AIBU to think some parents have low expectations of their DC?

[Prole]

18 year olds who shouldn't go abroad. 11 year olds who shouldn't cook. 16 year olds who shouldn't take a train on their own...

I was cooking my own dinner, shopping, going to the launderette, getting the bus to school etc etc from age 8. I didn't kill myself or burn anything down. This was 70s South London with a very disinterested single parent so independence was necessary. I moved out at 16 - made some youthful mistakes but dealt with the consequence myself.

Has something changed in the world? If so - what and why?

Good for me? My point is? Are you kidding OP, people from 70s South East London do not adopt that kind of snotty attitude.

My 70's childhood was running around outside all day/night or in and out of each other's homes when not in school hanging out at the local parks and eating fish and chips or saveloy and chips for tea which we bought for around 20p or so. We were skinny as rakes because we only ate when hungry.

We played outside with no supervision from the age of 3/4. Buying chip dinner from about 7/8.

I didn't have disinterested parents but we all mucked in. My siblings and I cooked dinners, cleaned, walked 2 miles to school and helped deliver the milk in the mornings from as long as I remember.

My kids all know how to cook for themselves and keep a house clean, manage money as well as work the farm. Responsibility and independence are the best things anyone can teach their children is my view.

Your 11 year old should cook dinner - because they need to learn the skill, and doing it occasionally with people around to help and to pay for the food (so it doesn't matter if they screw up) and to praise and thank you for the result.

It's also part of learning the skills of being part of a "family" - so you muck in and help, rather than expecting others to do it.

It's crap when you eventually do leave the family, and have to waste the time taking your first independent steps trying to figure out how to boil an egg, that you could spend it shagging the new friends you meet...

OP I don't disagree with encouraging your children to learn to be independent and based on how I was parented, I aim to encourage that in my DS. However, as we are all a product of our parents and our upbringing, parenting styles will always differ - and rightly so! What a boring world this would be if everyone was the same!

I too was opinionated on parenting children before I had my DS. I can assure you, nothing could have prepared me for how I feel about him and what I would do for him.

Might I add we were not neglected children, our parents all worked hard and many had a long commute so we had family meals later on at whosever house we happened to be in.

mine will be later at doing things as one has dyspraxia and can not be trusted to hold things safely. one has autism and has no impulse control.

They are both getting trained but at an age/skills appropriate level. Just because you did it soes not mean that it isnow appropriate. eg the laundry... was normal when you were young but no longer so. walking to school alone at age five was normal when I was young but with the increase in traffic no longer so.

it is about getting a balance.

OP, I am slightly worried that I am not adult enough...
I never go to the shops, I get everything is delivered!
I have never seen a launderette... I have a washing machine!
I didn't catch a train until I was 27... I hadn't had the need to do so before then, and I don't drive!

I do cook though, can I be an adult if I cook?
I am 30 btw

another grammar pedant agreeing that it's uninterested, not disinterested (meaning unbiased as a PP said - being unbiased wouldn't mean you had to do your own cooking and cleaning!).

I'm a child of the 70s and didn't do any of the above at those ages. But when I started uni at 18 I was perfectly capable of cooking a meal and using public transport, though I never used a launderette until uni, had absolutely no need to and not hard to work out how you use them.

I went to Sweden on my own aged 7 (OK, as an unaccompanied minor!) could cook an omelette by 8, was taking the bus to London (three hours away) by ten (again, my parents did see me on though) and by train at 14; and by 14 was cooking basic meals (eg spag bol) for 10+ people.

I am trying to encourage my DC to be independent and think for themselves. I send my 7 year old to the post box; my 10 year old has been popping to the corner shop for the last year and sometimes walks back from school (three quarters of a mile and several road crossings) on her own.

Anything than be like the 30-something working for a friend of mine whose parents came in to see her boss after she had a disciplinary meeting (can't imagine why she needed the meeting )

When we were growing up in the 70s, we (me and my 3 brothers) all had to help out with cooking, washing dishes, cleaning out the fire, getting the coal in, putting out and bringing washing in, popping to shop across the road for bits of groceries but I don't think any of us saw it as a hardship or chores, it was just what we did to help out, there was six of us in the house so there was always something to be done.
My eldest ds is 11 and helps out with various things around the house, like getting coal in, changing the cat litter tray, changing his own bedclothes, etc. I am teaching him how to cook at the moment, simple things like pancakes, Spag Bol, etc and he really does need to be supervised as he is quite clumsy and could really hurt himself! Ditto with crossing the road, he has no sense of how fast cars are travelling and would happily just walk straight into a road as he is just daydreaming.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that yes children do need to be taught basic life skills like cooking, cleaning, shopping, etc but it is important to remember that they are children and sometimes not capable of thinking ahead in tasks. Also, childhood is such a short precious time and they will have a lifetime of housework, etc and also I for one, love taking care of my dc, I love making them their favourite dinners, putting their clothes away, going shopping with them, etc etc I love that they feel cared for and looked after and that, in turn, will help them grow to be independent adults as they will have had a secure loving childhood.

I'm mid-30s but have never used a lauderette in my life!

I do think a lot of public transport cuts will make more children 'infantised' for longer, there's now 4 villages near us where there is no school bus and public bus times would mean a 2 hour or more each way journey to get to school (when it's a 30 minute drive at max). Many parents drive to the nearst school bus route stop, but I can see why many others just think "well, I'm in the car now anyway, let's take them all the way to school and save the bus fare".

In my childhood, we were unusual that my mum worked full time as well as my dad, and not locally so my parents ran two cars - this meant my parents never used public transport, so the school bus was my only public transport experience, other then the direct train into Manchester to go on rare shopping trips (no changing, no having to work out a timetable really) before going to uni. If I lived walking distance from the school, it's unlikely I'd have used a bus before moving away.

Where we live now, we walk, take the train into Central London or drive. I've lived here over 5 years and have never got on a bus, so my DCs haven't either. We live walking distance to their primary school, and walking distance to the only secondary school he might go to in our town (other one is a faith one). I can see changing trains and bus timetables are things he'll just not do before leaving home unless I make a point of teaching him.

I don't think you're being at all unreasonable to find the attitudes of some of the 16-21yos you work with deeply unsatisfactory, OP. The 'but I'm only 21!' response would drive me witless too.

The thing is, though, as a parent you walk a fine line between protecting and teaching. It's always a balance, and in many ways parenting is harder these days because there are more potential dangers (faster cars, online safety issues and so on) and more 'elf'n'safety' type issues to be aware of as you raise your DC these days.

It doesn't surprise me in the slightest that so many parents don't quite get the balance right.

Or that so many DC seem overly attached to the parental apron strings.

At the same time, I don't think the way you were brought up should be held up as an ideal way to parent, either; you've clearly done well, but some of what you describe sounds rather more dysfunctional than desirable. There are other, possibly healthier ways to encourage and develop independence in children than what you experienced.

In any case, as you point out, it's a hypothetical debate for you at present: you have no DC. Only time will tell - assuming you go on to have DC; you may not, of course - whether you will choose to parent in a similar manner to your own mother or whether your expectations of your own DC will perhaps, be rather lower.

Oooo a competitive neglectful parenting thread,how fab.I really don't buy this neglect being a good thing stance.Don't buy mollycoddling either.

My dh had a very neglectful childhood(could make cups of tea at 6 and has the scald marks to prove it).

Totally screwed up and ruined the life of one of his siblings,the other mollycoddles her kids to death.

A balance is what I go for.

All children need some benign neglect- that is quite different from neglect!
They need time and people to show them how to use a sharp knife etc- rather than the easy option of doing it for them.

I was the youngest of 7 and had two parents were were not disinteretsed, they just had a different view of what was appropriate then (i am talking city in the 70s too but not London) I too went to the launderette and shopping with a list, I took the bus with friends into the city centre to shop and go to the cinema and swimming from about 8 upwards. We sometimes spent the bus fare on sweets and walked 5 miles home. Worse thing that we ever did was get confused when we came out the cinema and got the right number bus but in the wrong direction. I didn't feel put upon. I could make my own lunch but if my mum or dad were home, they'd make it, I wasn't a slave, just independant. I never had childcare in the holidays, I guess when I was really young my older brothers or sisters looked out for me but otherwise I made my own choices of what to do with myself for the day.

I went to visit my sister for a week once and had to get bus into city, then a train to neighbouring city, then walk to a different station, catch another train and then walk two miles at the other end, I was about 14.

My children have been pampered and protected and spoiled and don't know how to get the bus into our local town (but then neither do I!) at 14 and 13. I think we just know too much and worry too much nowadays.

A favourite activity when I was a child was to go to the woods to look for the flasher!! We also drank water straight out of underground springs that bubbled to the surface.

When I was at primary, my teacher used to reward the best speller by sending them to the shops at lunchtime to buy her fags - crossing two roads! I'd have been around 7.

I do agree with the OP. I think a lot of todays' kids fall into two camps. There is the set that are very independent - going wild camping at secondary school and then lone travelling and a year in Australia before they're 20. The other set stay at home, pay minimal digs money, and go to the local uni or college.

I do get frustrated about stranger danger threats. Children and adults are much more at risk of danger with people they know, in familiar situations. I wanted my kids to be as confident and independent as possible so they'd be better equipped to deal with anything that came their way.

Showing kids how to use a knife isn't benign neglect.

LePetitMarseillais But the point is you can only give kids the independence by teaching them the skills young enough. That's why I, like the OP, find it so surprising that parents think it's strange that other children have the skills to enable them to have the freedom.

But this is also at the same time that so many posters seem to have the complete opposite ideas on formal education where kids are expected to achieve early etc.

Hmm i agree with Think.
I did all the things you did OP but i remember few tragedies in my street and in my extended family. Some people are not here to tell the story:-(.
Noway i will be as relaxed as my parents were.

I agree though about cooking and using the w/m etc. My dcs do that

I also think that many parents give freedom without good preparation. Look at how many young people on gap year have made stupid mistakes like drug trafficing and ruined their lives. (I cut those pieces from the newspapers and make my dcs to read them!).

I used to take my sister to school and back on the bus from the age of about 8/9. It was the norm then, I would go round to the shops on my bike for my mother. DH used to light the open fire in his home from the age of about 8 and he had a paper round from the age of 9.

There was a full stop after 'benign neglect'- the knife was a different point altogether!!!

They need benign neglect- they also need a lot of attention to actually teach them how to use a sharp knife, cook, operate a washing machine etc.

'Aa you've probably guessed I am not a parent'
Nuff said.