When & Why did parenting become child centric?

[crawlingovertheline]

I’m curious to understand why there’s been such a shift in parenting over the past 50 years.

Children of the 70s/80s were (ok, this is generalising) definitely second to the parents needs. Safety didn’t seem a priority, attitudes toward nutrition are exponentially different to how they are now, we (again generalising) were kicked out at 18, on our own to find our way.
Now parents promise to be the best they can be for their kids, they (we) toil and make massive sacrifices to do everything we can for our children.

Why the shift though? Where did it start? Any clues?

I was a teenager in the 80s and I don't know anyone who left home at 18.

Mine went to uni at 18.

My kids were born in the early eighties and I don't recognise this at all, and neither do they. Now they're in their forties, they and their children are still our first priority. We still make sacrifices to help them through life and are happy to do so.

There was a shift to child-centred learning at school during the 1980s, maybe it followed that?

Well, perhaps in the amount of benefits being funded by our extra taxes

How do you link benefits payments to children’s mental health?

When they grow up without resilience to deal with normal life

Part of it lies in the shifting paradigms of socially constructed power dynamics. Religious authorities gave way to medical authority, then the medical model of psychiatry was undermined by psychology which has gained influence over the last 30 years to become the current dominant voice of authority.

If you imagine how a parent would respond to a child expressing suicidal intent - at one point calling a priest to terrify them with descriptions of eternal suffering would have been good parenting. In the mid 20th c you might hand over the child to a psychiatrist for ice baths or electric shock therapy. Today we would turn our their lives upside down on the say so of a psychologist.

we currently filter our life experiences through psychology informed narratives in a way older generations didn’t because it wasn’t as influential.

Another aspect is the generational effects of war trauma. The Ww1 generation gave birth to the ww2 generation, who raised the boomers. Gen X were the first generation who didn’t experience the terror or deprivations of war, and grew up to be more emotionally aware parents, raising dc who they encouraged to fully engage with their emotions.

It was interesting to see how boomers and millennials came into conflict in the workplace - one raised by war traumatised dps to be emotionally buttoned up and the other raised entirely free of war trauma. In every other generation, the friction tends to be between parents and dc, whereas for millennials the friction was with their gps.

I think it's because we know too much and get bombarded with more information than a parent 50 years ago would have been. I'm not convinced kids benefit from all the angsting us parents tend to do these days. I even wonder if it puts some people off having kids because it makes parenting seem like a risky endeavour which so much that you can fuck up.

I did. At just 18. So did my contempories.

So… not at all linked then 🙄 what a waste of a post

As a late 70s and then 80s child I was fed no end of processed rubbish both at school and home!
Smash mashed potato, desserts made out of powder with colourings/flavourings in (like Angel Delight), cakes/puddings with both main meals of the day, pasta and rice out of sachet packets, cheap cold meat like Spam.
The food was revolting.

Forgive me for breathing 😂

of course it’s linked

I think that is a huge generalisations

and I think child centric parenting was growing form the 1950s onwards - indeed as a child I recall discussions about what that meant - mother was a teacher

nutrition was wildly better I agree there

no one was kicked out - many of our wider family stayed at home till marriage

safety was a priority but not at the expense of everything else. I think lots of how kids are brought up today - poor food, endless screen time, not kicked outside to play is anything but safe. It’s creating a nation of ill health - that’s not safe at all,

my parents made massive sacrifices. They went out once or twice a year together. They kept us fed and clothed with very little money.

child of the late 50's/60's here and I would agree with you.

I was a child of the 80s/90s and I don't recognise your childhood in mine at all @crawlingovertheline

Interesting topic.

Were children neglected back then or parented with the best knowledge they knew of.

You say nutrition - but most kids were fed meat and 2 veg home cooked .
Now it’s frozen foods and UPFs.

Children were made to play outside until late or left at home.
But now they stare at screens all day or are anxious due to their parents anxiety.

Smoking wasn’t seen as unhealthy but we’ll probably look back in 20 years time and be shocked that we had phones instead of cigarettes in our hands.

Because those of us that were subjected to crappy parenting grew up and decided to do better by our children, thank god.

As others have said and
Massive sweeping over simplification which will upset historians, but ...once we stopped sending them up chimneys and putting them to work we had to find an alternative rationale for keeping them (expensive and not useful) and they became romanticised. Industrialisation reduced manual labour needs, increased push to educate...
Less applicable to the upper classes but they justified having them because they needed heirs to the home / money / business... also infant mortality dropped and there were increased fertility choices.

I honestly think it’s as simple as the fact that we no longer encourage or approve of children roaming alone.

I remember listening to a podcast which had a sort of history of this stuff and one thing they pointed out was that until a certain point (which I can't remember when it was, maybe some time in the 80s?) the word "parent" wasn't even used as a verb, the verb usually used was "raising children" (or in the UK perhaps bringing up was more common - raising sounds very American to me.)

It was definitely going that way in the early 80s when I had mine. But we were still the adults in the relationship. There’s been a creeping drift towards parents wanting to be their children’s mates instead of their bosses. Nobody wants to set any boundaries.

My friends’ whole weekends completely revolve around their children and their likes and what they want to do and eat - and the same with their holidays. They speak about needing to keep the children entertained and that it’s such hard work. I don’t think this is healthy.

My friends can’t get to grips with it when I tell them that our children fit in with us and what our plans are. We still of course take them to do typical childlike and ‘fun’ activities, but a lot of the time they will be trying new cuisines, and visiting religious buildings and museums etc.

Oh and the rise in organisations like Barnardos and Rowntree and charities of (generally) women working to improve outcomes for children and mothers in general - healthier mothers with more time benefits children - and a shift from the deserving poor notion (although that hasn't fully been eradicated.)

Your premise is a load of bollocks. If anything, children come second to careers but are then over compensated by indulgence.
I had my DC in the 80s (unbelievably had contraception so chose when to have them) and my DH and I were both very child centred. I had a seven year career break and put my DC first, I did however, set very firm boundaries with them. They're now wonderful well adjusted, well educated adults with DC of their own.
At times I'm astounded by the ignorance of some people on MN.