To think millennial parents who were brought up strictly are more relaxed parents?

I feel like what we don't talk about are the areas in which we are so much stricter (though generally of course I use different words and choices to my parents in parenting - I guess along the lines of 'gentle parenting') and that's because it's culturally bound and so we almost don't see them as parenting decisions.

• don't talk to that stranger
• don't run ahead so that I can't see you
• no you can't play where I can't see you
• you need to be 10 (or whatever) to go alone to the shop
• I'll keep an eye on you while you play with your friends so I can break up any fights/stop any inappropriate behaviour

No wonder we are all so exhausted. We are having to be strict in all these new ways, as well as being very thoughtful in changing the way we parent (as what comes reflexively is often not 'gentle parenting' or modern parenting).

My parents definitely think I parent in a ‘millennial’ way. They were shocked at the breastfeeding past a couple of months, co sleeping (both me with a newborn and husband with our toddler in another bed) and especially by the more fluid routine and no sleep training.

Your parents might think of that as a "millennial" style of parenting, but it really isn't. I am Gen X and did all of the above, and it wasn't that unusual at the time. And what I did wasn't that different to what my own mum did several decades earlier.

All of my friends raised in the 80s and 90s broadly try to emulate the same parenting they had: because we all had great parents and turned out well as a result of their parenting. I suspect the parents now who intentionally try to deviate from how they were raised had somewhat dysfunctional childhoods and not so great relationships with their parents now, rather than it being about the boundaries and rules, many of which will have been pretty typical for the period, themselves.

”Because I said so” sometimes is a perfectly good response for a child from a parent regarding certain things. Being emotionally illiterate and not being able to show affection = family dysfunction.

Both

My parents definitely think I parent in a ‘millennial’ way. They were shocked at the breastfeeding past a couple of months, co sleeping (both me with a newborn and husband with our toddler in another bed) and especially by the more fluid routine and no sleep training.

Sleep training seemed mandatory by my mums standards and she didn’t cuddle us much as the health visitor told her to put as down the majority of time so we didn’t become needy babies.

for later childhood years, I had pretty liberal parents by 90s standards. They didn’t shout at us much (mum basically never) whereas most friends parents did a lot of shouting at their children to try to get to them to do what they wanted. There was very little reason or explanation given to children which I find sad as it works on ours to say why we need to them to X or Y. They are keen to please they just need to know the reasoning behind not having chocolate for breakfast or walking along the edge of the kerb next to the traffic.

i was still smacked on my bottom if I was naughty from toddler onwards. Which is something we don’t do (do people still do this?!). So yes we are more gentle and more liberal than our predecessors.
I did enjoy the freedom my parents gave us and I try not to say ‘don’t do that it’s unsafe’ when my son climbs a tree for example - we were encouraged to test ourselves and have our own adventures.

I'm not convinced that it's a generational thing. There are strict "because I say so" parents in every generation. There are lax "anything goes" parents in every generation. And there are parents in every generation who seek to provide guidance and support to their children without unnecessarily throwing their weight around.

Typically, those of us who were lucky enough to have loving and effective parents who managed to strike the right balance, will try to emulate what our parents did. Those whose parents leaned too heavily towards being too strict or too lax will likely want to do things differently.

I am not convinced that millennial parents are that different from any of the generations that went before. Though they are perhaps a bit more self conscious about their parenting "style" because of the influence of social media.

Yes I definitely think mine has! I grew up in the 80's with the same parenting as you describe. I'm definitely more of a gentle parent and am very aware of the things i say to my children and being very open and honest with them. However my husband also grew up in the 80's and I think he's more of the we need to be stricter, too much gentle parenting and kids are all turning into brats these days so I guess it's not really true for him.

I think millennials raised by boomers and millennials raised by Gen X had very different upbringing.

I’m Gen X and definitely haven’t repeated the more strict aspects of their parenting. On several occasions I have gone to tell my daughter she couldn’t do something then checked myself, making sure there is actually a valid reason not to do it if I’m going to stop her. I think about all my adult traits which stem from my childhood (mostly things I feel guilty about when there is no reason to). I don’t expect my teenager to be up early at the weekend just because I have decided I’m going to do housework at 9am. I don’t say a smug “goood afternoon” when she gets up at 10.30. I will point out what she has done well before offering constructive criticism if there is something she needs to learn. I remind her every day that she is brilliant and how much I love being her parent. We have appropriate boundaries, I’m not her best friend, but I am her biggest supporter and we love spending time together. We have so much fun and can talk about anything.

The emotional unavailability of my parents has shaped my life. I had to spend a lot of years re-opening to people. I’m not exactly dead inside, but when my dad had a heart attack then bypass surgery, I was neither up nor down about it. I spend time with them, go visit, etc, we’re not NC or even LC. But I learned early on they are not worth having emotions around.

Not really, quite the opposite

Friends who I know come from a strict background are relatively strict with their own children

the "gentle parents" seem to have inherited that "gentleness" from their own upbringing.

I think there is a balance. I was raised as you were and in the same time period.

With mine, I was very much about meeting their needs wholly until they turned around three and as they got older, I got a bit stricter as I have higher expectations of a 5 year old than a 2 year old.
By stricter, I don’t mean smacking obviously. But I will raise my voice if I need to and I won’t molly coddle. I want my kids to have independence which is one thing my parents did right. They allowed me age appropriate independence from quite young and that builds up resilience.
I think we need to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water. Yes, a lot of what our parents did would be massively frowned upon now but there was some good there, too.
I think you can definitely be too ‘gentle’ as well as you can be too strict. I aim for a happy middle ground. It definitely seems to be working.