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.

It is interesting, listening to some of the well known voices from the identity politics lobby, how many are from private schools or had significant additional support.

While it's impossible to generalise, there is the feel of some privileged young adults very used to being provided for by staff who are seen as having no feelings or needs, expected to suck up ill treatment and scorn and to patiently continuing serving and providing at all times for their precious charged. And heaven help them if they displease or fail even slightly: official complaints are made in seconds with neither conscience nor loyalty, in cold outrage. The world is seen in terms of the providers, who can be treated as badly as you like and have no rights nor feelings but damn well better never get it wrong, and the provided for, who can do no wrong and are superior beings in every way, entitled to have every need properly and nicely met. Or else.

Equally with additional support: there are young adults not privileged in any way, but coming out of supportive programmes that began in school and went into early adulthood, where there has been a huge amount of adult attention, listening, nurturing, praise and encouragement, tiny step programmes with lots of understanding, lots of professionals bought in to give time and loving attention to any interest they have... and they've failed when they've been helped on into work programmes because they are so shocked at being treated normally. Without the handholding, exceptions and excuses, nurture and spoonfeeding, they are unable to function because they have never been expected to. If they ring in with a headache, or were drunk last night because they lost confidence, or have stormed off home because they were told to take something to an office upstairs but no one would come with them and show them exactly where..... they're bewildered and unable to cope when the focus is on the job getting done and the wage getting earned, instead of on supporting and caring for them. They've been failed by the youth programmes who didn't prepare them.

These groups do exist. They're not representative, but they do exist.

Michelleoftheresistance Are you talking about children with SEN?

I think if kids were allowed to play as they probably should, they would sort stuff out. However, we seem now to live in an almost sterile society were the normal growing up stuff, such as testing things out with each other, can't happen btw I think this refers more to MC families though not sure (not a sweeping statement.) No safe streets to play in, prizes for everyone, be kind, everything structured.

I feel sorry for those children and their parents.

SEN being a vast spectrum, I was referring to young adults who have had additional support from youth services.

That seems very sad - that with extra support from youth services they arent prepared for adult life. Do they tend to 'grow up' or do they never really function in your experience.

But I think one big thing that has happened is that with the end of physical discipline (which I agree should have happened) has come this view that all discipline, or ever making your child unhappy at all, is bad and abusive.

Yes! I don't see anything wrong with my kids sometimes being unhappy or missing out on things or stuff.

@LoeliaPonsonby

I found the Times article to be in a similar vein to this article:

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/609901/

I generally agree with the premise that parents need to be grown ups, distinct from the child role.

And contrary to a PP I found attachment parenting types to be the worst for having no boundaries. It’s an environment where the theory departs from reality because so many attachment types I have met make it all about the child never crying, never experiencing any challenge, at no matter what personal cost or inconvenience to the mother. And it’s always the mother who is put out by dealing with 4 year olds up multiple times a night, hitting etc.

I also find it a far greater problem with middle class types. Giving in to your kids is a luxury.

Yeah, I found the same thing with AP. It has some real application with infants, but even with older babies it starts to go astray. I've met mums that were afraid to put their babies into the crib to have a shower, who at a year old were doing feeds every two or three hours in the night and were completely knackered, but thought that a baby only cried for what was a need.

The one that really stuck with me was when I went to a LLL meeting for mothers who were extended breastfeeding. I had my third baby at that time and was pretty practical. There was one mother there who was trying to find a solution to her son biting her, on purpose. I said she should just say no and immediately, and without fuss, put him down and go do something else for 20 min or so, and that it would extinguish the behaviour pretty quickly. She was shocked, thought that this sort of rejection at the breast would give him a complex or something.

Yes I found that people who are the worst for lecturing me about AP, had beliefs that bore no relation to the original theory.

It’s also true that In these types of families, devotion to “AP” and bending to a child’s every whim comes at a huge cost to the mother and never the father, and it’s massively regressive in terms of feminism (another reason I couldn’t get on with it). I remember one time with some friends where the mum was very out out that everyone wanted to go for a walk after lunch except their 4yo, and she thought he could get to decide. I pointed out that my DC often objected to a walk but really enjoyed it once we got going, which didn’t go down well. We did all go but the mum carried the 4yo the whole way because he didn’t want to walk. The carrying was conspicuously not shared with the dad, who wandered off chatting to my oh.

How is that child meant to learn that doing something you don’t really feel like doing can bear rewards, or that sometimes you don’t win and have to go with what the majority wants?

Yeah, I think there has been a huge problem with kids/teens/adults being disadvantaged developmentally due to a number of changes in parenting culture. It's more MC kids I agree - I read a study a year or so ago comparing MC and WC kids and not surprisingly, the MC kids had advantages in terms of school, skills like music or access to sports etc. But the WC kids were more independent and took initiative. It's really influenced how I've tried to treat my teens.

As far as the things that are causing the problems, I agree lack of boundaries, but at the same time, lack of freedom. No one really tells them "no" much, even many schools are pretty lax, but on the other hand there is no going outside in the neighbourhood all say away from parental eyes. Even families being smaller has an effect, when you have more siblings you can hide in the group a bit more. Kids have a strong tendency to bring each other down to reality pretty quickly. That can allow bullying to happen but it's also where kids learn a lot of social realities.

Always being supervised also means that kids don't have much chance to problem solve alone, maybe even when they feel intimidated or scared. I remember getting lost as a kid, my sister falling off her bike, trying to figure out how to get getting to totally the wrong part of town when I was 14 on the bus... I think this starts even younger though.

Parents with little expectation kids should work and be contributing to the work of the family. I wouldn't make a huge distinction there between home work and paid work, either, though some jobs clearly aren't appropriate for some age groups. There was a thread in AIBU the other day where a mom was asking if her 10 year old child was unusual in really refusing to help (and be paid) for helping out stuffing envelopes etc for 10 to 20 min a week in the family business. I think everyone agreed that was not unusual for that age, but what surprised me was how many said asking a child to do that was abusive and they would call social services!

I think there is a kind of learned helplessness a lot of kids have now - they get used to being taken care of, not contributing materially to the family, the "tribe". Most kids are developmentally ready and often eager by the early teens to contribute and be independent, in a traditional setting they would have been entering adult life by the early teens. But modern life means they can't, and it almost seems like if you miss that window, they have grown used to being maintained through the work of others. The transition to maintain themselves, much less anyone else, is more difficult.

From my experience children as a group are pretty keen on laying down the law, particularly primary age, ask any school council, some of them would bring back hanging.

Parents who have problems in setting clear boundaries really encourage children to become manipulative, a kind of proto-bullying. This is something that they can transfer to adult life. I see all the safe space stuff as this, it's less about the internal feelings etc of individuals more about dominance.

I think the idea of "moral boundaries" is also very interesting.

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.

There is something to this. I think it is actually more complicated though. People do have moral boundaries, but they often don't explain them, or the moral systems they are rooted in, to their children in a clear way. Maybe because they don't have them very clearly in their own minds. There is a tendency for people to think they are just obvious. It's just expected for example that we understand why abuse is wrong, or theft.

On the other hand tolerance and acceptance seems to be taught very explicitly as being the reason to behave a certain way, and not only at home, but in schools. Not just a little, but it's pretty much a constant refrain, it seems like eery month is the month to talk about why acceptance of x, y, or z is necessary. But again, without a deep discussion of what acceptance means, what that is rooted in, or how we deal with accepting different viewpoints or moral arguments.

So not "accepting" becomes almost the most terrible thing a person can do in our society.

're attachment parenting - a vast amount of misunderstanding of it, I agree! The basis is a strong relationship. For me, that includes firm boundaries and a fair amount of routine, as well as flexibility and discussion and openness.

I do think a reflection of the loss of faith in govt, power structures, religion, etc has left us floating and unsure of how to act as a society as a whole - moral relativism becomes a problem and sometimes people end up either thinking 'anything goes' or reverting to v strict trad patterns. Polarisation, as ever. Humans do seem to find moderation difficult.

I don't think this type of parenting is a new thing at all, there have always been parents who are indulgent of their kids and don't like to say no - you've just got to read old novels to see it.

I think it is more prevalent in MC families so if, like me, you grow up in a wc area and then have mc friends as an adult it feels like a new thing. Its really common on MN and the Internet in general. But when I look in my more wc neighbourhood there's still an expectation that kids help out from about 7 like when I was growing up. I think it helps with self esteem feeling like you're contributing - kids feel capable and more self reliant.

I recognise what Michelle has observed in the workplace. I employ quite a lot of people and we recently had our newest recruit in a fairly technical desk-based role ask us, within a month of starting, what we could do to support her mental health (generally - there didn’t seem to be any specific MH issues)

We are really good employers in a well paid industry. No one is overworked. No one is shouted at. Everyone is well managed and this particular person happens to have a really excellent manager. The business is highly respectful. But that’s not enough. There’s an in loco parentis role that I would not have dreamed of looking to my employer to fulfil when I was starting out.

our newest recruit in a fairly technical desk-based role ask us, within a month of starting, what we could do to support her mental health

This is really intersting. A friend left higher education because when he started, he could observe which ones had real difficulties with their mental health and could help, by the time he left 95% of the class had 'mental health' issues.

I have suffered depression for the whole of my life, I am offended by all the talk of mental health without specifically saying what particular mental health issue they have.

Agree. I think it might be a way of saying I’m bored, miserable, nervous, frustrated. Sad even. But these are all normal feelings not mental health conditions. We have another employee with a dependant with a very serious mental health condition. We actually can’t do anything there as it’s so very serious - other than be generous and thoughtful with our employee which I know we have.

That seems very sad - that with extra support from youth services they aren't prepared for adult life. Do they tend to 'grow up' or do they never really function in your experience.

I've known a number who drift into being signed off with anxiety, with some of it genuinely being anxiety and some of it being emotional struggles to cope with expectations and without support; some who flit from one job to another, and sadly it tends to often go long term with addictions in men, with this happening less often for young women who tend to have a partner and children, and so support that way. Their experience of work was often very brief day or couple of days at a workplace after support to apply, support to interview, and then as Binterested said, a workplace and manager who were happily prepared to support a vulnerable employee and go the extra mile, but not to provide a therapeutic project. If your new employee rings up and says they got drunk last night because they got anxious about whether they were good enough to do the job so won't be coming to work today, you're likely to be very sympathetic, but there's a limit to how long a workplace can support an employee doing this, and certainly not to tolerate this from all employees, which starts raising issues around competency, pay, equality of standards.

They were let down by services who focused on lovely experiences supposed to produce.... something.... often with very poorly defined outcomes vaguely to do with self confidence, and no real focus on how to support that person in coping in a work place, developing independence, skills, the ability to start taking responsibility for their needs and feelings, learning to handle expectations. Partly because often the workers weren't confident in those areas and didn't have the skills to do this, and partly because of a culture of, if I'm brutally honest and I'm quoting from a couple of very angry people from within the service, sympathy, enabling, lots of lovely values but not a lot of practicality, and workers enjoying the experience of being depended on and confided in.

I hope it was area specific and not widespread, and de funding had a lot to do with it from what I heard.

Thinking about it and also very relevant to the OP: a culture of staff following the young people's lead, seeing them as having all the answers and it not being a good thing for adults to lead or do anything more than facilitate.

"What would you all really like to do to improve your confidence?"
"We want to be pop stars."
"Great! We'll buy in singing teachers and make lovely plans about your image."

Well six week later there's been some fun singing lessons, but....

@Binterested

I recognise what Michelle has observed in the workplace. I employ quite a lot of people and we recently had our newest recruit in a fairly technical desk-based role ask us, within a month of starting, what we could do to support her mental health (generally - there didn’t seem to be any specific MH issues)

We are really good employers in a well paid industry. No one is overworked. No one is shouted at. Everyone is well managed and this particular person happens to have a really excellent manager. The business is highly respectful. But that’s not enough. There’s an in loco parentis role that I would not have dreamed of looking to my employer to fulfil when I was starting out.

I wonder if some of this is because so many more kids now go to university. There is a real expectation now that universities provide these services for mental health.

It's a bit odd in a way, obviously t makes sense in a place with all kinds of students who are not at home to make sure they have access to health care when they need it. And some students are young and may need a little help with no parents around.

But generally, why would university students in particular need more than the regular health care services provide. I realise MH is underserved in many areas, so that's bad. But why do universities in particular need to fill that gap?

It may be that is creating this expectation among young people that employers will then offer the same kind of supports.

I am not sure if this is off-topic or not, but something I have been thinking about is the "negotiating" style of parenting but it's pure style - the child will never be allowed to "win" on certain issues.

In my parenting, there are things I'll facilitate a genuine negotiation on (eg, what's for dinner, within reason) and other things which are not open to negotiation (there comes a point when it just is bedtime; if you have a prescribed medicine, you have to take it). I find it really creepy to observe manipulative parenting where the parent is "gently" steering the child towards ultimately taking the medicine.

With, for eg, "should I take my coat" it's a matter of opinion - if I'm pretty sure the child will be cold without it, I will strongly encourage the child to take the coat but ultimately the child is free to refuse to (but I will always finish off by saying "ok but you are not allowed to moan at me if you get cold").

If I believe the child really needs to take the medicine, I will not even be using the language of negotiation and choice. I will be saying things like "I know you hate it, and I'm sure it is disgusting, but I'm afraid you just have to take it."

I have seen people negotiate their children into compliance when I am pretty sure that "no" has never really been an option. So the child has an illusion of power that was never real. I find this really troubling for some reason.

That’s one of my mum’s favourite hobby horses. Why do MC kids get to go to university and spend three years exploring who they really are and have loads of MH support? No one arranges for a plumber’s apprentice or a shop worker to have that kind of handholding yet they are also only 18 and just as vulnerable.

@SenselessUbiquity

I am not sure if this is off-topic or not, but something I have been thinking about is the "negotiating" style of parenting but it's pure style - the child will never be allowed to "win" on certain issues.

In my parenting, there are things I'll facilitate a genuine negotiation on (eg, what's for dinner, within reason) and other things which are not open to negotiation (there comes a point when it just is bedtime; if you have a prescribed medicine, you have to take it). I find it really creepy to observe manipulative parenting where the parent is "gently" steering the child towards ultimately taking the medicine.

With, for eg, "should I take my coat" it's a matter of opinion - if I'm pretty sure the child will be cold without it, I will strongly encourage the child to take the coat but ultimately the child is free to refuse to (but I will always finish off by saying "ok but you are not allowed to moan at me if you get cold").

If I believe the child really needs to take the medicine, I will not even be using the language of negotiation and choice. I will be saying things like "I know you hate it, and I'm sure it is disgusting, but I'm afraid you just have to take it."

I have seen people negotiate their children into compliance when I am pretty sure that "no" has never really been an option. So the child has an illusion of power that was never real. I find this really troubling for some reason.

It's manipulation. Like an illusion of democracy.

And it steals away the child's chance to really be pissed off at the parent, which sounds weird but I think it's important. Basically in the interests of avoiding the parent feeling bad or having to accept they are acting as the authority. A lot of people are very uncomfortable with that idea.

People entering adulthood now have spent most of their lives under austerity. They have had a very different experience to millennials.

Most young people, even most students, don’t care about safe spaces.

Mental health issues have massively increased, alongside domestic violence, service cuts, insecure contracts, a housing crisis and child poverty.

I work in a shop. They have a whole array of general mental health support for all employees. My sister works for a different shop and they do too. It can’t be that unusual for employers to have thought about Maintaining employee’s mental health.

My mum and my daughter are my best friends. We all know what our moral boundaries are.

But why should an employer provide an arsenal of menta health support? A workplace should be a functioning, healthy, civil if not pleasant environment, but the idea that it should seek to do more than that, except for those with menta health issues that constitute a disability, is very odd. They are your employer, they aren’t in loco parentis.

I also have yet to see an organisation that teaches managers how to manage well, yet many send out all kinds of well-being nonsense. It feels like yet another case of abdicating responsibilities- hey, look at our shiny well being programme! Our managers? Let’s just not talk about them...

Agree Loelia. I take incredibly seriously the responsibility of running a decent organisation which pays well, provides benefits, provides interesting and valuable work, respects people, supports people through particular challenges in their lives, upholds a decent culture, doesn’t exploit people or the environment - and pays taxes. That’s already pretty tough.