5 ms·

For some reason, whenever I hear parenting advice (especially related to technology usage) and see that it's from someone my parents' age, I automatically stop

For some reason, whenever I hear parenting advice (especially related to technology usage) and see that it's from someone my parents' age, I automatically stop listening. I feel like they are so far removed from the challenges of parenting in this decade that they have nothing to offer us. Not that our challenges are harder than theirs, but just that they're such a different set of challenges that we can't relate to each other.

zwieback 9y ago
"automatically stop listening" is of course what young people always do to their elders but once the shoe is on the other foot you'll realize the wisdom of all that outdated advice. The details change but the basic patterns are eternally the same.
- tboyd47 9y ago
  It feels like the difference between the parent as a judge and a guide and the parent as a manager and secretary. My parents seemed to worry more about preventing kids from getting into trouble or making the wrong friends. My wife and I worry more about how to get them out of the house and make friends, period... and I hear this sentiment echoed every so often on HN (this being one of them). How do you get teenagers to go outside and interact with other teenagers? That would not even be a question 30 years ago. The question would be how to stop them from doing so. The advice I hear from the older generation so often just comes down to, "let kids be kids," but what about when you have to actually teach (and in some cases, force) kids to be kids? For my kids to have a healthy childhood, I almost have to create that childhood for them.
  - zwieback 9y ago
    Yeah, it can be tough. We sometimes kicked our kids out of the house and didn't go out with them. It helps to have a yard and other neighborhood kids in that case.
  - bg4 9y ago
    Possibly because the neighborhood is no longer considered "safe" for children to roam and explore.
    - BrazeBeefNoodle 9y ago
      Which is ironic because statistically it's dramatically safer than 20, 30, or 40 years ago.
      - tboyd47 9y ago
        Probably because no one goes outside! :)
        ddnb 9y ago
        Are you saying it's kids that make a neighbourhood unsafe?
  - wvenable 9y ago
    The speed at which this has changing is ridiculous -- I have two kids that are about 12 years apart in age. In a decade, things have already changed dramatically; it was a small issue then but now it's an epidemic.
  - Kluny 9y ago
    There's no place for them to go anymore. My solution (since I don't have kids yet) is to try to live in, or make "places". Ie agitate my city to build plazas, public gathering places and walkable neighborhoods in the hopes that my kids will get to enjoy them when they're old enough.
- btilly 9y ago
  ...what young people always do to their elders but once the shoe is on the other foot you'll realize the wisdom of all that outdated advice. Nope. My experience as a parent is that I have gone down the path towards intentionally deciding what philosophy I wish my children raised by. Random advice based on what others did is usually inapplicable. It is like receiving advice on discipline from someone who spanked their children. There is no point in even trying to explain to them why you think that what they did is wrong. If I happen to get advice that fits, then great. I'll take ideas from anywhere. But I strongly doubt that I'll regret my choice to teach children what it looks like for them to be treated with respect, or to decide that it would have been wise to do all of the standard things that the previous generation did that left children without that.
- Retra 9y ago
  "You'll understand when you're older" is something I heard from my parents a lot as a kid. And now that I'm older, I understand just how full of crap they were about that. I thought they were selfish and trite then, and they're no less selfish and trite today. The basic pattern is that anybody who lives their life carelessly peddling slogans is an idiot.
jacquesm 9y ago
"These are the moments when I wished I'd listened more to my mother" "Ok, what did she say?" "I don't know, I never listened..."
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
deeg 9y ago
I think you've stopped listening too soon. The exact circumstances have changed but the challenges are the same. For my parents the challenge was keeping me away from TV and video games; I would have played computer games for 24 hours straight if they had let me. Given the portability of devices today the physical challenges for you are different but the emotional ones are the same.
tclancy 9y ago
This is why "Every generation thinks they invented sex". The underlying challenges of parenting aren't specific to a decade or technology and I'm guessing how my parents handled the Atari is applicable to how I will handle the iPad.
snowwrestler 9y ago
I'd suggest there is a difference between parenting advice, and information about how children develop physically and mentally. Sure, any jerk on the street can offer advice on parenting. But humans are physical, deterministic meat machines. They work in a certain way, and that way does not change over a decade or two. The technology surrounding us does, but not the human. And there are people who study how humans work. It's worth listening to them on that subject.

zwieback 9y ago

"automatically stop listening" is of course what young people always do to their elders but once the shoe is on the other foot you'll realize the wisdom of all that outdated advice. The details change but the basic patterns are eternally the same.

tboyd47 9y ago
It feels like the difference between the parent as a judge and a guide and the parent as a manager and secretary. My parents seemed to worry more about preventing kids from getting into trouble or making the wrong friends. My wife and I worry more about how to get them out of the house and make friends, period... and I hear this sentiment echoed every so often on HN (this being one of them). How do you get teenagers to go outside and interact with other teenagers? That would not even be a question 30 years ago. The question would be how to stop them from doing so. The advice I hear from the older generation so often just comes down to, "let kids be kids," but what about when you have to actually teach (and in some cases, force) kids to be kids? For my kids to have a healthy childhood, I almost have to create that childhood for them.
- zwieback 9y ago
  Yeah, it can be tough. We sometimes kicked our kids out of the house and didn't go out with them. It helps to have a yard and other neighborhood kids in that case.
- bg4 9y ago
  Possibly because the neighborhood is no longer considered "safe" for children to roam and explore.
  - BrazeBeefNoodle 9y ago
    Which is ironic because statistically it's dramatically safer than 20, 30, or 40 years ago.
    - tboyd47 9y ago
      Probably because no one goes outside! :)
      - ddnb 9y ago
        Are you saying it's kids that make a neighbourhood unsafe?
- wvenable 9y ago
  The speed at which this has changing is ridiculous -- I have two kids that are about 12 years apart in age. In a decade, things have already changed dramatically; it was a small issue then but now it's an epidemic.
- Kluny 9y ago
  There's no place for them to go anymore. My solution (since I don't have kids yet) is to try to live in, or make "places". Ie agitate my city to build plazas, public gathering places and walkable neighborhoods in the hopes that my kids will get to enjoy them when they're old enough.
btilly 9y ago
...what young people always do to their elders but once the shoe is on the other foot you'll realize the wisdom of all that outdated advice. Nope. My experience as a parent is that I have gone down the path towards intentionally deciding what philosophy I wish my children raised by. Random advice based on what others did is usually inapplicable. It is like receiving advice on discipline from someone who spanked their children. There is no point in even trying to explain to them why you think that what they did is wrong. If I happen to get advice that fits, then great. I'll take ideas from anywhere. But I strongly doubt that I'll regret my choice to teach children what it looks like for them to be treated with respect, or to decide that it would have been wise to do all of the standard things that the previous generation did that left children without that.
Retra 9y ago
"You'll understand when you're older" is something I heard from my parents a lot as a kid. And now that I'm older, I understand just how full of crap they were about that. I thought they were selfish and trite then, and they're no less selfish and trite today. The basic pattern is that anybody who lives their life carelessly peddling slogans is an idiot.

jacquesm 9y ago

"These are the moments when I wished I'd listened more to my mother" "Ok, what did she say?" "I don't know, I never listened..."

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

deeg 9y ago

I think you've stopped listening too soon. The exact circumstances have changed but the challenges are the same. For my parents the challenge was keeping me away from TV and video games; I would have played computer games for 24 hours straight if they had let me. Given the portability of devices today the physical challenges for you are different but the emotional ones are the same.

tclancy 9y ago

This is why "Every generation thinks they invented sex". The underlying challenges of parenting aren't specific to a decade or technology and I'm guessing how my parents handled the Atari is applicable to how I will handle the iPad.

snowwrestler 9y ago

I'd suggest there is a difference between parenting advice, and information about how children develop physically and mentally. Sure, any jerk on the street can offer advice on parenting. But humans are physical, deterministic meat machines. They work in a certain way, and that way does not change over a decade or two. The technology surrounding us does, but not the human. And there are people who study how humans work. It's worth listening to them on that subject.