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?

Orange squash was a treat for us. We drank water or milk. This wasnt a cost thing, just what most people in our social circle / wider family did. We almost never drank anything other than at meal times either, until we started drinking tea in our teens. Orange juice even more special- served in a tiny glass, sometimes as a starter.

As well as women now choosing to have children, I think there is still this image of a SAHM being the ideal and therefore if you “choose” to have children and then “choose” to work (however much that choice is foisted upon you due to the need to pay the mortgage/rent), you, as a woman, automatically carry a sort of societal guilt with you which you are constantly having to make up for.
Plus there’s the combination of when you see your children is neatly packaged up into little of parcels of time - the gap between nursery pick up & bedtime; weekends; 25 days annual leave - and parents having more
leisure time due to the automation of so many domestic things so you want (and feel the need to be) present during that time. I think in the olden days when children were left to their own devices and mothers were consumed with the time consuming drudgery of running a house, you would have pockets of time when you’d coincide with your child but it wouldn’t be as prescribed and so you couldn’t plan it in advance and, for example, book in soft play. My grandparents (born in 1914 & 1921) had an allotment and when they had me & my brother for the day a few hours would be spent there and we were expected to make up our own games, help out and then, intermittently, they’d play a bit of hide & seek or do counting games and that sort of thing with us.
Like others, I do always question the golden age of SAHM. In my family, even going back to my grandmothers’ (1921 & 1923) generation, some women did go out to paid employment (teaching, secretarial work) but many more had ad hoc work paid cleaning or caring and so on. They also all did a lot of what would now be seen as community volunteering work.

There's a difference between being child centric and actually parenting your children intentionally.

I'm a child of the 80s and my parents had 3 kids despite not appearing to have any interest in any us. My dad god love him worked all hours of the day on the farm and was a totally hands off parent. It usually took him 2 attempts to call me by the right name and I don't think i had a single conversation with him my entire life.

My mum who was the "default parent" was an absolute terror and destroyed any semblance of self confidence I had. She was also incredibly over protective and didn't let me leave the house except for school or to play golf which i absolutely hated with a passion so when I got to 18 and went to uni i failed completely.

Looking back at it i think by the time I was a teenager she was struggling massively with the menopause and her mental health. She's an incredibly cold and unemotional person so we all think she's on the autistic spectrum somewhere.

I see her about once a month now for my daughter's sake and only because she rings me moaning she hasn't seen her.

So you'll forgive me if my parenting is "child centric" and I actually talk to my daughter, spend time with her and try to build up her self confidence and sense of self.

‘I’ll count to three’

We were terrified by 2 - would a child be scared of this now?!

’cut that out’
’don't give me cheek’
’I’m telling you once’

All these statements in a particular tone of voice made you obey.

Thinking about it, I told some boys to ‘cut that out’ in ‘my mother’s voice’ about a year ago. I myself was scared but angry. They were so surprised that they said sorry and behaved. How they behaved once they had got round the corner, I don’t know…

It changed when children were seen as consumers by big business.

I think it’s linked to the guilt of working mothers about leaving their small children in childcare to go out to work.

Thats the main thing that’s changed massively since the 1970s. When I was small almost everyone’s mum was at home at least for a few years.

of course I’m not saying that mothers should feel guilty or that we should go back to that kind of society. And it would not be possible anyway - you need two incomes nowadays.

but I think being separated from small children causes mums a lot of anxiety often and perhaps it has created this anxious child centred parenting perfection type culture.

my own mum didn’t worry that we had cheese sandwiches every day or that this or the other. But she was at home with us and she knew she was giving us something very valuable - her time and attention.

Many modern working mums of which I am one feel constantly anxious that they are not making enough time and space for their children.

so I think the child centricism is a sort of way of trying to put children first front and centre in some way to compensate for the fact that children come second to the need to earn money and buy a house etc.

Seat belts existed in the 80s, so did baby seats. There was 11+ coaching, extra curricular activities and I attended NCT classes. Breast fed both DC for a year. This was only 40 years ago.
Btw, kids did have their own fashion brand, it was Mothercare 😁

When you are neglected as a child, you try to do better for your own. They're my kids, I love them more than anything, so yes they're central for me.

A key change from earlier generations is
mobile technology.

Parents track where their children are
Children are expected to check in even from university

When I was young, people walking along the road talking to themselves were assumed to be escapees from the loony bin

now they are assumed to have ear buds in ....

Maybe the children who were never considered a priority grew up to want better for their children?

Research and education

When I see parents walking to school pushing a Yr 1 kid in a buggy
wearing PJs and talking to others the whole time on their phones

I know full well that children were as much loved in the past
and parents loved themselves less

I wonder if part of the move to being child centric was restaurants starting to encourage children. I was one that sat in the car outside the pub then mum and dad drove me home over the limit. But maybe it’s that restaurants realised they could encourage kids and get more parents coming out because they could bring their kids 🤔. Can’t stand children’s menus myself but that’s all part of it

I don't know if anyone mentioned it in this thread, but when DC were tiny I read The Continuum Concept and it helped me a lot. The book shows how children used to be part of the community, fitting into it (within reason). It helped me articulate why this whole child centric think felt so wrong to me.

I’ll look it up- thanks!

Evolution?

This - and when road safety campaigners ask for stuff to help children have more freedom (eg school streets, play streets, LTNs, cycle lanes, traffic measures near schools etc) there’s s big backlash from adults irate because they will be even slightly inconvenienced. That really isn’t being child-centred. Current problems re screen use aren’t great, nor are that stats on reading, child obesity & child mental health. We’re not noticeably better than previous generations - we just have different problems. If anything, we’re regressing as a society as the support available to help parents 20 years ago (eg Sure Start) has been cut (although thankfully the government are starting to reinstate this).

I don’t recognise this “weren’t the 70s / 80 dire for parenting” because my parents and their friends were child-focused as indeed were their parents (my grandparents) & my great-grandparents.

Obviously not everyone had this experience - which is absolutely tragic - but that’s still the same today & the question ought to be how to help those children.

Life was actually a lot less pressured in my early childhood as there was less expectations to work long hours - my DF’s opinion on this that his managers then had a lot of respect for family life as that was what they fought in the War for. Being able to play out was fantastic for fitness & socialising and it is really isn’t progress that so many children have lost this.

The actual answer to the OP’s question is 1762 as that’s the date that Rousseau wrote the Emile which revolutionised ideas towards children’s upbringing & education - although some of the ideas in that book predated this.

Children were not allowed into pubs until the 80's
at all ever