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, I agree. We had supermarket own brand Colas, etc.
Tizer was one that we don't see much of any more and Dandelion and Burdock.
The mania about drinking water all the time and carrying it around with you didn't start till the 90s.

Really interesting thread. I don't know the reason although I read Gina Ford just before DS was born in 2007 as she was already going out of fashion.
By the time DS2 came along a few years later it was the Baby Whisperer.

No, I disagree there. While children were left alone at younger ages in the 80s and 90s, it wasn't normal for anyone to leave a 3 year old and baby twins alone! If it ever was normal, it would have been way before the 80s.

Utter rubbish. I saw a lot of children with mental health issues through my workplace - there were none whatsoever with the same problems when I went to school (these were issues which could be seen by anyone so no way they could have slipped through).

As for less neglect - take a good look around.

Me too! How did you know!

I grew up in Scandinavia in the 70s -IYKYK- and parenting was most definitely child-centric then.
Childhood was valued and protected: children's voices were amplified throughout society through
•legislation to outlaw corporal punishment in any form
•strong public bodies representing the interests of children being visible to children and young people through national campaigning in schools and media, giving CYP a narrative concerning their rights and protections, for instance ensuring children were aware of aforementioned legislation, aware that adults ought not to drink alcohol when responsible for the care of children, that children ought not to be exposed to adult conflict, nor given too heavy burdens of responsibility or be expected to be too independent too soon
•universal nursery education with highly child-led learning (a big focus on the outdoors, calculated risk and engendering a love of nature)
•huge investment in children's arts: as children, we saw ourselves represented as persons of agency and worth through quality children's TV and radio programming which did the more or less unthinkable by today's standards of making quite profoundly creative, reflective, educational and inspiring content for children and young people;
•national theatre and cinema which reflected the lives and interests of children for the benefit of children
•ditto children's literature, championed by the inimitable and prolific Astrid Lindgren and equally talented contemporaries
•children's clothing was created to be practical, wholesome and largely ungendered
•health care for children was proactively preventative and included long-running and inventive public broadcasting campaigns on prime national television slots to promote healthy eating and dental care for young people

In this context, it seems natural that parenting followed suite and upheld childhood as a special time during which a child was to be carefully formed into a thinking, caring, capable citizen, sure of it's own worth while a functioning, engaged member of a democratic society.
When people in the UK used to think Greta Thunberg was precocious and weirdly sure of herself, so must somehow be controlled or coached, I always say that she must be understood in her cultural context: she could have been any one of the young people I grew up with -not unusual.

Parenting books REALLY proliferated in the 1990s - hundreds of the things. And while some of those authors were more qualified than others, the general advice was definitely child centric in a way not seen with previous generations.

Great insight here into how different cultures do child-raising. Good point about Greta!

Peer pressure from other parents
advertising
older first time parents are more cosseting

And also my sister got a suitcase for her 18th! She left not longer after it

Wow.

Yes, we’re much more aware than we’ve ever been. My mother often says she wishes she could go back & do some things differently… Having said that, I read no baby books & just did what I think is right. Might do us no good in years to come! But there is love here, and there was in my childhood home, though they never said “I love you” that I remember.

"We had car seats in the 80s."

They weren't compulsory until 1984ish and most cars at that time didn't have seat belts in the back. As you know, it was even common on short trips for children to be on parents' laps or even sitting in the footwell or in the boot of estate cars. Health and Safety was really different.

Good point re the ‘I love yous’. These days parents tell their children that they are the centre of their world, multiple I love yous through each and every day.
I’ve never heard ‘I love you’ from my parents and I’m in my 50s!

Children could have more independence- smaller communities, less traffic on the roads so parents didn’t need to entertain them so much.
increased u derstanding of children’s needs
guilt due to working so much

Yeah, I tell my child that he’s amazing, my favourite person, I love you etc, all day long! He’s going to think he’s Jesus, or something… Ha ha!

I see a lot of kids that are too powerful in their own home and it's confusing for them. I think it's parental guilt

It is all about money. Rich people gave everything to their kids even in the past.
Farm kids still work in the family farm

I'm 46 and my parents said I love you to us every night with a hug and a kiss on the head even when older.

We had potatoes, veg and meat daily, except Friday when we went to the chipper. Fizzy drinks and crisps were birthday, Christmas and Halloween only but on a movie night we were allowed pick a bar/ packet of sweets to go with popcorn.

I don’t identify with the latch key kid though- we could meet with friends for an hour or so then had to be home. Parents had to know their parents if we were going into their house.

I don’t really understand the thread tbh, I don’t think either generation got it fully right or fully wrong. I definitely feel we’ll find in a few years that we’ve wronged our kids but if I was asked to repeat it all … actually screens. Also I’d figure out how to stop life being so bloody fast paced- we rush everywhere. My parents definitely had more time at home, weekends were in our house, cleaning or heading off on hikes, or playing in the park.

The example of Sweden is a child centic society . We don't have that in the UK unfortunately. Childcare still very expensive, lack of holiday care provision, lack of play provision across all neighbourhoods, very few restrictions on where cars can go so in most places kids can no longer play out. Road traffic is the leading killer of under 17s. Locking up playgrounds during Covid.
But instead a proliferation of commercial options for kids from baby swimming and yoga to rugby tots, multiple apps, tablets for kids etc, soft play as a weekly activity rather than free parks and countryside.

We had lodgers/bedsits when I was growing up and one girl turned up with suitcase one evening. She slept on the sofa and moved into her bedsit the next day. This girl had a full time job in the town in a very upmarket clothing shop. I adored her and she would let me go in her room and look through her jewellery box.

later I found out from my parents her and her sisters were told to move out once they got to 16 and stand on their own two feet. So they did.

Oh I loved summer. There was a hoard of us kids and the boys and girls had turf wars over dens... Then sometimes id come home to a new Malory Towers book waiting on my bed.

There is an argument that John Bowlby's attachment research was in part used to stop women going to work out of Mother Guilt (my capitals.) Women had started working more during the war and didn't want to just stay home now the men were back to fill the jobs, so they needed some political guilting into it.

Could it have the opposite affect of being cold with emotions

Many children are still dragging themselves up in homes that are absolutely not child focused. The growth of child centered parenting is very much in a particular section of society.
Laziness is a big part of it - it’s easier to let the children do what they want and ease the conscience by calling it child-led. In other parents it’s over anxiety or over compensating for being at work. There has also been a commercialisation of childhood - a multitude of gadgets, books and services vial media exploiting and increasing our anxiety. We are all on mumsnet right now! Childhood deaths have decreased hugely as a result - and anxiety has increased despite this.
Amongst some social circles children are seen more as projects and a complete reflection of the parent than independent beings. The current fashion is child-centred so that is what these people do. Loud and performative parenting is part of this.