What caused the shift in “quality parenting”?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Competitive world of social media parenting: look at us baking cookies together etc

No, intensive mothering predates social media by at least a decade.

I personally think it's a reflection of the generalized anxiety percolating in certain economic classes, fear that our children won't do better than we do. It may also be a reaction to the divorce explosion in the 1970s and 1980s and the era of "latchkey kids."

Also, there's just a lot more people in the country than there were 30 years ago and resources are more scarce.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The shift was caused by the number of children. When families typically had 3-4 or 6 or 8 kids, they were valuable collectively but less individually. Now families have 1 or 2 kids and each is very valuable, and therefore receives a larger parental investment of time, money, and other resources.

This makes me sick to my stomach. I’ve never heard such nonsense

My mother almost lost their mind when one of her 5 children, my brother, died. Our family was never the same. Likewise my Grandmother who has 7 children. You need to apologise to those of previous generations who lost kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Parenting has become endlessly scrutinized by science, medicine and public policy. There now exists for every parenting 'skill' ten experts, 20 books and a host of potentially devastating consequences for your offspring if you parent poorly. As the spectrum of human qualities get increasingly pathologized (remember when wild children were disobedient and not ODD? Bad handwriting meant a bad grade, not occupational therapy?), parents get much more anxious about their children's welfare relative to their peers. Social media has people paranoid; every academic skill is an 'edge', every neighbor a potential child molester.

This. Every decision becomes a battleground of competing experts and viewpoints.

Plus the fact that the middle class is shrinking. People want to do anything to give their kids a leg up in a world that feels increasingly cutthroat.

[Anonymous]

I feel really bad about it for my kids. I want them to go out and play freely in our neighborhood (where there is no crime at all!) but most other parents do not allow their children out unsupervised even at 10 years old. Very sad!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents don't raise their own kids anymore. So they want to spend more time with them when they are around.

I assume you refer to a decrease in the number of SAHMs?
I grew up in a lower middle class area. Out of my graduating class from high school, I can count on one hand the number of kids who had a SAHP for any significant amount of time. As children, we were all in daycare, after school care, or being watched by a babysitter or grandparent. Both parents worked to make ends meet. This isn't some new thing.

Agree

[Anonymous]

The average dad got away with being involved with the kids without either his wife or society judging. Kids generally were not considered as important relative to adults as they are now, I don't think the shift to additional concern for children has much to do with family size.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Parents don't raise their own kids and the places they ship them off to (daycare, after school care, etc) have an interest in keeping the kids developmentally stunted. They're told to not think for themselves, just follow the rules, don't do anything out of the ordinary, etc. Those kids never learn to be safe on their own and use good judgement.

When we were younger, we were walking home by ourselves before 10 years old, even looking after younger siblings, and looking after ourselves at home until parents got home from work. We roamed the neighborhoods on bikes. All of this developed independences and generally also better judgement as the kids got older.

This is a laughably ignorant take on the issue.

[Anonymous]

Year upon year of the 24/7 news cycle has conditioned people to assume the worst case scenario in every situation. And the internet makes it so everyone thinks they’re an expert on something after they read one article, and if they only do x, y and z, then their kids will turn out better than everyone else’s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I feel really bad about it for my kids. I want them to go out and play freely in our neighborhood (where there is no crime at all!) but most other parents do not allow their children out unsupervised even at 10 years old. Very sad!

Is this a regional thing?

Is there some other city in this country where kids playing freely is still the norm? I dream of being able to provide the “Goonies” style “pack of kids having fun” that I experienced in MoCo in the 80s but not sure if that exists anywhere anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The domestic labor thread got me thinking: my parents never played with me and my siblings growing up, nor did they help us with homework or provide extracurricular academic enrichment. They loved us and we had family dinners every night, but it was clear that the world belonged to adults and as long as we were out of the way and not in trouble we played did whatever we made up.

Yesterday I saw a ten-year-old boy on his bicycle alone outside (in our very safe neighborhood) and I actually caught myself wondering if he was safe alone near the street. What happened to change the parenting landscape so much?

When accidents shifted from being an unfortunate mishap to "the parents' fault." The idea that parents can control all aspects of children's upbringing has brought with it a paranoia about being labeled "bad" parents if they aren't vigilant about all aspects of child rearing. I would wager that many parens would love for their kids to be more free range, more independent, and less scheduled but they worry that it looks negligent. It becomes a collective action problem. Who is willing to break out of the mold?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For a lot of families, there is no shift. For some parents, we want better for our kids and put in the effort.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The shift was caused by the number of children. When families typically had 3-4 or 6 or 8 kids, they were valuable collectively but less individually. Now families have 1 or 2 kids and each is very valuable, and therefore receives a larger parental investment of time, money, and other resources.

This makes me sick to my stomach. I’ve never heard such nonsense

My mother almost lost their mind when one of her 5 children, my brother, died. Our family was never the same. Likewise my Grandmother who has 7 children. You need to apologise to those of previous generations who lost kids.

The PP is making a larger, sociological point and you are personalizing it. It's not personal. Of course everyone loved all of their kids even if they had 5 or 7 kids. Fact is, people now have fewer kids and they put more intensive time and resources into the fewer kids they have. Some would probably argue this is not a good thing for the kids. But people are trying to explain larger parenting trends and family size is definitely a factor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Parents don't raise their own kids and the places they ship them off to (daycare, after school care, etc) have an interest in keeping the kids developmentally stunted. They're told to not think for themselves, just follow the rules, don't do anything out of the ordinary, etc. Those kids never learn to be safe on their own and use good judgement.

When we were younger, we were walking home by ourselves before 10 years old, even looking after younger siblings, and looking after ourselves at home until parents got home from work. We roamed the neighborhoods on bikes. All of this developed independences and generally also better judgement as the kids got older.

yes and no. There is a happy medium. Because of the looseness of supervision, many of us were left with abusive family members. Child molestation went unpunished. Bullies at school won, unless you managed to get them back in an inventive way.
My parents left me with 4 older siblings, 2 of which thought I was a punching bag.
We often swing too far to helicopter parenting now, but I really believe in something down the middle. I tried hard, dispite my aniexty, to give my kid some freedom on her bike, etc.

[Anonymous]

The people using social media as a reason need to stop. The trend way predates that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For a lot of families, there is no shift. For some parents, we want better for our kids and put in the effort.

I don’t necessarily equate putting more effort into parenting as having a better outcome. In many cases it produces anxiety-ridden kids who have no confidence in their own abilities or entitled kids who think they’re better because their parents have spent so much money on them.