Do more people overestimate or underestimate their parenting skills?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yo unconditional love is all what it takes. Either you have it or you don’t. And they don’t sell it at the Walmart

It takes far more than that to be a good parent. Especially once you have teens. Love doesn't cut it.

[Anonymous]

Overestimate. Without question.

Parents, especially new parents, continually fail to see themselves honestly and put their insecurities on their children.

[Anonymous]

Yo if you waited till teenage years to parent you lost your remote control from your hand so to speak. Get a grip in their younger years. And the only way I know to do it is through unconditional love

[Anonymous]

When you have an easy child it's easy to feel like a good parent and feel confident about your skills. When you have a difficult or non-typically developing child (disabled etc..) you can feel like you're underperforming, even if you're doing great, or trying. That's when the judgey parents jump in and assume you are a terrible parent. I have both types of kids and see both sides. Man, it is tough. I wish parents and women were more supportive of one another in general.

[Anonymous]

DCUM women always overestimate the parenting skills of moms and underestimate the parenting skills of dads (indeed, usually ascribing zero parenting skills to dads).

[Anonymous]

For this current generation of parents of young kids, I would say overestimate and over-identify. Social media makes it worse and young parents are so defensive and competitive.

[Anonymous]

Unpopular opinion:

Gen X - underestimate. We feel like we are not quite prepared enough at every stage. I think it comes from being older first-time parents. I remember feeling pretty lonely at first.

Millenials - I don't know if they overestimate, but they strike me as more confident from the get-go. Maybe because they grew up in the internet age, where there are many resources to mine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m not sure if I’ll get this question across well enough to say what I actually mean. I’ve been really doubting myself as a parent recently. I’ve gotten a few responses to a post on here that I must be a failure of a parent with people agreeing. Yes, I know it’s DCUM but maybe I am. But maybe these people are vastly overestimating their own parenting skills and overgeneralizing that how they approach situations is objectively the best way.

I started thinking...there are people out there who are doing just fine but think they’re failing miserably and there are also (the same number? More? Fewer?) people out there who think they have it all figured out and are killing the parenting game but are not really.

Which brings me to my next question. How can we objectively know how we’re doing? I guess it’s the whole nature vs. nurture debate.

I think I’m doing pretty well day to day. I have my good days and my bad days like the majority of parents (I think?). But when I think about it, it all seems so high stakes if nurture really holds more weight than nature.

So where do you think most people fall—do they overestimate or underestimate how well they’re doing as parents?

I think as a general rule, men overestimate. Good moms underestimate, bad moms overestimate.

My husband thinks he does SO SO SO much with our kids, but he sits and watched youtube with them endlessly if he's the "on" parent. He's literally never taken them to a playground, or out anywhere, at all...
My friends and acquaintances who are great parents, are the ones who worry about being bad parents, and self reflect and adjust and monitor waht theyre doing and always feel like they could be better. So they underestimate, they're doing great.
The shit moms I know, (and my dh, and his friends/the guys I know from work), all think they're GREAT parents, but really really SUCK

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unpopular opinion:

Gen X - underestimate. We feel like we are not quite prepared enough at every stage. I think it comes from being older first-time parents. I remember feeling pretty lonely at first.

Millenials - I don't know if they overestimate, but they strike me as more confident from the get-go. Maybe because they grew up in the internet age, where there are many resources to mine.

I think there's some truth to this, granted Gen X "the latchkey generation" is more used to winging it/sinking or swimming than Millenials are. There are definitely more readily available resources these days thanks to the internet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yo unconditional love is all what it takes. Either you have it or you don’t. And they don’t sell it at the Walmart

Totally untrue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yo unconditional love is all what it takes. Either you have it or you don’t. And they don’t sell it at the Walmart

Totally untrue.

I think unconditional love is crucial. And showing love and approval is crucial. Are they the only characteristics needed? No. But they are damn sure not optional parts of being a good parent.

[Anonymous]

Tangential point but I actually think most people overestimate how much it matters. Our influence as parents (good or bad) is a log more limited than most of us think. We're probably all doing just fine.

[Anonymous]

I think we all overestimate the importance of parenting. It is an important job to us and probably the best thing we will ever do with our lives.


But just about every study shows that outside of extreme neglect and abuse and extreme smothering and helicopteing, little we do as parents affect a child's personality and outcomes..

that is hard to hear because we put so much pressure on ourselves to do everything right and to provide our kids with every opportunity, but in the end, our kids are who they are and are going to do the things they want to do in spite of our best intentions.

so if you have a good kid who responds well, we want to pat ourselves on our back and say it's because of our parenting. And if we see a"bad" kid who struggles, we want to say it's because of bad parents.

But the truth is, in most cases, it's not parenting at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tangential point but I actually think most people overestimate how much it matters. Our influence as parents (good or bad) is a log more limited than most of us think. We're probably all doing just fine.

PP. I like this poster's tl;Dr version that came before me?

[Anonymous]

All are perfect parents, until they actually have a child.