What caused the shift in “quality parenting”?

[Anonymous]

It would be interesting if more of the posters to this thread would mention when they were born and when their parents were born in order to see which generations are being compared.

Some people seem to be comparing similar generations, but taking different completely different conclusions. My guess is that there are good and bad parents in every generation and that many of us have very different definitions of what is considered good versus bad parenting.

[Anonymous]

I was born in the 80s and both my immigrant parents worked a lot, so I was with one set of grandparents and with babysitters a LOT. I don’t actually remember my parents ever actually playing with me, but I know they read to me and bought me books and I remember going out for pizza and snacks with my mom. The big treat was going grocery shopping because we were always allowed one small treat. I remember playing with other kids and running around outside with just kids and no adults for hours. On weekends we visited close uncles and aunts and cousins.

I sometimes cringe and have to catch myself from spoiling my 3 year old only child. I SAH and we make 200k so not scraping by but not very very well off. I try to limit trips to Target and Dollar Store and I make a point of saying no when we could financially afford to say yes. I try not to be that mom who makes A Starbucks trip every day. We have zero family in the area and go to a large church and we aren’t very close to any other families/friends so I often worry my child is missing out on the “village” aspect of childhood I had.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

My parents were the same generation as yours and they definitely were reading books about parenting. I remember seeing the Dr. Spock book and at least two others whose names and authors I don’t remember. I was the oldest kid, so I remember my parents reading these books as my younger siblings were born.

Dr. Spock, that bastard, ruined a whole generation of parents. My parents were born in 50s and I was born in 75. They read Dr. Spock who preached that they would spoil kids if you picked a baby up when it cried and in general there was a fear of spoiling a kid.

My parents worked very hard and were not home most of the day and when they were home they did chores. I got little attention from my parents. They never played with me. From the elementary school age I walked to school and back and was home alone with a latch key.

We spent our days playing outside, roaming streets, etc. I think it was neglectful to let little kids roam around like that, I had a couple of close calls. I learnt to rely on myself only and also didn't feel loved. I resented lack of direction from my parents, especially when it came to education and college.

I ended up doing well, but I'm doing x 100 more for my DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was born in the 80s and both my immigrant parents worked a lot, so I was with one set of grandparents and with babysitters a LOT. I don’t actually remember my parents ever actually playing with me, but I know they read to me and bought me books and I remember going out for pizza and snacks with my mom. The big treat was going grocery shopping because we were always allowed one small treat. I remember playing with other kids and running around outside with just kids and no adults for hours. On weekends we visited close uncles and aunts and cousins.

I sometimes cringe and have to catch myself from spoiling my 3 year old only child. I SAH and we make 200k so not scraping by but not very very well off. I try to limit trips to Target and Dollar Store and I make a point of saying no when we could financially afford to say yes. I try not to be that mom who makes A Starbucks trip every day. We have zero family in the area and go to a large church and we aren’t very close to any other families/friends so I often worry my child is missing out on the “village” aspect of childhood I had.

Oh and I think social media/oversharing/anxiety and wealth/education are huge factors. Both DH and I visit our working class neighborhoods in the Midwest and other parts of the country and parenting is much closer to how we grew up and not how it tends to be in our area here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm Gen X with teens, and what I see is too many Millennial parents not adjusting to being parents. As in, they want someone else to do the heavy lifting on this whole parenting thing.

I've been outside gardening and overheard Millennial parents tell their kids to "shut up" as they stared at their phones on the walk home from the bus stop, as if they're somehow angry they have to parent their own kids. It is just so strange. It is at if many Millennial couples are constantly at war as to who is "stuck" with the kids today.

It's time for some parents to grow up.

Yes, but then they are all over them at soccer practice.

[Anonymous]

Did anyone mention, 7 pages later, that parents today are overcompensating for how their parents made them feel? Because that about sums it up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

This is a really good point. It’s the main reason I outsource a lot and spend most of the time I’m at home engaged with my DD instead of cooking/cleaning. Once she hits elementary school, I’ll start to pick up more housework again.

Good luck with that. Once your child sees you as their personal entertainer, it’s hard to go back.

PP here and I work (my post may have been confusingly written). So when I’m at home, of course I want to be DD’s personal entertainer and vice versa. I’d rather spend an hour after dinner playing hide and seek, Legos, and reading a book rather than doing the dishes. I enjoy spending quality time with her and having face-to-face conversations.

[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.

Kids were less valuable individually? That’s incredibly stupid thinking.

Parents may have had less time for each kid individually, but they didn’t value them less.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

Same here. My mom stayed at home until my younger sibling started kindergarten, and then she went back to work. Except for some of the families with more than three kids, everyone's mother worked, at least part time. Most of the mothers in my neighborhood worked, too. There wasn't some golden age when all mothers stayed at home -- that was always a class-based thing.

[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.

Kids were less valuable individually? That’s incredibly stupid thinking.

Parents may have had less time for each kid individually, but they didn’t value them less.

I know a few families with a large # of kids (Catholics) and the youngest kids were definitely NOT valued.


BIRTH CONTROL gave families the means to have fewer kids and value them more.

[Anonymous]

I grew up in the 80s and my parents almost never did anything fun with us. It was always - go play outside, come back at dinner.

We're the opposite with our kids - we like to arrange fun things to do every weekend. Since we couldn't go skiing this weekend, we took them to go out to lunch then sledding twice. This came up with my mom and she was like, you went sledding twice in one weekend?? Even now she doesn't get it.

[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.

Kids were less valuable individually? That’s incredibly stupid thinking.

Parents may have had less time for each kid individually, but they didn’t value them less.

I know a few families with a large # of kids (Catholics) and the youngest kids were definitely NOT valued.


BIRTH CONTROL gave families the means to have fewer kids and value them more.

I actually think this is true. Every single person I've ever met from very large families (like 6 or more) said that older siblings were expected to raise the younger ones and everyone involved hated it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
My parents were the same generation as yours and they definitely were reading books about parenting. I remember seeing the Dr. Spock book and at least two others whose names and authors I don’t remember. I was the oldest kid, so I remember my parents reading these books as my younger siblings were born.

Dr. Spock, that bastard, ruined a whole generation of parents. My parents were born in 50s and I was born in 75. They read Dr. Spock who preached that they would spoil kids if you picked a baby up when it cried and in general there was a fear of spoiling a kid.

My parents worked very hard and were not home most of the day and when they were home they did chores. I got little attention from my parents. They never played with me. From the elementary school age I walked to school and back and was home alone with a latch key.

We spent our days playing outside, roaming streets, etc. I think it was neglectful to let little kids roam around like that, I had a couple of close calls. I learnt to rely on myself only and also didn't feel loved. I resented lack of direction from my parents, especially when it came to education and college.

I ended up doing well, but I'm doing x 100 more for my DC.

I don't think you've read Dr. Spock's book. He went against the conventional wisdom of the time by encouraging *more* flexibility and affection. I had the latest edition of the D. Spock book a few years ago, and it specifically says you *don't* spoil a baby by picking it up when it cries. There was a large fear of "spoiling" children, but that was also a holdover from earlier generations of parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

This is a really good point. It’s the main reason I outsource a lot and spend most of the time I’m at home engaged with my DD instead of cooking/cleaning. Once she hits elementary school, I’ll start to pick up more housework again.

I think that's part of it -- the push to "maximize" your child's development, like they are a car you can fine-tune or something. People assume that more is better, when previous generations of children managed to have normal brain development without their parents spending all day with them engaged in child-directed activities. Kids participated a lot more in the work of the home, played mostly with siblings and cousins and neighbors, and their brains developed just fine. I mean, it's great to know that babies and small children aren't just "blobs," but it's not a given that more direct engagement with a kid is actually "better," and it's not clear how you even define "better." But that emphasis on individual self-improvement does seem of a piece with the modern zeitgeist, so that's probably part of it. It fits with the fact that more parents have kids in organized "enrichment" activities at younger and younger ages.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

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.

Agree 1000%

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.

+1

Kids have much less time for free play, and free play is so important. They learn to organize a game or activity themselves, to cooperate and work out minor conflicts among themselves, to entertain themselves instead of needing an adult to direct them, etc. All good stuff.