to think that we're more "precious" about the way we bring up our kids than our parents/grandparents were

[MmeBovary]

Bored this afternoon and been thinking about a couple of posts yesterday - the relative dangers of eating chips and childcare vs SAH decisions and I thought - just we don't worry about all this stuff too much? I'm sure our parents never angsted so much about little things.

For example, I was brought up on a council estate, by FT/PT working parents. Both myself and sister were put in p/t childcare at least some of the time, but I don't really remember much about it. We weren't played with much, just left to entertain ourselves. No Cbeebies, no videos and DVDs... Our clothes and toys were often 2nd hand or handmade, though Xmas was always magical. I'd have loved ballet lessons or a pony but no money for such things- also few trips out and even fewer holidays. Pack lunches considered of sandwich spread sarnies with a club biscuit and a packet of crisps. We were routinely fed pot noodles and sausages & spaghetti hoops and it was a treat to be sent to the chip shop for chips and "scraps". DM wouldn't recognise hummus and pitta bread if it hit her in the face [simle]....Pocket money was spent on pick and mix and kiora, and we wandered for miles around from an early age with no one worrying. Noone checked to see you'd brushed your teeth for 2 minutes and bathnight was Sunday. We were brought up quite strictly with the odd slap on the back of the legs but were impressed upon as to the value of education and were always read to every night. And we were loved....I think my (pretty average 70s)childhood was great and hope dd has the same - though oh the difference between then and now, though she is fortunate to get mostly new stuff and a healthier diet and probably more attention than me - and we are lucky that we can manage an afterschool activity and a holiday most years.

So, sorry - I've gone on a long time - if I haven't bored everyone to death with my nostalgia... AIBU to think we worry too much about kids these days, and everything they see, do, eat etc - when we grew up perfectly OK (well mostly anyway

Apologise for typing errors! I meant to add that I'm new to MN and some people seem to get so worked up about the tiniest things. If this has been done to death before please ignore me!

now, i don't mean this callously, or mean that yesteryear's parents didn't care or love us as much, biut could it be related as well, not withstanding modern dangers, that we have fewer children, often later in life, and pour more love into each one, as if you only have one or two and one is lost...........
this is something i've considered seriously
i know when you have more than 1 child you love them equally, but i wonder if family size is related

I think we are more precious - certainly more risk averse

However, these things come about for a reason - my mum is in her 60's and has stories about THREE of her peers when she was young, who were killed in various accidents; all during those halcyon 'we played out and only came home for tea' days. I guess the media gives us a 'heightened' awareness of what can happen and we become risk averse as a result

Also I think there is more of a 'blame' culture now directed at parents - I've been examining my own views today due to another thread on here about a child who was smacked by a 'stranger' while the mum was off with another child....my reaction would have been blame on MYSELF for leaving the child and a fair few other posters mentioned that too. If something happens to a child we blame the parents perhaps in a way that 60 yrs ago we didn't? My mum said when these children had their accidents there was sympathy to the families, not an outcry of 'why did the parents let the child out'

Interesting thread!

hmmm! how to articulate my feelings on this, bear with me a mo!

i was born in the early 60s and had a very happy, carefree childhood, we were left to roam, play out for hours etc - however, manners/politeness and respect of the 'older generation' were simply expected of us and a slap round the legs was not uncommon - but, i think things change by degrees, my mum insisted on 'fitted shoes' vegetables, no squash/pop and a vest in winter!as i did with with my now 16yo dd, the differance between my DM upbringing and mine is marked in several ways, although she was quite happy to dole out the odd slap there is NO way she would have tolerated us being beaten at school in the way she was, we also had a great deal of fun with our parents, not something they had experienced with theirs iyswim

will stop burbleing now

Yes, I had a similarly relaxed and 'golden' childhood, but can't apply the same rules for DS (even though I am the most negiglent relaxed parent I know) because of some real changes in our environment. And the fact that we live in a town, unlike my rural childhood.

Having said that, I've just recalled that out of maybe 40 children in my small village school, one was killed in an agricultural accident, another was severely burned in an accident at home and I can remember routine limb breaking. So maybe the idyll is more a testimony to selective memory than anything else!

I think my childhood was less structured than DD's: althoguh my mum worked full time, her childcare was parents and friends so I just mucked about whereas my dd goes to nursery and is 'educated' a lot of the time (they are great there though). One thing I notice is that there was always at least one child in my year at school with a broken arm/ leg and I hardly ever see a child in plaster now.

Thinking back i remember going blackberry picking on my own (well, with the dog, anyway), and biking up and down steep hills (rural wales)
one time, i was stupidly speeding down a hill, my trainerlace caught and i went flying onto a grassy bank, inches from a land rover coming up the hill....the farmer just hung his head out the window and bollocked me...no more was made of it
nowadays there'd be all sorts....parents phoned etc
we had accidental shootings (dad's shotgun), farming accidents when kids were helping out
i dunno, it is very thought-provoking, this thread
it's like there were more children around, and they got chucked out into the world and the fittest survived, whereas now there's fewer, and they're micro-managed to ensure a nigh-on 100% survival rate

having said that, it could just be my mum: she has two LO's now and they roam free and wild

yeah, kingfix....breaking a limb was like a rite-of-passage, with queues of chums waiting to draw on your plaster to celebrate

i do think parents are too bloody precious about their little darlings these days. Nobody is allowed sweets, every flippin child has one "allergy" or another, and children are never seemingly allowed to just play, there always has to be some motive/theme behind it.
I hear mothers griping on about crap about their kids and i think its time they all got out a bit more.

How much do you think this is driven by what we think other peopel will think of us and how much by what we really think is the risk? Eg i travelled on the tube alone from age 9 or 10 but my friends with children of that age would never allow it. Is that because people seeing a child alone would make a fuss or beacuse it's really more likely that something will happen to them?

One thing I do see is a much greater tendancy to fight our children's battles for them. Where they are facing a disappointment, or have problems with friends, teachers or other adults, there is a difference, IMO, between giving them moral support and advice to help them to sort it out themselves, and actually getting involved.

Ultimately, if they are going to be functioning adults, at some point all you can do is give them the tools and let them get on with it. My mother would never have dreamed of monitoring my school friendships or taking umbrage with the school if they disciplined me - she was happy to talk me through why it happened and what I could do to put it right, but ultimately doing it was up to me. And I still think that is a helpful line to hold.

Gosh yes, I haven't thought about that at all, but there were always kids in plaster when I was young and you never see it now.

My guess is it's a lot to do with how other people view it...you'd never get anyone from my childhood worrying that a kid in plaster had somehow been abused (unfortunately for the kids that were...) but now I'm a bit paranoid that accident=neglect for some people.

Christ, this is a huge subject. I sort of agree up to a point with a lot of what's been said but I am starting to kick slightly against a lot of this "children have terrible quality of life because we won't them out of our sight and we do everything for them etc."

All I seem to see is Toxic childhood,too much pressure and stress, too many tests, too much junk food advertising - blaaaggghhhh.

Is it really so awful for children? Are their little lives so terribly blighted in this country? Or is it the likes of Robert Winston and the f**king huge army of "experts" who make a lot of money telling us how to raise our kids?

If we are guilty of anything its in having so little faith in our own ability to raise children.

I have thought about this a few times now and I think you are right. Parents now are made to feel bad/guilty/worried about a lot of things that simply did not exist before eg do your children watch too much television (I loved Basil Brush and Mr Ben), do you feed them organic food (I still fondly remember packet Angel Delight and Vesta Curries), do you slap them (I was slapped on my bottom a few times), which school are they going to (we went to the one nearest to us)....and the list goes on.

Actually when it comes to raising happy children I think most of us are doing fine, Wasabipeanut. A lot of people lack the confidence to believe that, of course, and that's where the experts make their money

I certainly agree with you re certain aspects child-rearing and child/baby product industry that has evolved over the last couple of decades.

However my feelings are that it's not all about your child's quality of life: it's also about raising a functional adult, and that's where being overly precious can be a problem.

i grew up in rural area too.

anyone else notice how from these threads it seems far more dangerous to have grew up there than in town!!

lol

I think (for me) it is the mad idea that people are 'perfectible'. We all have our insecurities etc and I have certainly been guilty of thinking I can 'save' dd some of the heartache I have had by being the perfect mother. DH, who is a more robust sort of a person, doesn't worry about her at all unless she's actually vomiting or playing with the breadknife.

I agree with Raxa that we have a responsibility to raise our children as responsible and fully functioning members of society and that doing every bloody thing for them doesn't really help.

I remember reading something about how a lot of employers have "parent packs" that they give out at job fairs and stuff and that parents are getting involved in salary negotiations. Don't know if it was true but it raised my eyebrow.

Mind you the upper middle classes have arranged stuff for their kids for years - work experience, travel abroad, a nice internship after graduating etc. Greasing the wheels isn't a new phenomenon.

I think the breakdown of the family and migration has a lot to do with how we feel about being parents. It takes acommunity to raise a child and many of us do not live in one. I had 20 first cousins, 8 of which I spent most of my summer days with. My children have two cousins, GPs that live 180 miles and thousands of miles away and that's it.

Parent packs: seriously?

Not so much helicopter parenting as aircraft carrier parenting. I found the story I was told of one employer whose new graduate phoned his mum from the office to complain that his firm had sent him to London and no-one had bought him a map rather depressing, too.