The parenting crisis

[digimumworld]

I’m listening to the radio, the discussion is on knife crime. A caller calls in and says that we are collectively failing our children - she’s a school governor and parent and said that teachers are scared of children and that we need to stop blaming teachers - we should ask ourselves what’s going on at home for many children and that there is a huge parenting crisis at the moment.

I actually agreed. It seems more common now for there to be very little consequence for “bad behaviour” from parents. I know a few parents that are scared of their children - or at least scared of hurting their children’s feelings; also (this is the reality for me too as a parent) it’s so so hard to monitor what they are exposed to on social media - how do we know if the content they are seeing is overriding the values we are setting?

I am a parent - I truly believe that the modern parent has so much more to consider (incase relevant).

AIBU for thinking maybe there is a parenting crisis?

Attempting to gain some tax out of rich landowners also results in ridiculous claims. Whilst some individuals pay inheritance tax (at 40%) and at a much lower starting point, but not individuals who own farms or large swaves of land labelled farms. Trying to equalise things, albeit at only 20% and with an interest free loan and longer repayment if needed and not on the first 1 or 2 million, causes mass protests. A simple life insurance policy to mitigate the tax charged against the business is apparently too much to bear! Why?

Give over. This issue is that people are not caring for their children and they are being failed on an industrial scale by can't be arsed parents.

Interesting thread. I haven't read it all so perhaps my take has already been expressed:

• poverty is no excuse for declining behaviour. I grew up next to an area of profound multi gen poverty. Areas that were no go to police. Children at school were inches shorter than other schools when they played in football matches etc. The behaviour at school was off the wall at times. Although things are no longer like that, the behaviour at school remains the same. Nothing has changed other than the scripts kids come out with. SEN is the same, just that in the old days there was simply no name for it. The anxious kids just got in with it, no time out or part time timetables. Weird kids got bullied, nothing was done about it (for clarity, I'm not saying these are good things). There was simply no other option, you just went to school. I sometimes wonder if it's really true that SEN is skyrocketing. I don't see that myself.

• parents have been disempowered. It starts with bottle-feeding, hospitals and HCPs, then nurseries. Then wraparound care. Suddenly parents are thinking they aren't the most important things in their kids' lives. They believe some other paid person will be doing it for them, and doing a better job. That 'will' becomes a should. The society we live in prioritises work above all else. The state DOES bring up most of our kids. Parents doubt their own ideas on child rearing which is why they seem to suck up any new tiktok parenting trend on the go. Grandparents are often working themselves this out of the picture. Our natural instincts have been outsourced 😕

Parents are frightened to parent their children a lot of the time because of new laws & rules etc. Parents aren't allowed to smack their child or are encouraged not to shout at them. There's so many parents frightened to tell their child off in case they get investigated it's letting the kids get away with so much bad behaviour from an early age as there's no consequences. Teachers are the same & aren't to blame as they have even less authority to discipline a child in their care. A lot of children know they can't be punished for their behaviour so go on to push boundaries, resulting in them not knowing when to stop at times.

Parents are able to smack their children. That is not the problem.

BTW if you feel you need to routinely hit your children as discipline they are unlikely to grow up to be respectful of you for good parenting. They will have been abused by you. Most civilised countries recognize this. England is not one of them

I am just so fucking angry with you

You really, you think we all have second homes, cruises and gold plated pensions

I really shouldn't be shocked as the ageism on MN is absolutely rife but this is something else

And yes I paid extortionate fees for my DCs nursery and I have my DGC 1 day a week to help my DD out

To be fair, I think while they might’ve been exaggerating, and while you might not fall into their over generalisation, on a broad scale, I do think there is huge inequality and disparity in wealth and resources generationally speaking. Whilst you may have had high nursery fees, a lot of people these days have that plus can’t afford to buy their own home, let alone their high rent.

It is quite normal to be wealthier at 60 than at 20 though. Something to do with the 40 additional years of work youve done by that point.

And the interests rate for mortgage kept increasing to over 15%. First or only children did not get Child Benefit. No help with child care. No wrap around school clubs. No breakfast clubs. People have always faced hardships unless they are cushioned by money. Most people are not. They have always had to cut back when times are hard. Most people do not have "gold plated pensions". Most women in particular worked part time because there was no childcare so did not have the opportunity to pay into any pension scheme or opted out because they couldn't afford to. I think you are wearing rose tinted specs if you think the past was utopia. All generations face challenges. We all have to problem solve and adapt. It doesn’t help anyone to create division and an "us and them" narrative.

I think we can all understand quite well that older generations faced challenges.

However, the point is being made that now is very hard. The challenges for housing, protecting children from predatory drugs gangs which drive crime, the support from the state and the nature of society is a world away from the 1970s and the age of 15 percent interest rates where drugs where not routinely available, where policing was more effective, and societies were stable.

People are poor. But they have far less in spending on their children and social support than previous generations. Their lives are harder in a way that is not just poverty. The poverty and the challenges are very different now

Maybe tangential to your point but I was chatting with a mum of a 5yo recently and said her DD had lovely manners. She said oh thank you, she doesn't always but that she'd heard it wasn't good to make children say thank you to be polite if they weren't genuinely grateful (??) baffling.

One of the mums I was speaking about in my post has the rule about the word "sorry". Her child is 2!

@Ownedbykitties "I think you are wearing rose tinted specs if you think the past was utopia. All generations face challenges."

At the start of the 1980's nearly 1 in 3 people lived in social homes and paid an affordable rent.

The current figure is 16%. And a lot of those in socially rented homes are older.

Housing insecurity - ie, being in an unaffordable, insecure privately rented home is an independent risk factor for physical and mental illness, and insecure housing a fact of life for the majority of young families on lower incomes living in the whole of the South East.

This generation are facing challenges around housing - something that's absolutely key to people's mental and physical wellbeing, that haven't been seen since the early 1950's.

FWIW, retired people in the UK as a group now have a higher disposable income on average than working age people.

Houses were affordable on just one salary though so in lots of families, only one parent needed to work. The only reason there is now some financial help with childcare is because childcare is essential!

And this has a huge knock-on effect on lots of elements of daily living and parenting. Life would be so much easier for a lot of families if they could afford to have one SAHP.

Most families I knew did not buy their own homes. They lived in Council Houses, including Prefabs that were put up after the war but stayed up for decades. They were very nice too. People who lived in Council Houses really looked after them and were proud. Lots of women worked several part time jobs to be able to work when their husbands came home. One wage was never enough. Women have always worked unless from higher classes. Some people I knew did buy a house, but it was usually somewhere that was cheap and needed lots of modernising. There were lots of terraces with no bathrooms and only outside toilets. You bought a doer upper and it was hard work doing the work yourself. Building societies did not take women's wages into account so unless your husband earned enough there was no way you'd be able to buy a house. Women were not considered for any form of loans. Couldn't even buy a twin tub without a man's signature. Times were very different. Life was still a struggle. Nothing came easily. Life has always been hard unless you have a big money cushion. Setting generations against each other is exactly what the powers that be want and helps no one. Divide and conquer. At the end of the day, when previous generation's parents passed they were able to leave any property or money accumulated to their children and they would be able to buy a house. But then that changed when it was decided that anyone who'd worked hard and gained anything in life would be forced to use it on paying for care in their later life. So the cascade of wealth down the generations that was always spoken about by politicians was stopped. And here we are. Lots of people who had "done the right thing" now feel they may just as well have not bothered and they'd be in the same position. All parents want to leave anything they have gained in life for their children but that option has now been removed from most people. Always remember that anything gained by previous generations was also with their children in mind. If older generations have things such as winter fuel allowance removed without a fight, it will never be available for future generations. Is that what we all really want? One day everyone, if they are fortunate, will be old so we should be fighting for each other not against each other.

@PorridgeOatsSuck Parenting is outsourced is such a valid point.

Someone mentioned TikTok trends - the amount of people sharing false information, and preaching their parenting style as if it’s the right thing. They have thousands of people that follow. These people also use intense language to describe basic things. For example the word Trauma being used - example, saying no can result in trauma. When the truth is being smacked with no explanation is more likely to cause trauma! This must cloud instincts

@LaDamaDeElche good point. I guess we are on the other extreme end of what was accepted in previous generations.

Of course it's different now compared to the 80's, 79's 60's and post world war 2. Nothing stays the same. But setting one generation against another is just not helpful. The decisions of the governments about how to tackle drugs and crime and what parents and teachers and police can and can't do to has consequences. Plus as a pp said, it is normal for people in their 60's plus to have accumulated more compared to people in the their 20's and 30's because of all their years of working. Challenges evolve as time goes by but it was hard at the time just as it is hard now. I know people who had to put little piles of 50 pence pieces aside and hide them for the electricity meter so it didn't run out. Run and pay the rent or mortgage as soon as money came in and then see what was left for everything else. Being cold all the time. Society has changed and made new rules and the challenges have evolved too. In another 40 years time no doubt there will be similar conversations telling you how good you had it when you were young.

The last part of your post is my reality right now..ok not physically placing coins aside nor running to bank, its all online but the constant mental mathematical gymnastics is the same. When we had power cuts due to the storms, because everything is so close to the bone anyway the ensuing charges applied for late payments set me back months. Mum did the coin thing etc, but if she simply didn't have any then we simply had no power, dinner that day, now there's all that and constant phone calls, texts, emails, letters threatening and adding more debt Coldness is a constant numbing reality and coupled with hunger makes it very hard to concentrate and focus sometimes. I used to be so organised, on the go planned ahead etc, but now, feel because I cannot magic money from thin air for the ever rising costs of even the simplest most frugal basics of modern life, I am now a lesser person, I've done something wrong, maybe I deserve to be living in this new hell. Occasionally I just get angry at all the greed, lies and waste at the top

This is spot on! My 80s parents always held me accountable and many things weren’t about me. I was not the centre of the universe. We do hold our own daughter accountable and you can see the difference in her behaviour

I’ll give an example of what is like in a school this week.
I had 29 two and three year olds to look after and get their coats on with one other helper who is not great at managing behaviour or taking charge.
Someone was off sick so the adult to child ratio was completely wrong.
Two children were extremely upset.
One girl (barely 2 sat on my lap) and stopped sobbing.
I had to check a gate which is always left open before taking them outside.
I took her with me because she was calm.

The children came out and I was still carrying her and she was happy.
The adult who doesn’t take charge suddenly decides to be assertive and tells me to put her down.
She starts screaming.
So I take her over to the adult who doesn’t seem to like the way I’m looking after her, who refuses to look after the child.

Child continues to scream for about 20 minutes before child is taken inside by another adult.
I have absolutely no idea why this situation occurred but it is absolutely bonkers.
If someone could explain this ‘ethos’ to me I’d be all ears…

Starting it at 2 seems a little bonkers but we have a similar rule at home with my 10 year old, who apologises for everything (I do the same so she's picked it up from me). Things like asking for a drink, getting upset etc - we apologise for.

I wanted to help her break the habit so we've replaced "sorry" with "thank you for " (e.g. "thank you for making me a drink" instead of "sorry for making you get up" etc). It sounds woolly and daft but it's made a huge difference to DD's self confidence and means that sorry is saved for when it really matters.

I agree. I think the reasons there are more Sen kids are -

Better diagnosis
Some of those children would have been in a facility or at home
Some wouldn't have bothered going to school past primary school.
Those who did go to school would have been the ones masking or mute with fear who rarely learnt anything and were mostly mocked.
Today's society is far harder for Sen kids to navigate so some of the milder Sen kids who would have previously managed are now struggling.

It's great schools are trying to be inclusive of Sen but the funding and the infrastructure just isn't there. My ds isn't thriving he's coping just about. That's not good enough.

I agree at some point it does need to become a thing, nothing worse than a fake apology anyway, but not at 2. What 2 year old truly understands the meaning behind sorry and "feels like" apologising when they've done something wrong.

if You say something is broken you’re giving up on it. The last thing as adults we should ever do is give up on the children coming up behind us.

Model the behaviour you expect to your children and their friends and trust the process.