Did boomers get it right?

[GreyGoosehound]

I’ve lurked on several recent posts about deteriorating behaviour in schools, with increasing violence and 4 and 5 year olds who don’t have basic skills.

I’ve also seen threads and SM posts about boomers, mainly negative. But it’s also acknowledged that GenX are quite a hardy, resilient bunch.

I am generation X, and have brought up my genZ children differently to how I was raised. I was more present in their lives, made huge efforts to meet their needs in a way that my parents didn’t, as did many other parents in my age group.

You don’t need to look hard to find criticism of Millenials and GenZ, and GenAlpha (2012+) are commonly discussed as nightmare fodder.

Did the benign neglect and distanced parenting of boomers work better for growing children? Did the freedom that GenX had make a huge difference in their development?

I know there are global issues that contribute - the internet must have made a huge difference to both parenting and in child development, financially GenX had an easier time of becoming independent from parents, all this will have an effect.

I wonder if this is just a blip in human development, or how genZ and future generations will parent their children in response to how they were parented.
Thought this would make an interesting discussion.

Making a phone call s fine, pointless hours of scrolling through SM is not.

Boomers raised Milennials, not Gen X. The oldest Millennials are currently 43 and 44. Boomers are aged 60-78 and Gen X is 44-59.

Millennials are quite easy to manage in the workplace.

Great post GoingOutInABit

What a sensible post, @GoingOutInABit. I agree with you. I'm a few years older than you, FWIW.

Very hard to know whether mental health problems are worse now than in the past, because there was so much secrecy about them until recently. You'd sometimes hear people saying 'X suffers with his nerves' or 'Y has had a nervous breakdown' and it was always something shameful and not to be openly discussed. X and Y would probably spend time as inpatients in mental hospitals and some might never come back. Addiction issues (alcohol, prescription drugs) were just part and parcel of life, shoved under the carpet. Both my Mum and my MIL had crippling anxiety at times and would have benefited from some sort of therapy and medication, but I don't think GPs saw this as their domain.

Many children with what would now be termed learning difficulties were put into institutions as babies or toddlers and their families lost touch with them. Others stayed with the family but never went to mainstream schools, or maybe started in the Infants but transferred to special schools by the age of 6 or 7. This certainly happened to several children at my primary school. That's one big reason why schools have changed in recent years. In principle, it's a good thing but as with so many similar issues the funding hasn't been adequate to support these children.

A Boomer could raise a Gen X. I'm in the middle of Gen X and my mum is Silent Generation, but only just.

Did they, I’m a generation X 45, my brother is older and my parents are mid 70s,! Surely, there are loads of us raised by Boomers. My parents had us older than their Peers, I thought the average age to have a child was 23 in the 1970s.

This is so ridiculous. I was raised by boomers and there were loads of issues with teenagers within my school and in other schools. Lots of people had various mental health and behavioural issues. My dad, a boomer, told me stories about things he did that his parents didn’t like. I read his school reports and they were terrible, it was so funny!

Teenagers having difficulties isn’t new at all. My nieces and nephews are all teens and one has had bad issues with mental health, the others have all had good teen years. My DC are younger and I anticipate issues, but not because of the times they’re growing up in per se, but because they’re teens. There have ALWAYS been new things with teens ages and their parents to deal with. Once upon a time it was rock and roll, now it’s social media.

Stop acting like this is anything new and don’t tell other parents they’re smug and will definitely face issues as teens - most teenage issues are the usual, puberty, falling out with friends, falling in love/lust, the battle for freedom, bullying. These things may take of different forms but the crux of it is the same.

Honestly some people here need to stop looking back through rose tinted glasses. It’s like listening to my late-grandmother harp on about how they could go out when they were kids because there were no paedophiles - except there were thousands of paedos she just didn’t meet any.

Issues like the ones children experience today have always existed, we just didn’t always discuss them in the open way we do now.

I'm a millennial, I'm a 90s kid through and through, I saw the whole lot of the 90s and the early 00s. I miss those days I really do, the world has gone to utter shite and its our generation and the one before us that have caused it. I've got an early Gen Z child who has grown up sort of like us millennials have but with the added bonus of the earlier tech of that generation so they are computer literate, I also have an early Gen Alpha and a late Gen Alpha (so still a baby), the late Gen Alpha is more computer literate than my Gen Zer and he's not even 7 yet, I imagine my late Gen Alpha will be even more technology advanced.

As a millennial parent it wasn't until my middle child was born that i realised there was a better way to parent (up until then I had been parenting my Gen Zer as I had been parented and said child now has significant mental health issues because the world isn't the same as it was for us back then so I'm trying to undo all that with them and not make the same mistakes with my other 2)

I have mental health issues because of my upbringing so does every other Millennial I know.

You see a tiny snapshot. I have a pre-schooler and we talk constantly. Sometimes I look at my phone to see a work email or to book something in for the afternoon or message a friend about plans for that day. You’d see me and think I was a shitty parent but I’m not. My DCs speech is excellent because we talk loads.

This idea that today’s parents don’t engage because of phones is bollocks. Plus, MNers would likely be whinging that I was ‘performance parenting’ if they did hear our chats. Can’t bloody win!

👏👏👏

Exactly this. Many boomers on here raving about their own parenting forget that we are there generation who were parented by them - and the results were and are not pretty at all.

You’re right, @DryIce, we’d probably be worried if we saw a couple of eight-year-olds walking or cycling along together…even though that’s exactly what we did back in the 80’s. We’re more watchful and perhaps we tend to assume the worst more (I.e., that something bad will happen to unaccompanied children).

I saw a boy walking to school last week (probably 7 or 8), some way down the street from our local school, and I instantly thought “I hope he’s OK.” I knew that I was being silly, but I couldn’t help it. 🤷

I wasn't referring to children with developmental issues, regards to children being out of nappies. what does it even mean, mothers on their phones,not interacting with their children is what I mean. I was born in 1950. My late DM did go out to work.I wasn't smacked, neither were my children. My youngest DD is far more strict with her children than I was.

I’m GenX (50) and my DM is a Boomer (73). I have one millennial (30) and two Gen Y (25 & 20).

I don’t think I’m looking at things through rose tinted glasses.
Reports of behaviour in school and mental health issues in teens show that things appear to be worse for genZ than older gens had.
I definitely remember there being difficult teens, but in school not to the extent where teachers in schools face violence and disrespect to the extent they currently do.
I have raised my children, but with hindsight I don’t know if my parenting choices were part of the a larger picture of children generally not doing as well, which I don’t believe is a generalisation as I’m going by what others are reporting.
Surely conversations like this are essential to try to reflect on what has worked over the years?

By the standards of the times, my boomer parents were quite hands on. We weren't left to roam the streets and were expected to spent quite a lot of time doing family activities, which often seemed most unfair compared to the lives my friends were living.

They were very hot on discipline and behaviour and we did occasionally (very occasionally) get a short sharp smack. My Dad has always maintained that this is much "kinder" than the time out/naughty step methods employed my my generation of parents. He always said the smack was done and forgotten quickly, whereas time out effectively says you're such an awful child I can't bear to have you near me. He hated seeing children "banished" in that way.

I do wonder if that might be one of the reasons for the apparent fragility of young adults now although obviously could never tell Dad he could be right It's all down to Supernanny?

According to many teachers on another thread it’s now normal for there to be more reception aged children who don’t have basic skills - wiping their own bottoms, dressing, putting shoes on.

What causing this? Is there more SN? Is it natural for children to develop slower than previous generations have thought so this is a healthy development for children?

“Apparent fragility” lol. A smack should do it.

Kids have always been shit bags, the difference is that back in school in their generation the punishments were much harsher, so fear ruled. Remove the fear or the cane or the slipper or getting a chair thrown at you and the behaviour becomes more out there. But I guarantee you that kids weren’t all sitting in rows perfectly.

I’m the child of boomers and there was multiple teen pregnancies, drugs, exclusions, fights, bullying, mental health issues (anorexia for example) and all the rest in my school (which was considered an okay school) and in other schools my friends went to. Things what I mean about rose tinted glasses. All those kids had boomer parents and that didn’t stop them from having problems whatsoever

I'm not at all saying smacking would have helped, but that time out might have done some damage.

I reckon a lot of this is now both parents are working full time. Most boomer parents had the mother at home and gave them more time. These days everyone is expected to work 40 hour weeks and people are struggling. I know a bunch of people will come on and say they work 70 hours a week and still parent perfectly, but I truly don’t think that’s the nub of it. I work part time and it’s hard enough. SAHM parenting is hard in other ways, but it certainly gives you more time to focus on potty training and basic literacy.

1950s child here, so my friends’ children have children themselves now.

I suppose what I see ( and read on here, fascinating source of information) is that the teenagers and twenties in that circle ( and this may be very different in other countries and social groups) seem very young for their age compared to their parents and grandparents as I remember them. It’s not being loved and cared for, which I think happened as much and as little in previous generations, but the complacency and contentment with being dependent and protected. There is a difference.

We were encouraged to grow up, we aspired to being independent with the freedoms and responsibilities that entails. We wanted to be adults; one of the worst insults between children was being ‘babyish’ . I walked to school on my own from six ( although through a park so not much traffic). Both parents worked, so I had a key from ten, it never occurred to anyone that I would be somehow traumatised by being on my own in my own home for an hour.

I think that I and my friends would have died of shame if our parents had come to a university interview with them ( if it was really impossible to get there on the train, they had to lurk about in the car park).

It seems to be just fine to be in nappies much later, to be unable to eat with cutlery, to take turns to speak, to say please and thank you, to behave calmly in a restaurant or event ( and no, don’t tell me that everyone with these behaviours has learning difficulties ). Parents don’t seem to want their children to acquire the skills of adult behaviour, and the children don’t aspire to being adults, perhaps because it’s scary.

Of course, the parents of children in the 1950’s had had six years of bombing, fighting, rationing etc, so maybe knew what real fear and uncertainty was.

Have to admit I raise my eyebrows at the Oxbridge threads on here. Why are these parents so involved in their adult children’s lives? 😳

How do they know so much detail about their courses, university experience etc. It’s odd the level of involvement some parents have with their kids education. No way would gen X or xennials have had this intrusion.

You’re supposed to develop independence at university… how can you do that with your parents heavily involved and invested? I do think some parents need to back off a bit.

My parents were caring but had little clue about my course at university. I was left to it. They always supported me with books, lifts, rent, and some revision practice (reading out practice questions and pretending to understand what I was going on about in my answer… but it was really helpful being able to say it out loud and I was very grateful for their time!)

I was born early 80s. My parents both born in 1948 so boomers.

They certainly weren't hands off! They both worked full time but were very involved in my life and my dad especially was (too?) strict with school work, playing out etc.

I do think there is a focus now on never upsetting children. I work in a university and find a lot of the students lacking in any kind of resilience. I think this is a result of that.

This is my bugbear. I used to work in a small greengrocers and often a family of 5 would come in, kids picking at the fruit, baby screaming and me just wondering while one of them didn't wait outside!

This idea that today’s parents don’t engage because of phones is bollocks.
Well a fair few don’t though, I normally say they could be paying bills, texting the childminders, maybe they haven’t a second free all day etc etc but at swimming with my kids I am one of the only people watching my child swim! All around me are people on TikTok, the noise is filling the area as much the sound of the kids in the pool. And I have to keep saying to different parents ‘oh I think he/she is calling you.’ Same in the playground’eh sorry is that your child’ (either shouting for mammy/daddy or after falling).