to wonder have we got it really wrong with todays parenting?

[slipperandpjsmum]

Parenting has changed so much in the last 20 even 10 years alot for the good but not all I am sure.

There is so much emphasis on risk and avoiding it, all the 'must have stuff' for babies, all the guilt/worry/pressure about are we getting it right rather than just enjoying our children???

Just throwing the question out there to the MN jury .................

children should be seen and not heard

Heard and not seen in this house salt!!

?? Saltatrix? expand please

I think the worst aspect for me (and it's only what I read on MN, not what I've experienced in rl), is the germ phobia that mums of young babies seem to have. No one is allowed to touch the baby, especially old people who are minging just by virtue of their age, and the obsession with wiping down or hand-gelling their baby who has been touched before mum can whisk him or her out of the way. I find this so sad. How has this happened?

Just wishful thinking :) reality is they they have no problems making sure they are heard.

I think that the problems with modern parenting are

1. risk avoidance
2. over-indulgence
3. child-centred as opposed to parent or family-centred
4. inability to allow children to grow up
5. over involvement in children's lives and pursuits
6. competitive parenting
7. removal of community parenting

and avoidance of boredom

boredom is a great teacher

A bit of healthy neglect wouldn't go amiss. HOw I wish I had neglected my kids! Too late now, spoilt rotten - what with me respecting their boundaries, listening to every word that ever fell out of their precious mouths (even the ones I couldn't hear during the teen years). They could've done with a bit of ignoring.

Think now children are a possession to be loaned out like a toy. "Your child your rules" should be banned!!

I'm 32 weeks pg with my first so have no experience of this but I have been thinking about how things will have changed for my children compared to my childhood, so this is an interesting thread.

One of the things that concerns me the most is what appears to be a lack of freedom for children now. I was walking to school with a group of friends and no parents from at least junior school age, and the school wasn't particularly close by. We also used to play out most nights after school and in the holidays and at weekends we would spend literally hours playing in the fields close to our house coming home when we were hungry from about the same age. I feel sad that my children will grow up at a time that sees these things as being bad and dangerous.

Depends on where you live really. I don't know anybody who lives round me that bother to think of this kind of thing, we just do as we do. But the London lot do seem to bother with all of this ;)

Someone earlier said that we now see children more like persons.

It is true in some aspects but on the other hand we supress them in different ways. Have you noticed how whenever you praise a child the parent takes the credit i.e. 'what a happy smiling baby' - mum/dad:yes, she is very sociable baby because we take her to baby groups and we talk a lot to her.... Or 'what a clever girl'- mum/dad: yes thats because we read a lot to her...At least our parents said 'that's her personality'

What Thesecondcoming said.

Activate.. Wow! You got it all tied up in a few lines there..

There was plenty of angst about parenting in the 50s- and earlier than that. The Anne of Green Gables books has a chapter where Anne has been reading the latest parenting book which claims she mustn't kiss her son because she might give him Oedipus complex (she ignores it). There are several references in the books to parents/carers being told they must let the baby cry it out- and finally succumbing and picking them up.

I know when my mum speaks it sounds as if she had it all sussed- but I have a memory too; I remember her agonising to my dad about various aspects of parenting- no different from me really. She wasn't just getting on with it in some instinctively competent way: she got tired and stressed and worried if she was doing the right thing- she was human! She remembers herself as being in control because, in the end, most things worked out. But so they will for us!

Actually, I don't think my parenting differs much from hers, I think we have both been good parents, but I am looking forward to the bit where you see it all through a golden haze, could do with one of those...

I was thinking about this last night when reading threads about managing a newborn and toddler. A lot of the advice given was to let the housework go for a while and not worry about it which was the absolute opposite of what my mum did. All the chores had to be done no matter what. I lean more towards letting it slide, I could never care as much as about housework as she did.

Why is boredom good? Is it because it makes kids use their own imagination, make their own fun etc?

Activate - fwiw I agree completely with your points 1, 4, 5, 6, and 7.

Not so sure about 2 and 3 - but maybe that's because I have a spoiled brat
No really- I don't agree that the majority of kids are over indulged, quite the opposite in fact.. and I think that the general shift to being slightly more child centered is a good thing, though of course taking it to extremes is not necessary and counter-productive.
As I said though, absolutely agree with your other points.

"what the fuck do you want-full on puppet shows and OAP's crawling round offering them donkey rides on their backs... grin"

My mum does this sort of thing! It's great though - ds doesn't see her often and loves it when he does. Agree if he had it every day though it would be a bit much

"i try to make my children only and 'inconvenience' to dp and i (so in a restaurant,at your wedding,in the park ,at soft play-you should be allowed to enjoy your time unfettered by my bloody kids!)"

Agree with this too, though at soft play and park it is a bit different as these are imo places where they can be free - Hate it though where they are allowed to run around restaurants etc. So annoying when I am trying to tell my ds he has to sit down and there's another kid legging it all over the place nearly getting scalded by hot drinks!

I totally agree with Cory. This is just another example of historical revisionism - oh, the kids of today, they are so spoilt and wanton compared to Back In My Day. It's nonsense. There have always been parenting manuals, and plenty of people to tell women they're parenting wrong. There have always been handwringers bemoaning the state of today's children ("The daughters of Sparta are never home!" bemoans Euripides "They miungle with the young men, Their clothes cast off, their hips all naked. It's shameful").

I'm sure that when/if my daughter has children, I'll see her worrying about the little things that have faded in my memory, and tell her not to worry so much, and tell her tales of how she was dragged up any old how. We forget the little things we worried about for no reason, and remember the happy casual times, that's all.

I do think people worry a lot more. I mean, parenting is hard, surely, but at the same time it's been happening literally forever. Keep them safe, feed them, love them a lot, teach them to be kind and brave. Done. :) But I'm not a worrier by nature, so that's probably just me.

sorry, am pmsl at the concept of earlier generations 'enjoying' their kids. my granny endured her 7, like most hard up post war parents.

Where I think we've got it wrong as a nation nowadays is that we are too risk averse and too many seem to be unable to treat their kids like well.....kids.

So nowadays, we won't let them go on a school trip unless insurance forms are signed in triplicate, every adult who may brush past our child is fully CRB checked and the school coach is escorted by Apache helicopters and a tank.

Whereas now if a child falls over in the playground, a lawyer sues the school for negligence, back in our day we were expected to get up.

If teachers caned us, the LAST person we'd go tell is our parents because we'd just get another hiding!

As I always say, our number one job as a parent is not to protect our kids. It's to teach them. So I let mine fall over, I let them get disappointed. I let them go out and play in the street. If a teacher has been unfair, I don't go complain and get them fired. In short, I am teaching my kids to stand on their own two feet and make decisions without me.