I think there’s some truth to this. But I don’t think my parenting style will be just like our parents’ simply because my personality is pretty different than theirs; it will be my own, whatever that is, and I’m preparing myself to accept that without guilt or arrogance. If I find myself falling into a kid-centered approach, then so be it…but I do want to keep my sanity and not become so detached or insensitive to the non-kid world that I lose social skills (which are on the low side to begin with). My preference would be to not let that happen if I can. DeweyDecibel’s post gives me hope.
I have an idea of how to hold on to my sanity, though. When my kid is acting extra bratty and difficult, I will ship them off to Aunty Monstro.
He’s just being selfish and/or thoughtless. I generally go run errands either on my lunch hour or on the way home, and I make a specific point to text or call my wife to find out if there’s anything she needs, because while she does go to the grocery with the kids, it’s not something that she does on a whim, considering we have a 6 month old baby and a very active and headstrong 3 year old boy.
I think the commentary that says that society is more child-centric is true. The reasons I see are that people perceive that things are harder now than when they were children, and feel like they have to ante up to get their kid educated more and earlier, and to do more and better extra-curriculars than we’d have done back in the 80s and before.
For example, I’m starting to hear all sorts of breathless horror stories about how tough kindergarten is these days- the children are expected to read coming in, and be able to add and subtract and all sorts of other stuff that seems fairly absurd to me when I think of what most 5 year olds have been exposed to at that point in their lives.
But people believe this stuff, and send their kids to preschool and get them tutored, etc… And they hear about how hard it is to get into college (or at least the colleges that kids actually want to go to, not BFE State), and the cycle starts anew, starting at earlier ages. I see it with sports- I hear about how high school and club sports are SO tough now, so people are getting private coaches for middle school kids, and other absurdities like that…
So in short, I think the perception that things are more competitive is driving parents to be more involved in their children’s lives and activities, rather than letting them choose to be a jock or band nerd, or drama dork or stoner or whatever they’d have chosen to do (or not do) on their own.
Some of this centeredness might also be due to younger parents backlashing against how they were raised. My older sister fits this category. As a latch-key kid of two working parents, I think she feels as though she missed out on having close supervision and nurturing. So she became a SAHM who prides herself on being very involved in her kids’ lives.
But there are tradeoffs to all choices. Her kids lack the independence that she and her siblings (me included) had. Her kids have gotten into less trouble than she did and are better prepared for school, but they are less mature and more risk-averse.
I think there’s something to be said for balance. You don’t want to treat the kids you bring into this world like a meaningless afterthought, but you don’t want to deny them the opportunity to develop self-sufficiency and agency.
One negative side-effect of how I was raised is that I often feel like it’s an imposition for someone to give me their time and attention; it overwhelms me, in fact, to be the center of attention because I rarely experienced that as a kid. It logically follows that too much in the other direction could have negative effects too. Finding that middle ground is key.
I would like to just point out that there isn’t an immediate thing where suddenly kids’ stuff is everywhere. Most people have one kid, buy lots of toys, maybe have a playroom, and things are under control and then when the kid is 2-3they have another, and maybe the playroom has to get turned into another bedroom so now there are more toys around, and…
The point here is that it’s your kids and you do have a certain amount of control. When you have more than one kid under 5 you do get a little child-centric because there they are and they’re important to you. (Some people do it with only one. I mean the everything-revolves-around-the-child thing.)
Then they grow up and that bit is over.
What I’m saying is that someone doesn’t just hand you a 2-year-old whose only word is “No!” It’s a slow, gradual descent into madness that you kind of slip into over time and then when it’s over you say, “How the hell did I even do that? And where are all my old friends I used to go clubbing with?”
It’s worth noting that it’s a lot easier to “keep balance” when a stay-at-home-parent is involved and can focus on housekeeping and logistics during the day, leaving some time on evenings and weekends to do grownup things. A job, a kid, an orderly house and an active social life are a “choose three” kind of situation.
Maybe, but a parent who chooses to stay home is more likely to make kids the center of their lives, while career or personal dreams get put on the back burner. Case in point, my future SIL has been a SAHM for most of her adult life and has taken on the challenge of raising 3 young kids. Her focus on kids would probably be different if her interests were centered around professional success.
Not arguing with that. My point is that a lot of people nostalgic for the “good old days” may be remembering a time when household labor in middle class families was very different-- to the point of not being comparable.
A family where one person spends the 40-60 workweek hours with the kids is naturally going to be able to do more non-kid-focused stuff outside of working hour than one where 100% of the kid and housekeeping stuff has to happen outside of working hours.
It’s worth noting that hired help was also more common among middle class families in previous generations.