The parenting standards we measure ourselves against - where do they come from?

[spacedonkey]

Sorry if this is an obscure question, but I'm interested to know where this "ideal" comes from that most, if not all, parents measure themselves against.

For me anyway, it doesn't come from my own parents, so where do these ideas come from?

And does it affect mothers more than fathers?

clops off philosophically

For me? Not from here, that's for sure .

Do you think parenting manuals and more recently TV programmes like Supernanny are the culprit?

My parenting standard has risen since posting on here, and I certainly have a better idea of nutrition for children now, (even if he does eat in his pushchair)

Also from my friends, my parents (ds always has shoes, not trainers) etc.

Books don't really play a part in my parenting, they don't know my son.

I was thinking more of the feelings of inadequacy that seem very common, amongst mothers perhaps more than fathers. The feeling that one "should" do this, or that, or whatever.

Definatly affects mothers more. Personally super nanny can sod off as far as the 'standard, goes, again, she knows nothing of me, my son and our life, but I do use the naughty step after seeing it on one of the programs a couple of years ago.

In a way Supernanny and her ilk are reassuring (and practically useful), so perhaps that was a red herring. But I suppose there are parenting "shoulds" implicit in programmes like that too.

I think those feelings of inadequacy are often there and are exacerabated by parenthood. If you have low self-esteem and then are bombarded by books, tv programmes and well meaning friends/relatives telling you how you "should" be doing when you feel you are not quite making the grade, it's all going to feel a bit crap. If you have that confidence, nothing will shake you.

Last post was a grammatical nightmare, sorry!

I just wonder if mothers used to feel like this - is it a relatively recent phenomenon?

No they didn't.

today's mothers live in terror of the social services, they live in terror that their children won't go to university, or will take drugs, or will get involved with a bad crowd.

I think mothers used to be concerned that their child lived, and then that it behaved and was obedient, then that it was bright enough to earn money when it left school, so it could survive alone without parents.

If it didn't behave while parents weren't there, other people could make it behave, so mum didn't always have to worry that child would show her up. If child was naughty at school, teacher would belt it, if out of school, another parent would discipline or a policeman would give it a clip round the ear.

I think you were considered a parenting success if your child was alive, independant, and not criminal by adulthood. Now we are expected to work on confidance, and extra curricular things, and social skills, and broadening the mind, and all that stuff that people never used to bother remotely with.

Very well put colditz. I agree that we have been given much more to worry about now - the language of psychology has worked its way into our lives, and we have to worry about how "well adjusted" our children are, measuring against some imagined norm.

I think it's part of a wider social phenomenon (warming to my familiar theme, I'm afraid). People generally feel very watched, judged and threatened these days. I think it's a symptom of a gluttonous, morally bankrupt society in which every taboo has been smashed, disillusionment is total, and the only thing left to alleviate the boredom is to WATCH each other. Cue Big Brother, Wife Swap, Holiday Showdown, I Want To Be A Celebrity Get Me In There, and other voyeuristic degrading labrat shite. Additionally nobody has any manners or sense of decency any more, so it's not considered rude or unacceptable to foist your half-baked opinions on perfect strangers trying to discipline their children in supermarkets, or stamp all over someone else's culture. The food is full of radioactive waste and crazy-making hormones. We are surrounded on all sides by advertisements calling us to throw off the oppressive yoke of responsible, ethically-grounded behaviour and join in the free-for-all that is modern life.

And mothers, as usual, are an easy target for a p*ssed-off, disappointed society which doesn't know how to begin retracing its steps to work out what went wrong.

TBH, I think we should still all congratulate ourselves if our kids reach the age of 18 alive. If you think of all the tiny things you do every day to make sure they stay alive - like take the toy cars off the stairs, drag them off to swimming lessons, cross only on the green man, never leave them unattended in the car, get them to tie their trainer laces so they don't fall over when crossing the road, etc - then it's considerably to any parent's credit that a child reaches adulthood.

According to my mother (and a few others) who is nearly 80, mothers DID feel much the same in the 60s. The big difference being, the standards were about different things - less psychology, and more home-baking/how to dress your kids etc.

I think my own feelings of inadequacy as a parent were there in some form or another long before my dd came along. I had felt insecure and inadequate about many things in my life - motherhood was just another thing to add to a very long list!

My parenting standard comes from all the things my parents didn't do with me, that I so wanted to do with my child + things like media(such as parenting mags, child behavioural programs like Supernanny, Little Angels), other mums that you see or hear about.
I think it definately affects the parent that has the most responsibility/spends the most time with their child. Its an interesting topic for discussion Spacemonkey.

Interesting question Sd. I've known many people who think a Shirley Hughes picture epitomises parenthood as it should be, hmm. I don't watch much television so it absolutely wouldn't occur to me to measure myself against anything there. I'm not sure where my standards come from, I guess some from my own mother, some as a result of wanting to do the complete opposite to her, gotta go, dd wants me, back later!

I think mothers have always been a target for criticism. Because they have so much power and are a threat to the rule of the patriarchy. Look at the sheer number of rules that have been in place to control the sexual behaviour of women in history ? and the ones that are still in place now. There's no-one so hated by society as a 'bad' mother. If a man and a woman harm a child, it is the woman who becomes the hate figure - look at Maxine Carr.

This makes me think of Naomi Wolf's point about society systematically undermining women's self-esteem as a means of control (to put it crudely).

However, I don't think trying to be a better parent is a bad thing. I think, in fact, it is a good thing.

No-one would deny that striving to be a better parent is a good thing, but what interests me is where the standards of what it is to be a better parent come from!

just wondering if anyone else has any thoughts on this?

"...but what interests me is where the standards of what it is to be a better parent come from! "

um, well, sometimes people say things on MN which make me feel quite blown away, and wondering "what am I doing wrong?" "How come my kid can't do that?", or "why can't I cope with that situation so well?"

But presumably I wouldn't think that way if I wasn't insecure already? DH would read the same things & never feel the least bit inferior for it.

Personally, I think it's really helpful that there are so many books out there on parenting - although I suppose it can get tricky sorting out your own line when 'experts' conflict. But there's lots of general sound advice that they agree on, and that's regurgitated in magazines and on telly, etc - eg don't hit your kid; praise the positive, ignore the negative; don't let them live on Diet Coke; etc. And there's always the internet, to research the grey areas. I think it's better that there's a multiplicity of info sources now, so that dodgy family patterns don't automatically get replicated - just because your mum did things a certain way doesn't mean you have to. I think in some ways though that does mean that parenting is harder work.

To me, most parents aspire to the same standards: raise socially responsible, inter-dependent adults with a capacity for happiness. However, what I find unhelpful in what I shall call the "conventional" view of parenting is the speed to which we hurry our children towards these goals, sometimes even before they are developmentally ready to accept such standards. Hence all this Supernanny business about naughty steps on toddlers and punishment, bribes and charts as a short term behavioural "solutions" to age old developmental issues. TV, popular parenting books and magazines have a lot to answer for.