NYT The Daily: The Parents Aren't All Right

[Anonymous]

Interesting episode they dropped today:

Parents report being more stressed than other adults, and the U.S. Surgeon General now considers raising a family a health risk.

For years, research on hyper-attentive parenting has focused on all the ways that it can hurt children.

Now, the U.S. government is reframing that conversation and asking if our new era of parenting is actually bad for the parents themselves.

Claire Cain Miller, who covers families and education for The New York Times, explains why raising children is a risk to your health.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/09/podcasts/the-daily/parenting-stress.html

[Anonymous]

I mean, hasn't parenting basically been harder since having kids became less about providing free labor for your family and more about having an extra mouth to feed? So basically since the Industrial Revolution, or at the latest the 1910s when people really started fleeing the farm?

The way we raise kids is completely counter to millenia of how society worked, even setting aside the specifically hyper-modern issues that started with the Boomer style of helicopter parenting.

[Anonymous]

Listen to yesterday's episode on NAFTA. I don't think it's a coincidence that after NAFTA is when parenting expectations began skyrocketing.

There aren't enough good jobs for everyone. That's what it's all really about.

I predict the US is headed in the same direction as South Korea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting episode they dropped today:

Parents report being more stressed than other adults, and the U.S. Surgeon General now considers raising a family a health risk.

For years, research on hyper-attentive parenting has focused on all the ways that it can hurt children.

Now, the U.S. government is reframing that conversation and asking if our new era of parenting is actually bad for the parents themselves.

Claire Cain Miller, who covers families and education for The New York Times, explains why raising children is a risk to your health.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/09/podcasts/the-daily/parenting-stress.html

I mean yes it's hard but "a risk to your health," good grief.

[Anonymous]

This article is such BS, it’s not about intensive parenting. It’s about having two working parents required to just get by, and then really expensive housing which makes everything else harder to manage and afford. There was a lot easier lifestyle where without intensive parenting, when you had a parent, who was home to take care of everything related to the kids as well as clean and cook.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This article is such BS, it’s not about intensive parenting. It’s about having two working parents required to just get by, and then really expensive housing which makes everything else harder to manage and afford. There was a lot easier lifestyle where without intensive parenting, when you had a parent, who was home to take care of everything related to the kids as well as clean and cook.

*with or without intensive parenting

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting episode they dropped today:

Parents report being more stressed than other adults, and the U.S. Surgeon General now considers raising a family a health risk.

For years, research on hyper-attentive parenting has focused on all the ways that it can hurt children.

Now, the U.S. government is reframing that conversation and asking if our new era of parenting is actually bad for the parents themselves.

Claire Cain Miller, who covers families and education for The New York Times, explains why raising children is a risk to your health.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/09/podcasts/the-daily/parenting-stress.html

I mean yes it's hard but "a risk to your health," good grief.

I certainly don’t have time to exercise or get enough sleep because of work and kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This article is such BS, it’s not about intensive parenting. It’s about having two working parents required to just get by, and then really expensive housing which makes everything else harder to manage and afford. There was a lot easier lifestyle where without intensive parenting, when you had a parent, who was home to take care of everything related to the kids as well as clean and cook.

But this goes along with intensive parenting. A lot of what people claim is a necessary expense and why a second salary is necessary, really isn’t.

No iPhones for kids
Community college for kids or in-state at the most
Kids share bedrooms
No or very few activities for kids
Limited travel. Maybe one week vacation every year
I could go on…


^^do the above and your expenses go down dramatically.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This article is such BS, it’s not about intensive parenting. It’s about having two working parents required to just get by, and then really expensive housing which makes everything else harder to manage and afford. There was a lot easier lifestyle where without intensive parenting, when you had a parent, who was home to take care of everything related to the kids as well as clean and cook.

But this goes along with intensive parenting. A lot of what people claim is a necessary expense and why a second salary is necessary, really isn’t.

No iPhones for kids
Community college for kids or in-state at the most
Kids share bedrooms
No or very few activities for kids
Limited travel. Maybe one week vacation every year
I could go on…


^^do the above and your expenses go down dramatically.

DP. Even if you tried to live a 1950s lifestyle, could you? As a kid I lived in a 1600 square foot house. We knew the prior owner. They lived there with 6 kids. There were 4 bedrooms in that house and 2 were quite small. 2 bathrooms. A 1950s family would have had only one car. Grocery shopping and all other errands were done on foot (so has to be walkable) or after the car came home for the evening. Wardrobes are a lot smaller - both to save money and because you were cramming 8 people into a 1600 sq ft house.

I couldn't do it. Grocery store is not walkable from my house, and it's actually not that far it's just that we lack sidewalks on a secondary road that I'd have to take to get there. I have a similar sized house to the one I grew up in and cannot imagine cramming 3 more people into it (family of 5). Sure we could cut activities but the park my kids would then go play in for their spare time is across yet another busy road.

And even if I pared my lifestyle back like that, I'd have to do as you say and not plan on my kids getting to go to the college of their choice. And I just won't make that compromise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Listen to yesterday's episode on NAFTA. I don't think it's a coincidence that after NAFTA is when parenting expectations began skyrocketing.

There aren't enough good jobs for everyone. That's what it's all really about.

I predict the US is headed in the same direction as South Korea.

I totally agree with this. Ross Perot and "giant sucking sound of jobs being pulled out of this country" lives rent free in my head.

[Anonymous]

As someone with untreated, late-diagnosed ADHD raising two ADHD kids, I find it incredibly stressful and difficult. I'm not hyper-attentive, I am just trying to get through each hour without meltdowns.

[Anonymous]

Do you have a gift link??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Listen to yesterday's episode on NAFTA. I don't think it's a coincidence that after NAFTA is when parenting expectations began skyrocketing.

There aren't enough good jobs for everyone. That's what it's all really about.

I predict the US is headed in the same direction as South Korea.

I totally agree with this. Ross Perot and "giant sucking sound of jobs being pulled out of this country" lives rent free in my head.

This is the answer. Parents could chill in the past knowing that even if their kids did poorly in school they'd have a chance to get it together, learn a trade and have a middle class life. That expectation is gone. No one on my mom's side of the family went to college and they all still managed to buy new houses, new cars, take a vacation every year and save plenty for retirement.
Now it's a struggle from birth to ensure that your child will be middle class. The only parents who aren't worried are like the Sephora mom raising her daughter to be a sugar baby. The rest of us are stressed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This article is such BS, it’s not about intensive parenting. It’s about having two working parents required to just get by, and then really expensive housing which makes everything else harder to manage and afford. There was a lot easier lifestyle where without intensive parenting, when you had a parent, who was home to take care of everything related to the kids as well as clean and cook.

But this goes along with intensive parenting. A lot of what people claim is a necessary expense and why a second salary is necessary, really isn’t.

No iPhones for kids
Community college for kids or in-state at the most
Kids share bedrooms
No or very few activities for kids
Limited travel. Maybe one week vacation every year
I could go on…


^^do the above and your expenses go down dramatically.

DP. Even if you tried to live a 1950s lifestyle, could you? As a kid I lived in a 1600 square foot house. We knew the prior owner. They lived there with 6 kids. There were 4 bedrooms in that house and 2 were quite small. 2 bathrooms. A 1950s family would have had only one car. Grocery shopping and all other errands were done on foot (so has to be walkable) or after the car came home for the evening. Wardrobes are a lot smaller - both to save money and because you were cramming 8 people into a 1600 sq ft house.

I couldn't do it. Grocery store is not walkable from my house, and it's actually not that far it's just that we lack sidewalks on a secondary road that I'd have to take to get there. I have a similar sized house to the one I grew up in and cannot imagine cramming 3 more people into it (family of 5). Sure we could cut activities but the park my kids would then go play in for their spare time is across yet another busy road.

And even if I pared my lifestyle back like that, I'd have to do as you say and not plan on my kids getting to go to the college of their choice. And I just won't make that compromise.

DP. You are proving the premise. You won't "compromise" your more modern lifestyle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you have a gift link??

You don't need a gift link -- the Daily is a free podcast (for now -- they are going to start charging soon) and you can listen to it on any podcast platform for free.