Total lack of effort in parenting-between the 80/90s and now

[Eatthecakeandshush]

This summer my Dd, 7, has:

Been to the beach numerous times
Been to the pool numerous times
Been on playdates
Had playdates at our house
Been to playgrounds
Been to slide park/indoor play place
Been to water parks
Been to cafes & shopping
Had picnics
Had Bbqs with toasted marshmallows
Done baking
Done crafts
Been on bike rides
Been to the skate park
Been to the lake
Been to fairs ….etc etc

I am no perfect parent, nor do I have tons of money.

She has also herself

Made dens
Played in the garden
Played on the trampoline
Played with toys
Swung in the hammock reading
Watched tv
Played games on my phone

At her age, I remember:

Watching a lot of tv
Playing with my toys
Playing on my brothers computer
Reading
Playing in the garden
Making dens
Going to the shopping centre as a treat for clothes-no cafe or McDonald’s etc, but a chocolate bar/sweets at the shops

Bike rides and knocking on at friends houses came later, but always entertaining ourselves

The same with weekends, we would sometimes go into the town shopping with mum, but mainly Saturdays would be spent finding things to do at home and my mum lying down on the sofa watching tv. Sundays were worse with Super gran on tv and literally nothing to do. Sometimes we’d walk to the park but I remember that being rare and it was exciting to drive to the tip with my dad!

The difference between my life and my DD’s is huge. Even things I notice with my parents now. When we go places, I like to choose ones where Dd can be happy/occupied, where there is not really much thought for this. They want to watch the news, which we never watch as Dd is usually watching tv at that point and we’re not really bothered tbh. My parents even seemed a bit put out when I played my dds cd in the car there and back when we all went out in the car recently

I think as kids we were always just expected to go along with what they were doing or sort ourselves out somehow. My dad played with us a lot when able to, mum never did. Definitely no days out that I do with dd or crafts or baking (aside from occasional flapjacks and mince pies at Christmas-which was nice)

I read my school book to my mum every night, but she didn’t do a bedtime story, dad did occasionally, whereas we’ve done that since she was tiny. No one checked my homework or got extra resources for at home to support and so on
We didn’t go to any clubs or summer clubs, when I asked my mum why, she said that I never asked to.

Everything I do is just the standard amongst my peer group for those with kids, in fact I perhaps do less as Dd plays with neighbours a fair bit.

Interesting to think how this generation will grow up compared to how we did, it’s just so different now.

Did anyone else experience similar?

I would have hated my playtime to be so organised. I grew up in the 60s. We holidayed in Newquay for 2weeks in summer, spent most days on the beach where we played in the sea, surfed when old enough, played in rock pools, went to the cafe and bought ice cream, played in the sand, parents were usually sunbathing or in the sea. At home I called for my friend every day and we either played with dolls, skipped, played ball games, roller skated or roamed the local area via the local sweet shop. My mum might have taken us to the park or somewhere on a bus as she didn’t drive once a week or so. Dad would take us all out for a picnic occasionally into the countryside after he go in from work

Never felt we were missing out or neglected and never bored

There is a lot more available now - that is the big difference. There wasn't so much around for kids growing up in a mid sized town in the 80s. It was boring at times, definitely, and I think my kids do a lot more of a range of activities. They do get left to their own devices quite a bit and not as many big days out as other families seem to, but they still do more. I hated being bored as a teen and don't think it helped me or my friends - we spent a lot of time sitting around in the park eating junk food. Obviously this is individual and some teens thrive with masses of free time, but I didn't see that in my peer group.

The flip side is they expect more, I think, but you can't compare generations. My kids will have a different set of advantages and disadvantages because of growing up with technology, amongst other things.

I grew up in the 70's /80's. I was an only child, I remember having to entertain myself. I do wonder if kids now get to be bored, in a positive sense.

My childhood (oldest of 4) sounds just like the one you described for your child with parts of yours - we did watch some tv, played in the garden and street with local kids, Read. A lot. I don’t think it’s to do with the decade but to do with the type of parents you had. My grandparents parented (and grandparented) the same - lots of days out, days in, lots of playing and being played with.

I had a childhood doing all the things you describe with your DD (and more probably as I had a SAHM), in the 80s/90s. Plus an awful lot of holidays (about 5 foreign holidays a year, including 2 ski holidays, and then an additional 3-5 uk hols as well). My mother didn’t need to work so spent a lot of time doing things with us - we were very privileged, as my parents were very well off, but my husband grew up with far less money but still had a SAHM who did lots of after school trips to the park / woods, and his parents took them to the beach or national trust places every weekend. The only things my parents would never have done with us was go to a theme park as that’s not their sort of thing at all. My boys have a very similar childhood to mine (except I have to work PT in addition to my husbands FT job) - they play lots at home, outside, and are very sporty with lots of clubs and training, just the same as my brother and I had. We also take them out to NT places, the beach, the park, the zoo, the aquarium, for walks etc. The only differences really are they have fewer holidays (1 ski trip, 1 foreign summer holiday, and maybe 1 trip away to wales or Scotland), and technology. My youngest (11) has recently got his first phone and so both children now have access to mobile games to play in the car, and actually we’re on holiday now and it’s been lovely to hear them chit chatting in the back instead of playing on their phones (were quite strict with phone usage and they can only play games in the car and no SM or YouTube etc).

I think children in general today do have far lower attention spans and expect more from life, but not all kids are like that - we try very hard to not let our kids know how privileged they are, and not to give them everything they ask for, or let our lives revolve around them completely, but it is hard given today’s societal norms.

Why do you think it's a generation issue? It really isn't. I had a conversation with my DS this week about how I 'coped' in the summer holidays. I pointed out we did loads of things, including swimming lessons 5 mornings a week, tennis on Saturdays. My DCs also did most of the things yours do. It's judgemental to assume 90s parents were any worse than today's. And we certainly weren't on our phones.

There’s 40+ years of cultural, technological, and societal progress between the 1980s and now. Comparing childhood/parenting styles between then and now is not as relevant as you think it is. We didn’t even have the internet in the 80s. It was a drastically different time period.

Bully for you for being such a great parent - but I think you clearly felt neglected/overlooked as a child yourself and are overcompensating and giving yourself a massive back-pat for how you’re raising your DC because of that.

I was born in 1982 and enjoyed having the childhood I had. I’d personally have hated to spend as much time with my parents as your child does with you, honestly. It feels overbearing. But again, it was a completely different time period when I grew up vs now, and my parents both worked full-time. It’s wonderful that you have the ability to spend so much time with your DC, but that doesn’t make other parents/parenting “lacking”.

BTW, your parents didn’t NOT parent you, nor did I feel I had a lack of parenting myself. It’s legitimate and entirely valid to feel unsatisfied with how the parents raised you, but don’t project those emotions onto how other parents raised their children.

Huh??

I am not a parent, but do spend lots of time watching my nephews. In fact, I am on a holiday with them right now.

I feel that kids today (or at least them) expect to be entertained all the time. They do not hesitate to interrupt you and demand your attention no matter what you are doing. We do lots of things with them (the beach, park, baking, playing, etc) but if you sit down a moment to relax, they demand your attention at once.

I had attentive and engaging parents (mostly my mum, because she was a SAHM and my dad worked long hours) but her time do adult things was sacred. You had to entertain yourself most of the time.

The most exciting thing about my childhood was the weekly supermarket shop 😂. I definitely do a lot more with DC than my parents did, but then I enjoy it and I don’t think my parents did.

I think you may find this article an interesting read:

”Parents spend more time supervising their kids than parents did in the 1960s, even though they now work more and have fewer children.

Across all income levels, families have come to believe that organised activities are the key to kids’ safety and success. So sandlot games gave way to travel baseball. Cartwheels at the park gave way to competitive cheer teams. Kids have been strapped into the back seat of their lives—dropped off, picked up, and overhelped.

As their independence has dwindled, their anxiety and depression have spiked. And they aren’t the only ones suffering. In 2023, the surgeon general cited intensive caregiving as one reason today’s parents are more stressed than ever.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/08/kids-smartphones-play-freedom/683742/

Someone was clearly triggered!

1980s. And not anywhere nice that had grass or trees, pools or ponds, more cracked concrete, broken glass and white dogshit. The fair had been and gone by the last week of term and was out of the question in any case (because Racism, mostly, with a side of it being about 3/4 of a mile walk to walk around watching other people spending money).

DP, however, had a childhood in Devon that was more like yours.

Yes, it's a totally different time now! So many things are different. Here's some other things that are very different from my 80's childhod compared to parenting now- being left in the car all the time as kids. Dad would leave us in the car to nip into the pub for "just one pint", which was never just one, and then would drink drive with us in the car. Mum would also leave us in the car all the time, my pet hate was her going to the factory shop for clothes as she'd be in there for ages. We live in Northern Ireland and it was during the Troubles so also you couldn't park in the town in the "control zone" without someone sitting in the car (tthis was a measure to reduce car bombs in town centres). So if mum needed to nip to a shop, it was "I need someone to sit in the car" and then one of us would groan but we'd have to go and sit in it until she was done. Toys/presents were only bought at birthday and Christmas, of course. We were bored a lot of the time and if we complained about being bored it was "i'll get you a job to do" . I was constanly making cups of tea for my parents, so much that I got called Polly, and as soon as we were old enough we did all the washing up, cleaning the kitchen, hoovering and many other tasks. One time when I was about 7 and changing all the bedsheets with my mother, she lost the plot and beat me for not getting the sheets into the proper hospital-style corners (no fitted ones then of course. And she was a nurse). There was no cheekiness to our parents as younger children as we were scared of our mum and wouldn't have dared answer back. Corporal punishment was frequent and my mum would beat us with a sally rod which she would pick out of the hedge for it's whippiness and you would get welts on your hands or up the back of the legs from it. ... As soon as "'our" programmes were over on a Saturday and the sport came on we'd be kicked outside to play. Which we groaned about but then enjoyed. We didn't have any outdoor toys, it was all using the imagination, climibng trees, making bows and arrows etc. What else... oh yeah my dad was in the pub every single night, that seemed normal to us kids. We used to wonder why mum got so mad with him all the time. (Obvious now) We would listen to the arguments and be scared but wouldn't dare come out of the room when they were happening. When I was 12 I heard my mum assault my dad by smashing a pot over his head or something and him shouting that he was bleeding while she swore at him. I was so terrified and he had a big bandadge round his head the next day. When I said " yeah I heard last night" they both jumped down my throat "What did you hear!?" and both looked raging with me so I backtracked and said "Nothing, nothing"... so yeah it was always very much, repress your emotions, don't talk about anything. all of that. We never mentioned that we would be frightened in bed when they were having rows. Also... this one is really nuts... when my little sister was 12 my mum had a gardener who turned out later on to be a well known local paedophile... but when my sister thought back to it she realised that mum obviously knew or had heard rumours because she had warned my sister to always stay inside if the man was mowing the lawn and not to go near him (i.e. when my sis would have come home from school and mum wouldn't be home from work yet). So my sis in recent years (when my mum was still alive) said this to her, "You must have known he was a paedophile? And left me there unattended with him when I was only 12!" and mum's answer was "Well it was hard to get someone good to do the garden!": ... Lol and wtf! Ah different times! My parents did take us to the park occasionally and on caravanning holidays twice a year which were generally great. And they took us to the beach a lot in the summer months which we loved (it was about an hour away). Weekends they would take us on a walk sometimes somewhere nice, and Sundays we always visted our grandparents. My mum also sent us to music lessons and drama and so on. Her childhood was on a farm, and contained a lot of hardship. She was unfortunately sexually assaulted by much older men when she was 12 and 15 so she carried a lot of trauma, I didn't find out about that until much later. ... One of the things that is so different now is that I exited my verbally abusive marriage when my child was one, for her sake as well as my own, rather than stay in it suppoedly for the sake of the kid, which is what my parents did for a long time (20 years or so, then they split). And we have access to therapy now! The therapy I'm getting is really helping me be a better parent. We're standing on the shoulders of our parents but we've got more tools now and have maybe learnt a bit from the mitakes in how we were raised. Maybe that will be the same for our children.

I was brought up in the late 60's into the 70,'s.. a child hood of basically entertaining yourself.. my children were raised through the early 2000's.. more prearranged activity with a good amount of self motivated free time to do as they pleased.
I think they were the lay of this sort of parenting.
I've thought about the way a children of parents that can afford to full their children's day with activity after activity a lot and I've come to the conclusion that it's too much. Ultimately, being bored on occasions isn't a bad thing, you learn to independently think and create..
There needs to be a balance, kids need some input from adults , time spent with your kids is essential, but they also need downtime to do nothing. Make choices for themselves. Imagine if every waking hour is totally taken up with life enhancing experiences, it might be amazing, but it would probably have a negative effect in some ways too.
I feel sorry for kids these days, who knows how all this attention received through out childhood will help them turn into well rounded, independent adults? I fear that it won't.

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I don’t think this is a generational thing. It is just the difference between how your parents parented vs how you are parenting.

There may also be other factors at play not within either your parents’ or your control? Going to beaches, pools, play areas- all those day trips cost money. You could be just as easily describing the difference in childhoods of working class compared to lower middle class.

I think perhaps we have become too child centric now. I grew up in the 90s and don’t remember any adults ever playing with me. I did do some child centric activities like waterparks and theme parks during the school holidays, along with the things you do with your DC, but they were interspersed with doing things the adults in my life wanted to do. At weekends we either visited family, ran errands or stayed at home. Staying at home ever seems frowned upon these days. It’s like they’ve got to be doing, and seen to be doing, everything all the time now.

I honestly don't feel this extreme child focused trend of parenting where parents need to devote every minute and every ounce of their self to children is healthy. Children need to be bored, to be creative and to also learn as a family unit not everything is centred around them and that other people matter too.

I grew up in the 90s and my childhood was much like a lot of people talk about here. We did a lot of activities and day trips with our parents but also sometimes we had to accompany our parents to their friends houses, or to go furniture shopping or the the supermarket. My parents never felt this pressure that seems to exist now of having to constantly entertain us. When we were at home we were expected to entertain ourselves while my parents did what they wanted or needed to do. A lot of our summer holidays were spent at home or playing with friends. It was the same with homework and school. My parents would help us if we were stuck but homework was always my responsibility.

I have no complaints about my childhood and feel I had a very happy one. I would have been absolutely exhausted to have a summer like the OPs childhood, constantly days out and constant parental interaction. I think being left alone to get on with it is such an important skill. Yes I was bored at times but equally me and my brothers used to love going furniture shopping and hiding in the wardrobes. Equally I have happy memories being in my bedroom playing imaginary games and drawing myself. I never felt ignored or neglected and in fact I credit my parents for bringing me up with a balanced childhood, to know life didn't revolve around me or my wants all the time.

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

I think it’s great parents are more loving and switched on about emotional connection these days.

However I know many parents who absolutely smother their children and don’t let them have any breathing space at all. Their whole lives revolve around them and they’re spoilt rotten. They just won’t learn the necessary skills for life. We try and keep it to a happy medium.

That’s for sharing all that.

I rarely got a comic bit asterix was available at the school library!

I remember being locked out in the garden if my mum wanted To watch a afternoon of films in peace!

I remember been shouted at for spilling a drink, touching the wall, putting the remote control in the wrong place, not taking my plate to sink, talking in car journeys and more! I was strapped with a belt ( made to bend over a table)if I wound my Siblings out or whined I was bored (I was as there was nothing much for kids to do then!) ! But my mum Denys all of it.

But…

she’s forever telling me to parent my kids in that daft gentle parent way 🙄

I think it’s unfair to say your parents demonstrated a total lack of effort because they didn’t do lots of activities with you, there could be loads of reasons for that. Parenting isn’t easy. My childhood and my kids has been very different, I grew up in a massive household, poor, no money for any activities even school trips. They have had (on paper) a much more privileged childhood with lots of activities, experiences and opportunities for enrichment that I could have only dreamed about. And yet, my kids have struggled with serious mental health issues, self harming, anxiety and depression. One of my points of reflection over their challenges has been this issue of how our generation has parented and I do think that we are guilty of trying to curate happiness. (It’s obviously not the only issue with this generation) and remove sadness or boredom but now I realise how important it is for them to experience those things, it’s where they build resilience. Having to do activities that are not centred around them is incredibly important for learning empathy.
Having said all that, every generation is just trying to do their best with the resources and knowledge they have.

Ugh, the denials, yes. I remember my mum attacking my sister with a hairbrush around her head bc she wouldn't sit still, and chasing my brother down the garden with the wooden spoon - running away only made the whack harder was the lesson learned that day.

But that was 'normal', even teachers would hit us (nowhere near as badly). You might hear some of these adults say "it was a different time" but you'll never get an admission to how severe they were.

It's not the spanking so much as the utter control and dominion that adults held over kids back then, whilst you were in the house/school anyway... but when you were outside it seems they didn't care where you went or what you did as long as they never had to hear about it. It was a weird set up, frankly.

I dont think parents are more 'emotionally connected', children seem to be conversely both adulted but equally infantilised at the same time.

They're overburdened with adult themes and concepts, particularly around safety and risk (ie everything is dangerous and risky and 'inappropriate') but at the same time chaperoned to the nth degree, organised to the nth degree, indulged and excused. This carries on well into early adulthood for many as well.

Nothing to do with the time period and everything to do with the standard of parenting.

Sounds like your parents didn’t care that much about organising things for you to do, and you do.

Believe me there will be plenty of children from your childhood that were entertained like yours, and plenty of children now that aren’t.