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?

Yes great point about consumerism!

no, I was born in 1980 and in the mid-late 80s genetic colas and fizzy drinks were a regular supermarket purchase. Or you had a soda stream. We drank fruit juice with breakfast and had cream soda / cola/ lemonade or squash as drinks.
i didn’t know anyone who drank plain water (milk was more popular imo) and I remember the shock when shops started selling mineral water. Like why would anyone drink plain water, let alone pay for it!

Quite the contrary. Most people who enjoyed the free range childhoods of the sixties/seventies/eighties look back on them very fondly.

Why do you think that? I hated being turfed out and being alone all the time. I just wanted to be snuggled in bed reading, not spending hours outdoors. We had quite a few scary experiences with perverts too.

Perhaps it's already been mentioned, but people have fewer children now - loads of parents only have one child, two max. So parents invest much more heavily in each one (the poor little ones!).

Agree with this. I let my child out to play & have plenty of time of his own. We were out all the time & spent time in our bedrooms doing imaginative play. My mother rarely entertained us. But I liked knowing she was there.

Tutors for 11+ were definitely a thing in the 80s, not sure about earlier. I'd presume from whenever the grammar schools started to shut down and become competitive.

NCT classes were definitely a thing, as we're parent groups, church playgroups, baby sing/dance/swim classes. None of this is new. In fact, there were probably more of them, especially community based groups. Church halls were always used for groups then. Loads are empty bar maybe 1 day a week now.

Private scan didn't exist, but they definitely would have been utilized if the did. I think scans started being offered late 80s/early 90s? There was more pregnancy care and post natal care then. Mother's stayed in hospital and were shown how to look after their baby. Community midwives would visit for weeks after birth. Antenatal appointments were more frequent. Artificial vitamins might not have been as common, but diet requirements to get the necessary vitamins was definitely a priority.

How old are you? Are you thinking of the 70s as your grandparents era? Or parents era? Your view of it does seem like you're quite young.

Obviously every person will have their own experiences and views. But most older people I know enjoyed having a pre-internet childhood. And there was certainly a lot more reading in those days than there is now, if reading is what you value.

I think like with many things, there is a pendulum. In the 70s/80s/90s, children were expected to go along with adult wishes, lots about respecting elders which probably came from the generation before. That generation probably got loads of freedom, which had good impacts, but very low attendance to their emotional needs, which had negative impacts.

Now we have a hyper focus on emotional needs all round. The growth in understanding of child development and attunement to emotional needs, has had good impacts, but now we have high levels of anxiety about being a good parent and keeping kids emotionally and physically safe - negative.

I also think in the 70s/80s, child abuse was poorly understood, and while of course it is better that we understand more and have a focus on prevention - there is high anxiety. And the internet and technology has a lot to do with spreading anxiety, just look at the threads on here daily where mums tell one another about yet another thing to be anxious about.

I can’t really answer your question about when, but I think it will start to swing back again, I think it’s becoming clear that over focus on individual emotions has done a lot of harm despite meaning well.

I remember the freedom of playing out all the time, arranging all my own entertainment, and wearing whatever I wanted, it didn’t matter about being “trendy”. I absolutely hated when all the designer labels started!

Agee with this 100%.When Madeleine was snatched it was headline news. Her parents were crucified…..but they hadn’t done anything differently than many parents over decades! Many parents now were too young to remember but they have heard the Madeleine story and they have been influenced by the media/ story!

And everyone enjoys and values different things. Plenty of people are introverted or don’t like the outdoors or don’t enjoy spending time on the street.
Those people existed as much then as they do now, just back then no one cared what their preferences were. They were treated homogeneously

Perhaps amongst certain cohorts, but if you look at actual literacy levels, they’ve improved quite markedly from the 80s, as have child mortality rates.

As much as there were upsides to ‘free range’ there were downsides too and I don’t just mean the extreme things like death and serious injury but just general bullying, being flashed at (being warned to steer clear of ‘funny men’ was a feature of my childhood) bitten by dogs and broken limbs.

There is no way on this earth I’d want my children roaming the streets without an adult to be honest!

I’ll never forget dirty children at school in the 80s.
Actually dirty, matted hair, filthy nails. It was normal to have one or two in every class. Social services weren’t anything like as sophisticated as they are now, and being dirty wasn’t even seem as scandalous or worthy of intervention.

It's not just parents that afraid, teachers are too- school staff are unable to discipline children in an effective way- everything has to be positive, children are not accountable, they are excused, cajoled, persuaded, bribed, rewarded and listened to. Teachers are afraid to upset a parent because parents rule. Parents are society.

No it's not.

This ^^

We had two children at my school who stank of poo, really stank of it. No one would sit by them. They must have had a bowel condition. I don’t know why no one intervened.

I think it was a few things. Possibly women entering the workforce more made pressure for to spend more time with the kids, because dads were never expected to do that but it was still mums' job even when she was working. I always think people forget that when mums stayed at home it wasn't some golden age of contact and interaction with children. #

They were called 'housewives' primarily for a reason - their first duty was to the housekeeping, not the childrearing. Kids were generally thought not to have much inner life and toddlers/babies were to be kept in cots or playpens out of the way while mum did the housework, which was the important bit.

If you don't have at least one scar on your head (usually above an eyebrow) and at least 1 broken bone story - can you really call that a decent childhood! 😂

Yes, I fully agree with this. We never did anything apart from the odd day up to London and the annual holiday but family life worked much better - we played games and watched TV together and sat in the garden together.

The only way I can get my children to spend any time with us is by taking them out somewhere. At home they sit in their rooms on their phones and I’ve given up trying to get them to do anything else. I hate it. It was much, much better when I was growing up.

I genuinely have a scar in my eyebrow - hides it nicely 😂

This feels so relevant
Edited to add: I’ve talked with older family members about this before, they had parents who were traumatised by WE2, who had been raised by parents traumatised by WW1, their teachers were all war veterans, many of whom (alongside some of the parents) were clearly suffering from what we would now recognise as PTSD. I mean, talk about generational trauma!

Utter bull.

My grandfather and his siblings were born between 1900 and 1914
their parents busted a gut to get them educated and healthy
then into good universities
then into good jobs
and good marriages

but when parents said no
it meant something
THAT
has changed since my children were born

I had a fabulous childhood in the 70s / 80s . Lying in bed reading Faraway tree etc ,going out with my friends, disappearing for hours and coming home when I was tired ,no text messages to deal with checking I was still alive!
I met up with my childhood friend a few weeks ago and we only have positive memories of our childhood!
Obviously there were weirdos around but we had the confidence to deal with them!