Times: Parental failings ‘spawned an infantilised generation’

[Lamahaha]

www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/parental-failings-spawned-an-infantilised-generation-s78q5t7zw

Interesting article.
He said that, similarly, the debate on transgender rights had challenged the binary distinction between men and women, just as in politics the boundary between public and private lives has become blurred.

Professor Furedi argued that the dismantling of moral boundaries has created a paradox. Young people who have grown up without them abhor others who make moral judgments.

I agree with him. I was raised by an extremely liberal mother who provided no boundaries whatsoever -- which got me into a lot of trouble in my late teens. Luckily I realised soon enough what was happening and corrected myself; I gave myself rules and boundaries and tried my best to stick to them. It was the best move I ever made. Long story...

Sorry, I still can't get a share token. When I click on the mail signa, I get a "share to email" pop up but no link. I managed it once but never again.

Share token

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/59975f70-c457-11ea-b1ec-faab6f383ba1?shareToken=a5d0c40b4b3b064dd53d22cd9f2a9304

I watched a fascinating interview on the New Culture Forum’s YouTube channel with Prof. Furedi discussing boundaries of all kinds, not just parenting. It’s worth anybody’s time.

Sorry, dunno how to cut and paste a link on this new Apple device

Interesting article.

I've said a few times I wondered if the fact parents seem to baby their kids these days had contributed at all.

I'm nearly 40. When my parents were high school age they would have been expected to look after younger siblings and cook dinner for when they parents got back from work. A quick search on MN will reveal suggestions to call social services of an 11 year old is home alone fir half an hour.

We have no expectations of capabilities. Mobile phones mean that instead of thinking ahead and planning their trip to the library to do homework around buses trains and dinner , they just expect to be able to do it there and then except thousands if sources becomes to overwhelming and too much like hard work so they don't even want to have to read through.

Instead of teaching them to have patience and be able to listen to debate and come up with a counter argument, we wipe away their tears and tell them the other person was just mean. Parent's are so afraid to say no. So afraid to upset their children. Aiming fir short time release of peace and quiet Iver the long term benefits of learning to deal with feeling and realising the world didn't end because you couldn't do what you wanted when you wanted one day.

We are not doing the kids any favours. The whole world dienst give a shit about them or their feelings. Its our responsibility not everyone else's. We need to teach the children that they aren't the centre of the universe and they are responsible for their ability to deal with their problems and not everyone else's to play along so we don't have to upset them.

Interesting and there may well be something in it. But I think he's being selective in his evidence and ignoring the material circumstances of many young people, it can take them several years to carve out a career and, even then, house prices and rent can delay independent living, none of which help the transition to a more grown up mindset.

And while I agree that fretting over what your teenage daughter thinks of your clothes is nonsense, I'm not sure about some of the other fashion analogies. If a mother is still telling her adult daughter what to wear then surely something has gone wrong? And most fathers who wear band T shirts are not 'dressing like their sons'. They're just dressing the way they've always dressed and it's their sons who are copying them instead of carving out their own style.

"I was raised by an extremely liberal mother who provided no boundaries whatsoever -- which got me into a lot of trouble in my late teens. Luckily I realised soon enough what was happening and corrected myself; I gave myself rules and boundaries and tried my best to stick to them. It was the best move I ever made. Long story..."

(sorry, I don't know how to quote on here!)

This sounds like me! Looking back now I know I would have benefitted from more boundaries in my adolescence. But I don't judge my parents for it, as I know that part of that liberalism was a product of their own upbringing, where being very strict and corporal punishment were still the norm. It would be interesting to know whether this is the case for other 'liberal' parents.

My mother never required me to do any chores. Not one. I didn't even know how to make my bed! She was a divorced working mother, a feminist, and she despised menial work. And we lived for a while with my grandmother and aunt and my aunt did all the housework. My mum was the breadwinner. That situation was what made me sceptical about feminism when I was older. Because mum could not have worked had not my aunt done the basic work.
My mum never even cooked a single meal for me! I became quite enamoured of "50's housewives" at one stage. Their kids had guidelines, they had curfews (I didn't; I could come and go as i pleased) and they had rules, and loving mothers who cooked meals and baked cakes -- I loved one particular friend's mother in particular, and ever since then I've been irritated by the constant denigration of 50's housewives. I had deep resentments towards my mum, for not tightening the reins.
One of the best things mum did was send me to boarding school where they DID have rules.

(My mother was great in other ways, and we made it up before she died.)

And while I agree that fretting over what your teenage daughter thinks of your clothes is nonsense, I'm not sure about some of the other fashion analogies. If a mother is still telling her adult daughter what to wear then surely something has gone wrong?

And yet on MN every single thread about school uniform results in multiple posters claiming that uniform makes it easier as there's no having to decide what to wear and apparently that would take a long time cause lots of upset and no lne would ever leave the house.

So the expectation grab a pair of jeans and a t shirt and get on with it is not there. So aren't we already setting them on that path? If we think that they need homework and shirts and ties aged 4 or they will never cope with a workplace dress code or homework later on , then how can we simultaneously argue that they will figure out what to wear at 18 having never had to do it? At school/6th form.

I've been mulling over this for some time, so I enjoyed the article because it put into words some of the things I had concerns about. I think the thing about clothes is superficial nonsense and distracts from the real issues. For me, boundaries and freedoms are linked. As a child my education was strict my home life had good boundaries but I was also allowed freedom to roam. I have always thought these things made me adventurous and independent. Much as though I hated all the boundaries at the time, I realised how valuable they were. I would never cave in to the culture bullies, not now, nor then if they had been around. I have friend of similar age who had exactly the same experience and we have similar mindsets (though not clones at all, we are good at arguing and debating but maybe a bit too old to be arsed now😁)

This sounds like me! Looking back now I know I would have benefitted from more boundaries in my adolescence. But I don't judge my parents for it, as I know that part of that liberalism was a product of their own upbringing, where being very strict and corporal punishment were still the norm. It would be interesting to know whether this is the case for other 'liberal' parents.

Yes; the pendulum swings back and fourth. My mother's upbringing was much stricter; the whole of society was, and more religious, and she rebelled against all that. But it's much harder, if the reins are too loose, to tighten them -- much easier to gradually loosen too tight reins. A middle way needs to be found.

I watched a few episodes of the Netflix series Outnumbered recently, which is set around 2008, and was quite a bit shocked at the way the children in that family have their parents wrapped around their little fingers, always winning every argument, and the parents big softies that always cave in.

Yes I see what you're saying. But when it comes to workwear, I think we need to be careful not to impose the dress codes we were brought up with. Expectations have changed a lot and, in some companies - mine is one of them - dressing too formally can be just as inappropriate as dressing too casually.

Soz thread's moving too fast for me - that was a reply to Sarah

I think the thing about clothes is superficial nonsense and distracts from the real issues.
Ok if we're going to start being patronising, I'm out of here.

kids need routine, boundaries and yes discipline to feel safe and confident enough to grow and explore. They also need lots of loving, listening and coaching, of course, but I think generally parents are fine with those things. More often they seem to find the boundaries thing difficult.

Well - maybe it's a middle class thing. Friends who are more trad working class have no problem instructing their kids and using discipline. I suppose the post modern questioning of authority has led to much of the permissiveness, and more trad working class families are more likely to have the authoritarian type of model, which has its own issues.

I do think a reasonable balance between permissiveness and authoritarian parenting would be good.

I think the thing about clothes is superficial nonsense and distracts from the real issues.

If I was being patronising, it was directed to the author of the piece, not anyone here

Yes I see what you're saying. But when it comes to workwear, I think we need to be careful not to impose the dress codes we were brought up with. Expectations have changed a lot and, in some companies - mine is one of them - dressing too formally can be just as inappropriate as dressing too casually

I think in some ways there's alot to be said for learning to adapt and think for yourself. I don't see how we can teach children to do that when their whole lives they are either treated as too stupid to be able to so decision made for them or treated as special because no one can say anything negative ever for fear of upsetting them. Sometimes truth hurts. Sometimes we have to do things we don't want to do . These days we seek to label that as some kind of quashing theor identity. In our day it was just " granny will love seeing you on the dress she made you can change when you get home.

We were stronger and far more resilient back then and could cope with if. We would he expected to sit with adults and behave ourselves in a cafe or restaurant. Kids menus weren't even really a thing we we ate what the grown ups ate and any kicking off about chicken nuggets would have resulted in a smacked arse.

I would never say that growing up on the 80s and 90s was the best thing ever all the time. But certainly we weren't pandared to or treated as special as we expect kids to be treated now. Although granted there still seems to be plenty of adults around incapable of putting together a coherent argument and taking everything as a personal attack. Hurt feelings got you nowhere for me as a kid. Just as well or high school would have been impossible. When did just getting on with it stop.

I don’t think highame came across as patronising!

Interesting, if short, article. I found what is sometimes called attachment parenting to be largely that middle way.

At least attempts to be evidence based. Not permissive, not authoritarian. Bloody hard work but mostly makes.sense. Mutual respect, a clear hierarchy, and everyone taking appropriate responsibility.

Hard to know long term what works - so far my kids seem to be lovely balanced individuals, but ask me again in 20 years time ...

The phrase 'kicking an open door ' really accurately captures the behaviour of my most liberal friends' children, tbh. Violent, emotionally incontinent, desperate for guidance and boundaries. With parents who run around begging them to behave.

Furedi has always had a unique and very partisan perspective. He was a member of the Revolutionary Communist Party in the 80s, which I remember as being fiercely intellectual and never happier than when they were taking a different perspective to everyone else on the left - the kind of left that went so far round as to become almost on the right.

He is famous for being anti therapy, and these views on parenting seem to come out of that disdain for anything touchy feely.

He has a point - ultra liberal parenting is very bad for kids - but how much is ultra liberal parenting actually an issue? Thinking back to my own children's primary school, there were a few trendy and indulgent parents, but most people put boundaries in place.

He also seems to take T shirts very literally. I'm not sure if he has kids - Wikipedia doesn't mention any - but a dad wearing a band t shirt is no sign that his child considers him a friend. Fashions for adults are no longer rigidly divided from those for teens, but the generational divide is alive and well in most families. Some parents may try to kid themselves that they are their children's contemporaries, but generally, their children will soon disabuse them of that idea. In fact, the debate on transgender rights may be a way of young people kicking back at the views of their parents and establishing something new for themselves, just as young people have done since time immemorial.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/23/fringe-1980s-communist-faction-no-10-attitude-racism-munira-mirza

I’m a millennial, I can’t relate to this at all. My parents didn’t set boundaries, they just expected me to act to the standards of an adult from the beginning (obviously identifying, explaining and, forgiving my failings - in that order). They didn’t really have much in terms of moral rules that they taught me but they were very honest about their behaviours and the motivations and consequences of such so I was able to understand how to behave. I knew about their affairs, their opinions on the extent of their obligations to me and vice versa and so on.

I took the first steps of independence and accountability for my own life in my early teens and have not had that extended adolescence period that so many people my age are accused of having. If anything I am much less entitled than people of older generations (although that may be as much a result of economic circumstances as my parents’ parenting style).

If anything is infantilising it’s treating children, teenagers in particular as somehow different to adults. They’re not, the whole point of childhood is to learn to be an adult, that doesn’t happen if you aren’t allowed to do what you want and face the consequences.

Insightful article many thanks for the share.

Am just throwing this into the mix because it has been part of my thinking with the Woke stuff as well as what's been said in the article. Kids from under privileged backgrounds will have had the lack of boundaries but will also some will have experienced more freedom and therefore, according to the article, will mature earlier. If this is the case, might we see some real entrepreneurs and free thinkers in this group. I'm not sure I'm verbalising this well.

@BitterAndOnlySlightlyTwisted

I watched a fascinating interview on the New Culture Forum’s YouTube channel with Prof. Furedi discussing boundaries of all kinds, not just parenting. It’s worth anybody’s time.

Sorry, dunno how to cut and paste a link on this new Apple device

Is this it?

I liked that article. In my experience of children with challenging behaviour, they often (but not always) have parents who can't manage to enforce boundaries so they are either left bribing their children or teaming with them against the big bad school /neighbours /the police etc unfairly expecting compliance with rules, homework to be done, rules and uniform codes to be followed etc.

Historically there have been no societies where children dictate to the elders and dominate the decisions / laws etc. For all the obvious reasons. Yet here we are with a generation (and it's not all of them speaking as the parent of young adults) where too many of them believe that no is a negotiation and that wishes and beliefs are facts if you believe them hard enough. If they don't mature from these infantile beliefs then society is in for some very frightening and intolerant times.