What caused the shift in “quality parenting”?

[Anonymous]

I was born in 1975 and while I played outside with friends a lot, my parents absolutely played with me (and my siblings). Board games, dolls (mom), sports (dad). My dad helped me with math homework. I don’t think my friends parents were appreciably different.

[Anonymous]

Rise of CPS. Some stuff I’m so afraid to do like run into the UPS drop off store with a box while my kids are in the backseat. But I’m afraid of being arrested or having CPS called. Obviously I can’t manage an infant, toddler and a box. Also, last time I went to Aldi an older woman yelled at me for leaving my kids in the locked car while I returned my shopping cart. It’s 50 degrees outside. People are crazy.

Some parents were always good parents though. Both of my dads parents read to him and his siblings nightly for nearly an hour. They loved them, took them on vacations, enjoyed helping with homework, coaches sports, Boy Scout leaders, you name it. My dad never had this unloved free range childhood you all talk about and this was 1950s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Agreed. Smaller family sizes means kids are more valuable. I agree with this a lot.

[Anonymous]

https://qz.com/293849/how-baby-boomers-ruined-parenting-forever/

About 25 years ago, when the era of irrational exuberance allowed enough disposable income for irrational anxiety, the concept of “helicopter parenting” arose. A “helicopter parent” micromanages every aspect of his child’s routine and behavior. From educational products for infants to concerned calls to professors in adulthood, helicopter parents ensure their child is on a path to success by paving it for them.

The rise of the helicopter was the product of two social shifts. The first was the comparatively booming economy of the 1990s, with low unemployment and higher disposable income. The second was the public perception of increased child endangerment—a perception, as “Free Range Kids” guru Lenore Skenazy documented, rooted in paranoia. Despite media campaigns that began in the 1980s and continue today, children are safer from crime than in prior decades. What they are not safe from are the diminishing prospects of their parents.

In America, today’s parents have inherited expectations they can no longer afford.The vigilant standards of the helicopter parents from the baby boomer generation have become defined as mainstream practice, but they require money that the average household earning $53,891 per year— and struggling to survive in an economy in its seventh year of illusory “recovery”— does not have. The result is a fearful society in which poorer parents are cast as threats to their own children. As more families struggle to stay afloat, the number of helicopter parents dwindles—but their shadow looms large.

[Anonymous]

I don’t associate helicopter parenting with the boomers at all. My boomer parents, and those of every childhood friend I can think
of, were quite the opposite.

[Anonymous]

Websites like this one. Just read a thread where the OP is worrying about not having brushed her just turned one year old’s tooth. Dentist appt tomorrow. I thought - glad I didnt know that was an issue. Luckily neither of my kids has had a cavity yet, but I wasn’t brushing and flossing before 1. There’s just so much you’re supposed to do now! We know more, which is good, but it leads to much higher burdens on the parents. Guaranteed my parents weren’t taking me to the dentist at one and brushing before I even had teeth! Standards are crazy now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH was born in 62 and raised in “children should be seen and not heard” mode.

I feel like it wasn’t particularly nurturing. Him and his siblings have issues with relationships, communication, expressing feelings . So I can’t exactly say it turned out alright.

I want to add that his mom was a SAH and her parenting involvement was to say “go outside and play” and his dad looked at kids from behind a newspaper.

I think this generation overcompensating for neglect.

Benign neglect for the most part. “Go outside and play” is one of the best things you can say to a kid.

Of course it is. The problem is when it comes from parents that think parenting ends at providing a roof over your head and food on the table.

[Anonymous]

This has been a much slower creep than you guys are suggesting. My grandmother’s generation, she was working at 12 and married by 15. She is the youngest of 11 and some of her older siblings were sent away to be live in help to wealthier families in their early teens. She parented in a more doting way but my mother was still working 40 hours a week to help support herself and the family by 15. When I was a kid my mom also tried to be more doting but she didn’t help at all with school or invest in my extracurricular interests. Now that I am a mom I also try to be more doting and sign my DD up for lots of afterschool enrichment, play with her more than my mom did, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was born in 1975 and while I played outside with friends a lot, my parents absolutely played with me (and my siblings). Board games, dolls (mom), sports (dad). My dad helped me with math homework. I don’t think my friends parents were appreciably different.

You had good parents. I was one of five and mine never played with me or had conversations with me. My dad was physically abusive to us. It blows my mind that people on here are somehow pathologizing involved parents. Obviously there are healthy and unhealthy ways to be involved. That said, spending time enjoying your kids, playing with them, conversing with them are positive things.

[Anonymous]

Too much technology / information / fear mongering

Smaller families / less “village” parenting

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t associate helicopter parenting with the boomers at all. My boomer parents, and those of every childhood friend I can think
of, were quite the opposite.

I do associate baby boomer parents with heavily researching pregnancy and childbirth;; being very involved in preschool selection and schools and clubs and being helicopter parents.

What to Expect When You're Expecting was first published in 1984. The typical 24-30 year old parents would have been born in 1954 to 1960 ... Baby Boomers were born between 1944 and 1964 so this book was influential for the later Baby Boomers and is typical of what they read. Ferber's book "Solve Your Child's Sleep Problem" came out in 1985. These were huge books for Boomers and typical of their being very involved with every detail of their baby's lives.

My parents were whatever the generation before Boomers was (Lost? Silent?) and I'm an older GenX. I guarantee you Mom and Dad didn't read any books about pregnancy or how to get kids to fall asleep. They just did what they wanted or what their one doctor said (no doctor shopping). They did not research preschools. You went to the preschool that was closest if you went at all, and the public school that was nearest your house.

[Anonymous]

I’m a millennial raised by boomers and “helicopter parenting” as a term was definitely invented to describe how my parents generation parented my generation. I remember people talking about it all the time.

[Anonymous]

Nobody has mentioned the amazing brain research that shows 80% of a child’s brain is wired by age 3 and 90% by age 5. It suddenly seems very important to invest in “quality time” at an age when, in previous generations, kids were still assumed to be blobs.

[Anonymous]

Isn't it a good thing though?

[Anonymous]

My parents never did fun stuff with us either and I disliked that even as a kid (it was very rare for them to take us on vacations, to the movies, or out to eat and some of that had to do with lack of money but even then they rarely did cheap stuff with us like play board or card games or take us on fun outings like a picnic or a hike etc.). They never helped with big projects. I could tell it was just them being lazy even at the time.

Sometimes I do feel tired and just want to veg but I almost always make the effort to play card games with our kids every night before bed, read with them (even if it's just the five of us sitting around reading on our own together), take them for fun outings on the weekend (skiing, sledding, hiking, biking, swimming, museum,s or even just to the movies or playground). We take our kids out to eat often and take them on lots of vacations. We get into their projects in a "go big or go home" kind of way. They're only young once and for a very short time. I'm trying to soak it up and spend as much quality time with them now as possible.

Plus we actually like our kids. It's fun to do these things with them. Occasionally our parents will offer to watch the kids so we can do a weekend or week away without them and we almost always choose to bring them because we think it's more fun that way.