Pray.

"God will take care of you." This from my cousin who is a Jehovah's Witness. Sarah insisted that God provides for her.

In reality, church members paid for her rent, food and clothes. Sarah worked part-time so she could do "God's work," knocking on doors and hassling non-Christians.

When she finally realized I'm an atheist, Sarah cut me off. Sad.

‘Don’t leave him, he takes such good care of you’: too many of my family, when I left my abusive ex. My advice back to them: ‘YOU go live with the SOB, then’. I didn’t take their advice...but some are still friends with him. Whatever.

“Do it!” I mean “Don’t do it!” I can’t remember which one was the bad one. LOl

Wait until your older

"Turn your life over to Jesus Christ."

Going back to school is a GREAT idea!

Wound up not being able to do the job I went to school for and ended up in so much debt I'll never be able to pay it off.

My mother told me to buy a condo at the top of the market (2007) because it was in a “good neighborhood” which “will never lose value”. A year later I was underwater on my mortgage and had lost over 33% of its value. I love her, and to be fair, The Great Recession hurt everyone, but I take real estate advice from very few people now.

From my mother, when I inherited life insurance benefits when my father died and I planned to buy 30 acres with my then-fiance`, "You've only known him a year (I was 20, he 34). DO NOT buy that property." I was to put down the down payment, and he was going to pay the monthly $350 (this was in 1978) and the property tax. Very doable. Here we are, 40 years later; I didn't marry him, we've both been married to other people and divorced since, and we're still the best of friends. That property purchase price would have gone up from $29,000 to half a million today; with improvements, it would be roughly a million. Worst advice ever!

When you feel depressed, throw marshmallows at the wall. It's guaranteed to lift those pesky blues. I still can't believe anyone actually said that!

Don't take a chance You'll always get another chance. Not true!

You don't need to go to college, you'll just get married and have babies. My dad in 1976.

Pray to know if the church is true. That one screwed me up for a long time.

My father argued with me that I should rent when I bought my 1st house at 21, old beat up place that pretty much set me up for years.
My mother told me to give up on trying to find happiness, thht I never would. She also told me to find a woman to help me raise my kids as a man can't do it on his own. The list goes on.

People offering unsolicited dieting advice:

"You don't need to lose anymore weight"
"Don't get too thin. Black people aren't made to be thin" (yeah, someone actually said that to me)
"Don't drink diet soda"
"Don't skip breakfast"
"Drink honey and lemon, it burns fat"
"You should wear one of those fat loss belts"

I could go on and on. Gahhahhhahh

" Motorcycles are too dangerous - you don't want to ride one !"

(Oh yes I did .... !)

Invest in Florida real estate. Which I did right before the housing crash in 2008, which nearly put me in the poor house overnight! Best advice I got was from my Cousin, a lawyer also, who tried to tell me how horrible practicing law was. I ignored him to my great detriment!

Don't try anything new, because you my be hurt or disappointed. I believed that for years, so I never tried anything. Was more hurt by not trying.

I had a car overheat. I pulled into a service station to see if they could help me. The mechanic told me the car would be fine; I should just drive fast to cool it off. Well, three miles later the smoke was so thick I could not see. His advice was INSANE and so was I to listen to him!

Wait and good things will eventually happen to you!

Let them hit you first before you fight back.

"Don't major in microbiology. It's a dying field thanks to antibiotics."

(tell that to HIV, Ebola, E.coli O157:H7, Mad Cow etc)

You should get married, settle down they said.....

"you won't get thrown in jail for that" (!)

My mom; never refuse sex to your husband, always forgive him and try to keep him happy, because if things don't work out, you can't move back in with us.

Of course, with no consequences, my husband cheated constantly, spent most of our money on himself, and eventually ran off with a younger woman, leaving me with two young children.

I finally grew a backbone and had him jailed for back child support. I told my daughter to

1.NEVER allow a man to release sperm in her. Ever. Condoms break. Birth control can fail. Remember that she is ALWAYS in charge of how things should be done in bed. A man who won't listen gets dumped.

2.Don't get married. If you want to have sex or live together, do it, but don't get married. If you break up with your boyfriend you can always move in with me, even if we must share a cardboard box.

3.Don't have children until you are thirty and established in your career. It takes two to raise a child and if you don't have a loyal mate, you will be forced to let your child be raised by others.