To think the "my child - I'll raise them how I like" attitude has gone too far now

[AggyCampbellBlack]

Inspired by, but not about, a recent thread by a grandmother.

Our individualistic culture, especially with its tendency for young adults to move across the country (e.g., for university/jobs), is isolating parents from broader family wisdom/traditions, and we just celebrate it.

I did this. DH and I moved city to study, and for our careers. We had kids and brought them up very "independently", as advised by current NHS/baby advice trends. It was really, really hard. Now, although we're all fine and basically happy, I wish I had stayed near my family, and that my kids had been brought up by the proverbial "village" (extended family and childhood/family friends). Because, surprise surprise, loving older women (in particular) who've done it before sometimes can contribute SO much better than NHS booklets, etc. Now my parents are old, and although we've seen lots of them, I wish we lived round the corner and that they could have had daily contact and input with my kids. As would have likely happened a few generations ago.

I feel like our society has done a number on us. We're increasingly individualistic, isolated and looking to centralised, state-endorsed advice/support, at the expense of extended families. And I think we're more miserable and disconnected as a result.

AIBU?

True - good points

I feel like you’re conflating two separate things that aren’t automatically connected. Yes, having family close by can help with raising children. My kids see a lot of my parents, but I am very deliberately not raising them the way my parents raised me. The “broader family wisdom/traditions” in my family were things like don’t show any emotion, never to discuss difficult things, boys don’t cry and preferably girls don’t either, constantly point out how many calories are in whatever your daughter is about to eat…you can’t really think it’s overly individualistic of me to reject those and raise my kids my own way??

Yes, I agree there are different points here.

What if the PARENT is the one pointing out the daughter's calories, or whatever? Some dilution by wider family/grandparents strikes me as generally a positive thing. Most older people in my experience have gained a useful perspective on what's important....

Yup. A mate of mine gave me a new phrase recently "Own Your Stuff"

There’s a real tendency to look at more communal societies through rose colored glasses, as if less individualistic societies are better, and don’t have their own (massive) problems.

One person’s ’supportive environment’ is another’s suffocation. More communal societies ime also tend to place greater value on traditional gender roles, and good luck to you if you don’t want to conform.

Are more individualistic societies perfect? No. Do I prefer them to the alternative? Vastly.

I don't have kids and I certainly wouldn't object to other people raising their kids as they please, it's not my business. However I often hear contradictory things from parents. On one hand, they regret not having enough of "a village" to help raise their children. On the other hand, when such support does appear sometimes, they complain about e.g. grandparents straying from the parents' strict parenting plan.

I think people have to accept they can't have everything they want. You can either raise your children 100% as you wish and control everything on your own, or you can accept help from others, but you have to understand they will go about it according to their own personalities and beliefs. There are limits, of course, I wouldn't advise anyone to accept others being inappropriate or violent with their children.

My sibling and I had the "village" upbringing, with extended family and friends: grandparents, aunties, female friends of our mum and grandma- some of them mothers themselves, others childfree etc. I think it was mostly beneficial to us, we were exposed to a wide range of beliefs and lifestyles, we felt loved and cared for, and some of these people remained almost as important to us as our own parents.

Some of these "village" carers and friends were very religious, some were atheists. Some enforced a strict bedtime, others allowed us to stay up late. Some enforced a healthy diet (and we even had a vegan auntie who served nothing but plant-based food), others let us have plenty of sweets. Some were overly serious people, others taught us silly songs and jokes that we inflicted on our parents later. I'm sure it was annoying for my mother at times and I remember some arguments about the boundaries of what we were allowed to do. On the other hand, there was always someone she could leave us with when she needed time for herself or for work. It is what it is.

This is absolutely true, every type of society has its downsides. However, I would point out that individualistic societies are also very strict about enforcing gender norms. In "communal" societies, kids are raised by women from the extended family and community. The individualistic version is that the mother does all the work by herself or pays strangers (also women: nannies, nursery staff, childminders etc) to help. Men are not involved much in either version.

Confused by this. I think I am owning my stuff. I wish I'd made different choices. But I'm also honest with myself about where I see societal influence on what I've done. And what LOTS of other people have done. And what I see on threads on here, all the time. How odd to think there are no influences on what people choose to do? To take a random example, why do you think half of kids are now born outside of marriages, compared to fewer than 5% a few decades ago? Societal expectations change, and individuals' choices alongside them.

This is fair

Yes, I hear you

People have moved around for work since pre-industrialisation. My entire town was built on migration. I actually chose to come back and have my daughter for many reasons and I'll stay here until she's an adult, even though there are nicer places. Basically you own your choices as an adult

Yes, moving to where the work is is a radically new idea 🤔not a thing people have been doing for centuries, often to new countries altogether. No sir.

a) I wouldn't have wanted my parents deeply involved in my DC's life b) they wouldn't have been physically fit enough to do so no matter where we lived. It might have been nice to be closer to my sibs, but I love where we live, I love my work, and we have built a village where we are. I have plenty of people I could leave the DC with and who I help out in return. There are plenty of disadvantages to the in-each-others'-pockets model, and frankly what my mum had to contribute would have made my life seventeen times more stressful without being of any tangible benefit.

I suppose, for me, one key factor is that there always are outside influences on how parents bring up their children, and where those influences are less to do with extended families/communities, that deficit tends to be filled by institutions/corporations/the state. And none of these things loves/is invested in children like extended families do/are.

From my perspective this isn't a recent thing OP (although maybe it is in your family). My parents and in laws lived far away from their own families when they had young children - that was 50-odd years ago.

This is a good point. I'm presenting it as more recent than it is and, you're right, generalising too much from my own family (local, till my generation went off to uni and "got careers").

I think there's a bit of a class divide involved in this, though it's not the only factor. In the OP you mention a generation moving for university and jobs, but that tends to be a more middle-class thing, whereas working class parents of our generation are less likely to have gone to uni and more likely to do jobs you don't relocate for, on the whole.

But while I somewhat agree that it's a shame to have less close involvement and relationships with extended family (I also relocated for study and work), I'm not sure the community knowledge is always better than NHS and other institutional support. For example, where I live the families who have stayed local are much less likely to breastfeed even though there is exceptionally good breastfeeding support and a high quality health visiting service, because their mums bottlefed and there's an expectation that they'll do the same. (NOT saying there's anything wrong with bottlefeeding, more that it's an established social norm, so mums are less likely to make other choices). There's also less awareness of the latest safety guidelines, e.g. about safe sleep.

I'm 61 and all my grandchildren are teenagers, with one at full time work. So I could not have been waiting for grandkids at 60 even if I'd been retired!

We're the same - pretty much every generation moved for work in my family - sometimes to new countries but more often across the UK.

My maternal Grandfather's family managed 2 generations in same town - bitter feuds ensued and DMum generation no one there now scattered across globe. My IL managed to stay in same town as their parents - but FIL spent years working away in European as no local work at time.

My parents were about an hour away from their parents - same county opposite ends- we saw them regularly but not close to them really and DH who was near cousins and DGP wasn't close to any of them.

I think it can be easy to romanticize what most of don't have.

I do think changing parenting advice can cause additional issues - has for two or more generations in our family - new mums wanting to follow professional advice and older generation feeling not doing what they did is criticism - tend to settle after a while.

whereas working class parents of our generation are less likely to have gone to uni and more likely to do jobs you don't relocate for, on the whole.

DH first in entire extended family to go to Uni - one of my Uncle did before me - they emigrated in 60s due to economic downturn.

It's mostly been agricultural workers moving around and railways and before that canals workers and changing industrial landscape -weavers coming in from countryside and factory work/war evacuations and opportunities and big events Irish famine or work in new countries and marriages that have moved ours round.

Oh FFS, what rubbish!
If society was that influential why is everyone doing it differently? And this bizarre notion that it's somehow new, to move away from where you're from! My family were leaving Ireland for America, England, Australia nearly 200 years ago, like vast swathes of their contemporaries. My husband's people were doing it 200 years before that!.

Society didn't tell you to make the choices you did, there's no particular societal pressure towards either stay or go. Your example is the exact opposite, there was immense societal expectation to marry before having children (though you're forgetting that until relatively recently huge numbers of poor people didn't legally marry at all).

I'm 64 and my grandchildren are quite small. But I'll be working for the next three years and by the time I retire I'll be too knackered to be up to dealing with small children for any length of time if any more GC come along.

I grew up with "the village". It's not just relatives though. (edit to add I have very small family and my parents moved to town I grew up in just before I was born with no family members closer thananhour.)
It's everyone around. I stuff my rubbish in my pockets because older people on street told me off if I accidentally dropped one. I recently visited my birth coumtry and saw lad throw some rubbish, miss the bin and person my age went "you better pick it up!". He did. We also told of my mother for similar😂 Very emotionally confusing when you are proud we are keeping it up, but also realise you are now "that old people" to the 12 year olds😂
It's that if you misbehave, non relativea can correct you. If you get injured, someone will help. If you are home alone and anything happens you run to neighbour in x house. And so on. Village is community around even if you don't know them.
That is very much lost in UK it seems.

There was talk about difference between UK and mainland Europe here about age which kids go out or to achool by themselves. That is also part of "the village" breakdown it seems. Kids in most places in Europe still go by themselves from 6 or so. Some younger. Here it is apparently dangerous. Someone explained amazingly about this being a community /the village breakdown essentially. Now, yes in very transient places, yes, but then we see on MN all the time how people live somewhere for years and do not know neighbours at all. Like barely name, let alone have a chat. It's so weird to me. Yes, the individualism might be a big issue. And not just when it comes to bringing up kids.

It's really interesting the difference between UK and where I grew up and my family and friends with kids live. I would not dare to tell a child in UK off. Tbh I told DH not to go near a distressed child and get someone to help unless not possible so his brown arse doesn't get accused of being a nonce.... So I am part of the problem I guess.

I agree with those who say that this really isn't a new phenomenon. I've recently spent quite a lot of time tracing both my own and my DH's family histories. The last time either of our families had large extended families living in the same place was probably in the early 20th century and in fact there was a lot of separation sooner than that, Once they left their rural communities and moved into cities for work in the industrial revolution there were large splits in both our families.
And the practicalities of travel made moving a much more permanent separation for many in the past. One of my ancestors left Ireland for Liverpool in the 1850s and as far as we know never went back or ever saw his family there again. These days it's a short hop on the plane and there's no way a family who wanted to keep in touch couldn't, but then it may as well have been the moon. My parents left their home town in the 50s and again, whilst it wasn't a huge distance, in the days before motorways and widespread car ownership it wasn't an easy journey. So my siblings and I grew up seeing our extended family at Christmas and Easter, whereas we now live 3 times that distance from my PILs and it's a day trip we do often. My DC grew up seeing far more of their grandparents than I ever did of mine even though they were much further apart.
There are pros and cons of course. I confess I sometimes felt envious of friends who had grandparents, aunties and so on who would help with childcare, do the school run etc when my DC were small, but there were also lots of advantages to having moved away from home. It's definitely not just a recent thing, and we need to be careful not to look back on the past with rose tinted glasses anyway, as the potential for social mobility and moving places by choice was far less for many people.

I do not think the cult of the individualnis healthy. We are designed to be in family groups.

You obviously like where you grew up. Many of us don’t, or come from areas with very limited opportunities for decent employment.

There is nothing stopping you from moving back.