

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Response to labelleizzy...
[info]ozarque
2008-01-01 02:30 pm UTC (link)
That link would be a help, if you can find it...

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Re: Response to labelleizzy...(further discussion)
[info]labelleizzy
2008-01-02 11:35 pm UTC (link)
If you are interested, ma'am, here's what I received in my inbox today.

Posted by: "FLYLADY"
Robert here:

What you have run into is what mechanics deal with all the time. They get an engine that runs roughly, and they may think, bad plug wires. So they crank it in the dark and, sure enough, there is blue fire all over the place. They replace the wires, crank the engine, and it still runs roughly. They had been right about the wires, but something else was wrong, too, and fixing the one problem did not suffice.

A lot of people have grumbled at labeling indirect language as WomanSpeak. Okay then, call it ProxyTalk, or whatever you like. In my experience, women use it more than men do, although make no mistake, men use it. ManSpeak exists, too, but that is another subject entirely. Let's just say that men lie, and leave it at that.
WomanSpeak is useful where direct speech is punished as rude, or
pushy, or inelegant. People who thus force the truth underground have no complaint when they have to ferret the meaning out of
seeming-questions, apparently-stand- alone comments, and the like. It's good enough for them. I would only say, in that situation, at least be aware that you are using one set of words to stand proxy for a different set, because when you don't realize you are using blurry language, you end up using blurry thinking.
Liz Here: I like this last sentence & agree with it.

When you speak the truth to your husband, and he snaps back with some crack about how you never help him, you are getting a very useful glimpse into his thought processes. Not a pretty glimpse, necessarily, but better to know than not to know. If it is true, that you do not help him, it may be because he hasn't asked, and you've assumed he had it under control. Men desperately want to seem to have it under control, but the downside to carrying off the charade is that it is just that, a charade. We're no better at stuff generally than you are, but we think we are expected to be, and we think that all other men are, so we tend not to ask for help, though we do feel the lack when we don't get it.

Then again, it may simply be that he doesn't want to help you, and has to come up with a face-saving way to get around saying, "I don't want to." So he falls back on ManSpeak, and lies: "You never help me." You have known him a long time, so you would know which is likelier.

People who haven't spoken directly to each other in a long time have
typically built up a lot of unspoken issues, and tossing a true,
direct statement at such a person is much like lancing a boil. What
comes out is not pretty, but the patient is healthier for it, in the
long run. That may be what you are experiencing: the draining of
resentments that pre-date whatever the surface issue is, by decades.
Be patient; boils drain.

Robert here:

This topic has stirred up a lot of comment--doesn' t anyone care about toilet seats any more? The whole thing started when Marla asked me to write an essay on WomanSpeak, and so I did. I could as easily have written on ManSpeak, or on how it and WomanSpeak dance together, but that wasn't what she asked for. A lot of women have taken the essay as criticism of women. It wasn't, any more than an essay on the French language would be a criticism of the French people. French is a perfectly fine language, if the hearer understands French. WomanSpeak, between women, seems to work; but spoken to most men, it gets its desired results at the cost of unspoken resentment. Apparently a lot of people would rather not know that, and if it makes them happy, they should pretend I did not say it.

Nasty, sarcastic comments are not WomanSpeak, although sarcasm is a
way of saying one thing while meaning another, so I can see how there might be some confusion. WomanSpeak is diplomacy taken one step farther than was necessary, and diplomacy is incompatible with sarcasm.

You are exactly right, when you say that the sexes are equally guilty of not saying what they mean, although their strategies differ. Women use indirection, whereas men lie. Each sex has its reasons for avoiding straight talk--diplomacy exists for a reason, after all--but in most contexts, the simple truth will serve everyone better. That is all I am saying.

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Response to labelleizzy...
[info]ozarque
2008-01-01 02:39 pm UTC (link)
No problem; I found the essay. Thank you, Google. I've printed it out to read...

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[info]elfwreck
2008-01-02 06:23 pm UTC (link)
Flylady is a group to help people, largely women unemployed, to get organized...

Fixed that.

I found the Flylady program useless... it seems to assume that people are home all day. Oh, a few of the tips here & there were useful, but I could put those parts on a single page and post them on the fridge. The actual plan seems to involve long stretches of time alone in the house; assumes that your cleanup won't be done around kids doing homework or getting dinner, and doesn't require giving up your evening social time with spouse.

I do heartily agree that Flylady is aimed at women. It's specifically aimed at unemployed suburban housewives with school-age or older children, although it's adaptable to some other situations. (Part-time secretarial job? No problem. Full-time career plus night school? No. One kid on the hip and four-year-old twins? Also no.)

Robert's essay may be influenced by regular communication with women from one particular socio-economic niche. (Being a judge doesn't help that; communication with people who have reason to fear you doesn't give much insight to their communications with peers.)

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[info]labelleizzy
2008-01-02 09:07 pm UTC (link)
Robert's essay was much more about explaining his own upbringing and the way his momma used to speak to him, IIRC. So for him, I felt, it was more an expression of a power-over HIM memory, and a resentment of that power over him.

But I did find it really sexist, and unnecessarily so.

wrt flylady program itself, I have been able to mostly adapt it to my circumstances. I've been fond of micromovements for years, since SARK introduced me to the concept. I teach high school but do not have kids of my own at home, and I do find that 15 minutes at a time does make a difference and feels productive to me. Doing something is better than doing nothing, which is what I was doing before. *shrug*

you have an interesting perspective, [info]elfwreck. thank you for sharing.

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[info]dolmena
2008-01-02 02:58 pm UTC (link)
"2. When you're giving advice across a Generation Gap -- in either direction -- age is irrelevant."

I don't agree with this consensus opinion-- I believe that in certain cultural contexts, age is a factor in offering or taking advice, as is "rank--" whether literal military or police rank, or work position. When the other person is older or outranks you, it can be very important to use extra tact in offering advice.

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