What caused the shift in “quality parenting”?
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Anonymous
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Economic anxiety. I am a GenXer from a middle class family. My parents did not pay any attention to my extracurricular activities (they did pay for music lessons, but only because I really wanted it) and minimally concerned themselves with my grades. It was pretty obvious that I will eventually go to college, a state school, of course, and the college degree will allow me to have a decent living, likely better than my parents’. Compare this to now, when a college degree is not a guarantee for anything, although a “right” college degree might. But to get to that place, you have to go to the “right” high school, middle school, elementary school, preschool, and have the “right” activities on your resume, and that’s all on your parents.
I have to say that this intensified drastically in the last 10 yrs or so (social media impact?). My oldest and youngest kids are 14 years apart, and I definitely notice the difference in parenting. And it’s super hard not to succumb to the arms race, even though I have been a sane parent before and have a grown child to prove it. |
Anonymous
I’m biased, but that was their equivalent to social media posing. My negligent/narcissist mother researched over ten schools before enrolling me. P.s.:There were also good parents, of course! |
Anonymous
+ 1 I see this change as a big improvement too, not sure what everyone else in here is whining and complaining about. Why did you have kids if you hardly ever want to spend time with them and rarely do fun things? Especially if you have the money to treat them and make their lives nice, which, let's be real here, most people on this website do. |
Anonymous
It's the millennial way to whine and complain abut having to expend any effort, even on completely mundane things that everyone has to do like grocery shopping or cleaning your bathroom. |
Anonymous
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Increase in access to information leads to increase in anxiety. You saw a face or two on a milk carton in the 80s, now new “missing kid” fb posts come constantly. Maybe you knew 1-2 people with cancer before, but now since you “know”
More people who know people who all post everyone else’s business on fb, you think that cancer is more prolific, hence you’re more scared. More access to info about the scary parts of fever makes it scarier. So everyone becomes more anxious and worried their kids are going to die if we don’t keep them in a bubble |
Anonymous
People like to wax poetic about this idyllic era when all the moms were at home baking cookies for their kids, but only the most affluent families in any decade you look at had a SAHM. Most women worked in some way including raising someone else's kid even if that woman didn't work. |
Anonymous
+ 1 We're the same and I wouldn't say anything of this has to do with economic fears or some idea that our kids won't do better than we did. I actually don't worry much about that because we can afford to pay for their educations and give them down payments for their first houses. |
Anonymous
Meh, I realize this is a mommy wars topic but I don't think that person is wrong about the quality of most after care programs, which aren't good. Mostly free for alls in the gym with a ton of kids for every adult. |
Anonymous
Agree 1000% |
Anonymous
TBF the thing my kids need that is hardest for me to give them is active play especially in bad weather. Gym free-for-all is just what the doctor (literally) ordered. |
Anonymous
This. It is now assumed that even being as successful as your parents, whatever income level, is much more competitive. And, my parents seemed to have kids because "you were supposed to." Now, unless you really want to have kids, it's better economically not to have them. |
Anonymous
This is a good point. I wonder if the "lack of village" contributes to parental burnout, impatience, etc. For those of us who have no local family or community, the relentlessness of being with your kids 24/7 can't be ignored. We love our kids, but there is no dropping them off at grandma's while we run a few errands. Date night means coordination of a babysitter, as does any adult function. Holidays means traveling with little ones and the expense of flights or days in the car. There is no running around with cousins on bored summer days, playdates have to be planned. This isn't exactly dumping your kid off on anyone else. Small, healthy breaks are needed. |
Anonymous
Hmm. I will agree that there is often too little supervision, but to your other point — free for all’s in the gym — I say GOOD. I don’t want my kids doing anything super structured after school. It’s GOOD for our kids to use their imagination and not have every second of the day curated by adults. Especially after school. |
Anonymous
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I was born in 75 and in m childhood we were left to ourselves. We roamed the streets and played unsupervised all day long.
I can’t do the same with DD. Her friends live miles away. You cant bike (bikers and walkers get run over all the time in our area). She can’t walk to her extracurricular activities. So I have to drive her everywhere and arrange to meet friends. It’s very annoying. |
Anonymous
My grandmother was born in 40. Her elder brother is about 9.5 months older than she is, and she was premature enough that she wasn’t expected to survive so wasn’t given a name for a few months. Her mother was simply not around, working at least two jobs, putting herself through teacher’s school and gleaning fields, while her husband sat on a barstool and drank away the money. He was physically, mentally and emotionally abusive, moreso while drunk, so the three kids (younger brother is ~13 months younger than my grandmother) hid outside until the last minute. To this day, she is very passive aggressive, but when the only recourse she had was to purposefully made the gravy lumpy or to oversalt mashed potatoes? Her mother cared about their grades, father didn’t. She’s 12 years older than her sister, and her sister spent school days at a neighbor’s house until kindergarten. My grandmother came home on the bus every afternoon, picked up her sister, cooked dinner, and cleaned up after her drunk of a father, while her brothers played football or did other things after school, then drove home with their mom. No, my grandmother isn’t an intellectual, but she’s got more common sense than any dozen other people, and she was determined to give her kids a better childhood than she had. My mother was born in 63. Her mom cared about results and togetherness, so the three of them (my grandmother, mother and uncle) took ballet and piano together, and they went on family trips all over the country, always wearing homemade, matching clothes. Although homework and ballet/piano were enforced, nobody checked or corrected anything, mostly because my grandfather didn’t care and wasn’t capable, while my grandmother barely got her diploma. My grandmother stayed home until both kids were in school full time, then volunteered at school until they offered her a position as an aide/gym teacher (she took it with the understanding that she could go on every field trip, have every school day her kids were off with them at home, and she could stay home with them anytime they were sick). Both my mother and uncle were encouraged to join band and any after school activity that interested them, provided that they were willing to practice and fulfill the full commitment. My grandmother refused to believe that drugs, alcohol and tobacco were being passed around the middle school bathroom, that there were drug deals in the high school hall and stuck her head in the sand about how many girls dropped out of high school because they were pregnant. When my uncle broke his leg and my mom was home sick, she retrieved assignments for both and was too shocked (pda) and scared (drugs in plain view) to walk down the hall. Oh, and my grandfather was physically, mentally and emotionally abusive to all three of them, but she stayed because she “made a promise” and she “wouldn’t have been able to take care of herself or her kids.” Her words, I’ve heard them several times. She only divorced him when he was arrested (drug and gun raid) because she may have lost her home and property if she hadn’t. On one hand, my mother was coddled with way too much supervision and too little independence encouraged, while on the other, she was also brought up in a home with an extremely abusive father and a mother who minimized the abuse while shifting blame to herself and her children. She was given opportunities as a teen (until 20) that she admits that she squandered. The best decision she ever made was entering the military. I was born in 85; mother was out of the military during her pregnancy, father was in til I was 6 months. Eldest of three, 4 years separating eldest and youngest, but my mother also had one miscarriage and one stillbirth during that time, due to my father’s overwhelming need to have a son to carry on his name. My mother ran a home daycare, taught all the kids more academics than school expected then or now for kindergarteners, and encouraged (mostly) age-appropriate independence. My sister and I both attended a preschool program (free!) for gifted children at 4. My brother had speech intervention at (free!) preschool starting at 2, and no trace of any issues remained at kindergarten (partly due to the speech pathologist sending home specific homework games that we all played with him). My sister and I took ballet, but it ended when my father walked out and left (lack of funds). She put herself through college with 17-20 credit hours per semester while working 40+ hours after my father left. My mother arranged piano lessons for me in exchange for me helping the teacher with minimal house cleaning. She arranged skiing lessons in exchange for help tidying the lodge, then my sister was a junior ski instructor (in elementary) in exchange for free equipment and unlimited time on the slopes and moguls. My brother, sister and I all played in band, but sports games would not have been possible. We were encouraged to do any activities that only required time during the school day (bible study, clue-me-in, geography bee) or an earlier walk to school/a later walk home from school (science Olympiad, spelling bee, jazz band, trivia club, scouts, cross country with no meets). She required a certain amount of extra work be done in math and science every week, even when we didn’t have homework. During the summer, we reviewed old math books, did research projects and rode bikes around collecting cans. She was very much an authoritative parent, physically abusive (not to the extent of her father or grandfather), bordering on mentally and emotionally abusive, but as an adult, I do understand why she acted the way she did. Fast forward to now. I am VERY conscious of how I talk to kids, as most adults are now. But while I refuse to continue the cycle of abuse, I will not condone bad behavior. I help children understand the reasons behind why things work the way they do. While I encourage academics and creative outlets, I also encourage physical activity. And I’m very much of a Montessori outlook in some ways, encouraging a child to build independence and competence in ways that actually matter. So far, it’s working quite well. I can only speak for myself. But it takes a LOT to change what we know what childhood, whether that was physical discipline, too much or too little independence, etc. At this time, I look at all the oversight for cause of why children’s behavior is tolerated rather than changed, and our focus on childhood safety is also increasing at the expense of reasonable independence. |