Aibu to think some parents are really desperate to appear progressive & cool but it's having a detrimental effect on their kids?

I've never known children to be affected badly by having left wing parents. Am I missing something?

YABVU

Just say you want to rant about particular acquaintances that are different than you and that you don’t like.

There are plenty of kids from left and right wing parents who are misbehaved because their parents are too strict or too lenient or a mix of both about the wrong things. Pronouns have been a thing for years now. Why do you care? You don’t have to interact with them if you don’t want to.

I'm very left wing. Two of my children attend private schools, the youngest is at a state school. I'm gender critical. Not only do I make my children do the homework that school set, I also gave them extra work in primary! No smart phones until year 7 and all social media apps blocked. No tablets. No screens allowed in bedrooms at all.

I wish there were more parents living life according to their values. Maybe they don't believe in private schooling, yet are quite libertarian in a lefty way and value social choice. They want their children to be self reliant, hence the phones, no pressure to do homework or to conform to gender norms, yet high expectations of attainment and valuing intellectual achievement. Boho means signalling that you don't take mainstream fashion/consumption as axiomatic.

I feel it hangs together quite well. Whether you agree with where they net out, or not, you could at least have a conversation with them about their values and what kind of society they think is best. And I suspect they have views on what world might work well for them and for others who aren't like them, with some imagination and empathy(that's a good bit of being left wing, by the way).

OP on the other hand is so kneejerk in her responses she is really living the unexamined life, I suspect I'd find it hard to have a chat with her about what she thinks the best world should be.

I am left wing. My children are well behaved. What is meant is parenting where you do not share their idea of a reasonable boundary. Children are not little robots and it is not "left wing" to permit them a bit of autonomy or freedom in their lives. I agree with @JacquesHarlow regarding the mean minded and stultifying attitudes inherent in the original post. A kind of self gratifying idea of yourself doing the "right thing" defined against others.

I’m a dyed-in-the-wool socialist. My kids didn’t have phones until they were teenagers. I was, if anything, quite strict and always made sure they’d completed their homework. Why would my political beliefs make me a lax parent?

And I think people have taken a cue.

People post what they think, just because your view is the minority one here doesn't mean everyone else has 'taken their cue'.

Seems like random petty gripes about another family who do not require and have not sought, your approval.

Do you often ruminate angrily about people who haven't done as you would? There are a lot of people like that. I'm not sure why you think that you get to set the bar.

Try minding your own business?

I hate to break it you but you used 4 pronouns in your OP alone……

So you are bitching about a couple you don’t like, who may also happen to have bad parenting skills, under the guise of boho media parents? (A praise that means nothing.)

YANBU but this is one of those threads where the first few replies were outraged or contemptuous so the other posters have taken their cue from them.

Yes, ‘left wing parenting’ (no proper sanctions, acting like your child’s mate, ‘respecting their pronouns’, drilling into them that the system is elitist and controlling and they’re entitled to be a little yobbo) is crap. And damaging.

This is hilarious - @Primroseoil are you on the wind-up?

what I find fascinating is that this post, this OP, is exactly why I miss working abroad and why I hate my own country sometimes.

It’s the desperate need for everyone to confirm to a set mediocre standard that makes everyone uneasily comfortable for the minute they feel they’re in the same set.

If you’ve got a car, make sure it’s an SUV so it’s “safest for the ickle ones”. Anyone who chooses an old Polo or Golf clearly doesn’t care about their kids or hasn’t worked hard enough.

When you discover rear-facing for older kids, make sure you proactively judge others who don’t. Take one or two holidays a year, but not more than that or you might be seen as fickle and not hard working enough. Don’t ever rent - why would you - it’s “literally throwing money away”. Ensure your child goes to loads of after school activities without ever monitoring their progress as a human being or having to spend time with them. We don’t talk about politics, because the Left is “woke” and secretly we vote Tory because it matches our idea of our financial position in life.

I could go on, but my god I’m bored of how people come across in this country.

so what someone is “left wing” and doesn’t send their kids to private school even if they could afford to. Why on EARTH do you care so much?!

You've obviously started this thread to slag off parents with a different view on sex and gender to you. Yawn.

Aren't all children supposed to find their parents cringe? My 5 year old still thinks I am awesome, but the bigger one has pretended he doesn't know me in public a few times now. Oops, I used a pronoun too!

No one knows whether a school acquaintance can afford private school or not! You can only guess, but have no idea what debts or expenses they have. And bullying also takes place in private schools so it isn't a magic solution.

Pronouns on social media are pretty common and most people who work in media have them - it may even be a policy of whichever company they work for.

Judge Judy

Then why are you wasting time and energy on them?

🤣🤣 I was 8 in 1976, and never DARED spend my emergency 2p on SWEETS! Is it too late to find my rebellious inner wild child? 🤔😂

Really not meaning to be snippy, but I would say this is a projection based on your own issues/prejudices/insecurities.

Judging people you don't know based on demographics or visible lifestyle is pure stereotyping.

I can imagine exactly the kind of people you are talking about in terms of demographic and lifestyle.

I think there is a group that simultaneously have high expectations for their children academically (because they were academic themselves) but also a disdain for the education system. They seem to see themselves as above things like spelling tests, dress up days and don’t care about attendance or being late. It seems to me to be rooted in a belief that their children will naturally succeed.

What's wring eith child at local primary rather than, in your words 'lovely private' school?

None of your business.

Gender pronouns, yep shit nonsense but up to them if they want to call themselves zeii zeee them or batshit or whatever. Just don't use them yourself. Many are realising for the majority it is social contagion and a trend. Just don't use them.

Parenting styles are different so again you do you and ignore theirs.

Do they chat to you often about their children's underperformance academically?

So ... basically this is a post to say that anyone who has views that are different to yours is unreasonable?

None of the examples you've given seem to be in themselves detrimental to their children. And, considering you hardly know these people I'm not really sure how you can be so sure that making a different decision would be so much better for the children?

Ooh. I'm a left wing person who didn't make their children do homework at primary.
One has got a double First from Cambridge.
One has no qualifications beyond GCSE.

Hmm.

I think your friends need new friends.