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The Relentlessness of Modern Parenting
- lotsofpulp 8y agoThat graph with quintiles is a nice illustration of the 80-20 rule.
- aczerepinski 8y agoAs someone in a high cost of living area, I looked jealously at that top quintile on the chart.
- lotsofpulp 8y agoIt basically validates all those parents’ efforts to get their kids into the top 20%, because otherwise you’re treading water or sinking.
- Reedx 8y agoIt seems the pendulum is starting to swing back as we see the unintended consequences of over parenting. Especially bulldozer parenting. Check out the book, "The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure" for a deep dive into this. I think it's helpful to look at it this way: The job of a parent is to put themselves out of a job.
- markbnj 8y agoAre you a parent? You're never out of a job :). I'm 58, my parents are in their 80's, and my daughters are in their 20's, so my opinion in this matter is somewhat informed.
- cobbzilla 8y agoSure there are aspects of parenting that continue forever, but I’m sure glad my wife and I are both out of the “diaper changing” job. There are hundreds of other parenting “jobs” to work oneself out of, by teaching your kids to manage the world, confidently, by themselves. I think the larger point may be that some so-called “helicopter parents” might never work towards this, to the detriment of their children’s mental health - and their long-term family relationships.
- Diederich 8y agoWell said, thank you.
- newshorts 8y agoThen by all means, please share your opinions
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Diederich 8y agoMy wife and I are in our early 50s, and we have one teenage son. Her parents are dead, and mine are in their mid 70s, though my parents had no hand in raising me, my dad's parents did. They are both long passed. > my opinion in this matter is somewhat informed. Good deal...and so is mine. > > The job of a parent is to put themselves out of a job. > Are you a parent? You're never out of a job :). Context matters. You and the person you're replying to are talking about different things, and if you didn't realize that, I'd be fairly surprised, given your experience. The person you're replying to is talking (roughly) about getting their children on their feet and self supporting. You're talking about other kinds of support.
- darkerside 8y agoI agree with OP. You do the best you can to put yourself out of a job, then you eventually die, and your family copes.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- neogodless 8y agoI imagine there's a better way to phrase that - i.e. "You're trying to raise an adult, someone with full capacity to make educated decisions, problem solve, improve their skill set, etc. In other words, be fully autonomous and capable." That's much wordier, but I think there's a lot of ambiguity in "putting yourself out of a job." It's a cliche, so it has some meaning to it, but I don't like how it leaves room for interpretation of how you put yourself out of that job. There's a million ways to reach that objective without actually doing a good job as a parent or ending up with a responsible grown up offspring. Least of all, you probably don't want the relationship to end, nor do you want to stop being available if they want emotional support or a little wisdom.
- blueatlas 8y agoIf you wanna know how you can help your children, leave them the fuck alone! - George Carlin
- perfmode 8y agoIf only we’d fix structural and societal problems so that parents don’t feel as though they need to undertake a Herculean task to help their child navigate a world with few opportunities and many roadblocks.
- ideonexus 8y agoI didn't realize it until I read this article, but this is what keeps me up at night and motivates me to spend so much time and effort on my children. Making sure my kids are successful adults and maintain the economic lifestyle my programming career currently affords them is why I send them to camps all summer long and martial arts classes in the afternoons to improve their focus. It's why my wife and I spent hours working on our son's application to the gifted program recently and stress them out over getting their homework done each night. The future feels uncertain and unstable. My kids need to be prepared for anything. Are we over-parenting? Absolutely. But if I let my kids go free-range and they have a hard time as adults, the same exact people who accuse us of over-parenting will be right there accusing us of under-parenting. The same childless people who sneer at us for keeping our kids challenged and engaged are the ones who sneer at us when we give the kids an hour of screen time at the end of the day or when one of our children has an age-appropriate temper-tantrum. We parents are damned if we do and damned if we don't.
- rimliu 8y agoI am not convinced that with this attitude your kids won’t have a harder time as adults.
- kleiba 8y agoI think you missed the <irony> tag in the OP.
- deadmetheny 8y agoI'm not convinced it's actually supposed to be ironic.
- brazzy 8y agoI'm not convinced everyone here is interpreting the double negatives the same way.
- Taylor_OD 8y ago
- arikr 8y agoThe book "Selfish reasons to have more kids" by Bryan Caplan is a good antidote to this attitude
- choombak 8y agoI believe it is no business of the Government to dictate how we bring up children. Period.
- happytoexplain 8y agoI think this is an easy and satisfying absolute to declare, but absolutes are often poison.
- dmschulman 8y agoAre you speaking to any particular aspect of government control when it comes to raising a child? I believe it is the government's place to ensure a bare minimum of responsibility and accountability when it comes to parenting and the welfare of children as it helps provide a benefit to others in society who will undoubtedly interact with this person you're raising as well a protection to the child themselves.
- skh 8y agoGiven that there are 300+ million people in the U.S. and it isn’t feasible for all of them to live off the land it’s good that we organize ourselves into a society. The structure for this organizing is government and society’s wishes are in principle reflected by the laws enacted by government. We all live in communities and it’s in everyone’s interests that certain standards are upheld. Society is right to enforce standards of care.
- jefurii 8y agoI believe it is no business of corporations to dictate how we bring up children. Period.
- 51lver 8y agoParents should smoke, kids need sugar, toys bring kids happiness and parents peace.... Lies by thieves.
- SketchySeaBeast 8y ago> I believe it is no business of the Government to dictate how we bring up children. Period. How do you feel about "lock em in the closet until they are an adult" style?
- eigenschwarz 8y agoIt seems more and more that having kids perpetuates the original Ponzi scheme of life between the young and the old. One that exists via billions of years of evolution producing powerful psychological selective pressures to reproduce.
- gdubs 8y agoIronically we end up creating a ton of anxiety for kids. And unless we’re giving kids the love and tools needed to process that anxiety, well, then we’re missing the forest for the trees. I have three kids under five years old, and man it goes fast. My philosophy has evolved to this: they’re their own people, not extensions of our own ego, and in the limited time we have influence over them we can help them develop core habits that will be useful throughout their lives.
- GreeniFi 8y agoHow do you do this?
- xamuel 8y agoNot the person you replied to, but re: forming good habits: I make a point that instead of saying e.g. "Wow, you're so good at drawing" to my kids, instead I say e.g. "Wow, you're getting so good at drawing because you keep practicing so much! It feels so good to practice and improve!" Works great so far :)
- GreeniFi 8y agoThanks!
- bootsz 8y ago> they’re their own people, not extensions of our own ego So true. I feel like a large portion of all the conflict that arises between parents and children stems from a failure to understand this.
- knight17 8y ago"Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bow from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrow may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness; For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable." - The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran I got the above from an HN comment on the topic of raising kids. I noted it in my personal wiki and this changed the way I think about this topic. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11006199 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11006199 Gibran's The Prophet was published in 1923 so it is now (2019) in the public domain in the USA. http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/58585 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/58585
- pnw_hazor 8y ago"The new trappings of intensive parenting are largely fixtures of white, upper-middle-class American culture, but researchers say the expectations have permeated all corners of society, whether or not parents can achieve them." We raised two girls in the Pacific Northwest of USA. Many of the families participating in same extra activities as us (e.g, gymnastics, figure skating, dance, ballet, gifted programs, swimming, SAT training) were immigrant families. We spent a lot of money but the result was worth it and the ride was fun as hell. However, I was raised free-range in a poor single-parent household and that worked out too.
- pnathan 8y agoThe policy we are taking is to have specific expectations, but vast freedom outside of those expectations. We specifically are interested in allowing our child (~2) to have highly unstructured play, within specific limits. - Child does go to specific play groups, 1-2x/wk. - Child does have to sit still and have a book read to them, several times per day. - Child does have to treat the cat right. - Child does go out to eat with us- and has to behave correctly in the restaurant. On the other hand, child is supplied with several kinds of blocks, toy buses & trains, dolls, stuffed animals, and other bits for an imaginative play; maybe 70% of child's waking life is undirected play; 10-20% of that is parent by the side. Child is naturally athletic & enjoys music and we plan to take them to games & orchestra - probably enroll in kid gym?. The notion we're aiming towards is autonomy & judgement, with adequate exposure to make good decisions. Child will be administratively exposed to many things; but this mass scheduling of life and running hither and yon constantly is for the birds. Child needs to be able to put their feet up and dream languorously, thinking thoughts that aren't poured into them.
- pnw_hazor 8y agoKinder gym followed up by a couple years of artistic gymnastics is a great base for any active kid. They will quickly age out of it (unless they want to seriously compete) but the base skills will help them in their other athletic/active pursuits. Also, in our experience, individual sports/activities, such as, dance, figure skating, gymnastics seemed to teach [our kids] a lot about personal responsibility. In the individual sports/activities, it seemed their coaches/instructors really made it a point to enforce/promote individual personal responsibility more than team based sports/activities. In hindsight, this is unsurprising, I guess. I say in hindsight, because at the time I was mildly concerned they were missing out on not being interested team sports. Don't forget clubs too. FIRST Robotics was a big win for my girls. And most importantly, good modeling by parents and other family.
- gf263 8y agoAs a 20 something without kids, my parenting idea would be to just not give them any trauma and let them be their own people
- Klathmon 8y agoThat's like saying that all programmers have to do is make the program and not make any bugs ;) The how is the important part!
- sigfubar 8y agoHow to draw an owl: a step-by-step buide. Step 1: Draw two overlapping circles. Step 2: Draw the rest of the fucking owl.
- beart 8y agoWhen do you consider a child to be their own person? What about all the years before that?
- nvusuvu 8y agoDay 1. Birth. My experience is they come with personalities from the first day. They just need more help early on. My goal is to mold them into autonomous agents to act. Each kid is on that path. Age is just a number, but I'm shooting to be mostly done by the time each hits 18.
- analog31 8y agoYou won't know until you have kids, though the way that you and your spouse were raised will be a good indicator. If you were raised differently, some reconciliation will be needed otherwise control will revert to the more "activist" parent. And having one kid won't tell you what it's like to have two, though your relationships with your siblings may be predictive. I'm now of the opinion that behavior is driven by genetics to a considerable extent. Self disciplined parents with perfect control of their emotions will have self disciplined kids with perfect control of their emotions. These are also the people for whom all parenting methods work. For everybody else... good luck.
- thisisweirdok 8y agoNot surprising considering for the past 2-3 generations we've been seeing kids often worse-off than their parents. Crippling student debt, insane healthcare costs, soaring housing prices in major cities. People are anxious and things are more competitive. All while worker productivity continues to increase with stagnant wages. If you look at adjusted median household income over the past 20 years its either stayed roughly the same or declined. Median home prices dipped during the recession, but have already outpaced median wage growth again. We don't want our kids to be subject to this, so we push them to be better than their competition. Being the top 50% isn't often a comfortable life anymore so we're pushing them to squeeze into the top 10-20%. The wealth gap in this country is squeezing all the joy out of life for every penny its worth.
- antisthenes 8y agoWell put. I personally would opt out of having a kid if I knew they were going to end up outside of the top 20%. I just don't want that life for them and I'm not sure I can guarantee that they end up in the top percentiles. > The wealth gap in this country is squeezing all the joy out of life for every penny its worth. Every capitalist society needs a periodical wealth tax, otherwise the natural accumulation of wealth results in such a gap.
- aeontech 8y agoEven if you are a millionaire your kid might end up penniless (cf. Great Depression or any number of squandered fortunes throughout history). Even if you are are born in a eastern european village you might survive a world war and end up in a comfortable American middle upper class lifestyle). You can’t guarantee anything in life, all you can do is do your best for your kid and let them fly as well as they can. And, agreed about the wealth tax :)
- thisisweirdok 8y agoSure but the Great Depression and squandered fortunes are extreme examples. The median in the US is being completely hammered without any extreme circumstance at play.
- GreeniFi 8y agoI had a so-called free-range childhood. It’s impossible, as only one data point, for me to extrapolate its impact and given the diversity of “free-range” I suspect it’s pretty difficult to link to definitive characteristic traits. That said I do observe certain differences in my character to those of friends who were factory farmed: greater emotional resilience, (despite) greater emotional volatility, worse table manners. I have children of my own now and I struggle with the idea of letting them roam as I did. Yet I grew up in dangerous times - as an anecdotal aside once whilst on an adventure, I ran into a group of young and armed militia soldiers. As protection, my friend and I were carrying a cow femur (not sure where we acquired it) and a kitchen knife. I guess we were about 10. The militia, who were by the way a different ethnic group to us, could have caused us some serious problems. But instead we hung out with them for a few hours and they let us play with their AK47s. Man, right now I’m even struggling to believe that happened. I’m still friends with my childhood buddy. I’m going to check in with him and see what he remembers.
- AnimalMuppet 8y agoOut of curiosity, where was this?
- GreeniFi 8y agoSouth London :-) [Edit: just joking, see response above]
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- jacobush 8y agoResponse above does not really give an answer as to where. And I could have sort of have believed South London except that I was under the impression that AK-47s are not very prevalent there. :) I was thinking Yugoslavia, some conflict corner of Africa or such things. But could see Detroit too... edit: found your answer.
- deleted 8y ago
- greenail 8y agoI wonder how this relates to the rate of divorce and general healthiness of today's relationships.
- kazinator 8y agoIf the motivation is economic anxiety, then forget piano and soccer practice; enroll the five-year-old in something directly related to making and managing money. I'm only half kidding.
- pbhjpbhj 8y agoSTEM club?
- strikelaserclaw 8y agoThe soccer and piano practice is to get into Harvard.
- Animats 8y agoKey quote: "As the gap between rich and poor increases, the cost of screwing up increases. The fear is they’ll end up on the other side of the divide." In 1970, failure was a job on the assembly line at Ford in Detroit. Until 1974, the auto companies didn't require a high school diploma. Union job, good pay. Now it's homelessness and drug addiction.
- toasterlovin 8y agoSo there were no homeless or drug addicts before the 90s?
- sdinsn 8y agoThere were significantly less before the 80s.
- aidenn0 8y agoI believe Animats meant academic failure.
- InclinedPlane 8y agoOverdose deaths have quadrupled since the '90s alone, suicide rates have increased by about 30%, as have alcohol related deaths.
- cybersol 8y agoI was interested in this statistic and how it compares to say the 1960's and 70's. If you look without adjusting for population you just get an exponential increase that overwhelms the signal. But the statistics adjusting for population still back up your claim here: https://www.statista.com/statistics/184603/deaths-by-unintentional-poisoning-in-the-us-since-1950/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/184603/deaths-by-uninten...
- telchar 8y agoI'm relatively young and have to say that awareness of that increasing gap has significantly influenced some of my life's decision-making. By the time I was coming up, the trend was clear and so factored in goals and plans. I think I've made it to the side of the divide where I'm not at great risk of falling over, but it's unfortunate to see some of my peers who were less informed or less cynical finding themselves on the other side with progressively less opportunity.
- throwaway713 8y agoI think over-parenting can be disastrous, particularly emotionally. I had what you might call a "strict" father (mother passed away when I was young), but he was never a helicopter parent. My sister and I were always expected to do things well, but we were never handheld along the way. I finished second in my high school class, and everyone always seemed so surprised when I told them that I never had any help with homework or school projects. I was just told to do my best (whatever grade that might result in). And while my dad was probably a little on the overprotective side when it came to safety, the ability to "figure things out" myself helped drastically when I finally went out on my own. My wife on the other hand... I hate to use the word "coddled", but I am absolutely astounded at how many basic tasks and life skills were never taught to her. She never learned that you can't dump all of your clothes in the washing machine and set it on hot. She never learned that not watering the yard will quickly kill all of the grass. When I was talking about scheduling a prostate exam, she asked if I could schedule hers too, and I had to explain that women don't have prostates (when she was a kid, she was horrified the first time she had her period because no one explained what that was either). She doesn't want to get a job because she says she won't have enough vacation time for visiting family, so she's currently living off my income (we don't have children). Her brother finished his PhD over a year ago but has not applied to any jobs and lives in the basement playing video games. I love my wife a lot, but it somehow slipped my attention before we got married that her parents failed her in a big way by doing absolutely everything for her and her siblings. It's translated into a lack of basic adult skills, and I often feel like I'm not a husband in the relationship, but a parent. When I eventually have kids of my own, "figure it out yourself" is going to be a common refrain, because "I'll take care of it" apparently results in a disaster.
- Code_Slave 8y agoThis is exactly my wife of 25 years. I felt I had to raise her at times too. Please please be vigilant with your kids. We had huge issues there for a while. talk talk talk :) and good luck
- telchar 8y agoThere's a significant gulf between "I'll take care of it" and "figure it out yourself". I'm not really disagreeing with anything here, to be clear. But I think there's a place for useful instruction too.
- kingraoul3 8y ago“Intensive parenting is a way for especially affluent white mothers to make sure their children are maintaining their advantaged position in society,” said Jessica Calarco, a sociologist at Indiana University and author of “Negotiating Opportunities: How the Middle Class Secures Advantages in School.” I guess especially affluent mother of color don't do this? NYT conflating race and class to divide people again.
- JoeAltmaier 8y agoAgreed. Affluent mothers feed their kids well too. And give them proper medical care. And live in places safer for kids to grow up. It's actually the reason we try to make more money. Its not a game; we earn so we can live better. That's how its supposed to work.
- Pulcinella 8y agoPerhaps all children should receive good medical care, good food, and safe places to live.
- JoeAltmaier 8y agoThere is some minimum societal level of care that we could attain of course. Enlightened self-interest and whatnot. What is the limit? Are we there yet? Doesn't ever seem to be part of the discussion - just hearing ivory-tower claims that everything is possible and nothing is too much.
- darkerside 8y agoYeah, that's upsetting. If I were paranoid, I'd consider whether it were intentional brainwashing designed to perpetuate the superiority of the white race. Of course, I'm not paranoid, so I don't think it's intentional at all. But, I do think it may have that unintended effect.
- telchar 8y agoI think it's become a meme, something many writers use without considering whether both affluence AND race are significant in a given situation. They often are and so I suspect some people use them together without thinking in situations when they're not.
- scubaguy 8y agoUnlike my parents. I have the opportunity to help coach my daughter's soccer team, to read to them each night, to choose from a number of extracurricular activities that we can afford, and attend parent-teacher conferences. Does that mean my wife and I devote more to our children than our parents? Most likely not. Across generations, we're all struggling to be the best parents we can, even if the methods look very different.
- orangeeater 8y ago> Intensive parenting is a way for especially affluent white mothers to make sure their children are maintaining their advantaged position in society Urgh. Really? I think intensive parenting is an arms race, more or less. I don't know if it "works" but I think it's increasingly common mainly due to a feedback loop of parental anxiety. I don't think it has a thing to do with race, though.
- lewis500 8y agoLooking back on my own childhood, I'm skeptical how much anything alleged to "enrich" the children actually made a difference. I recall most of all piano lessons. When I was a kid, every kid had to learn piano. Today, no adult I know ever plays piano; they forgot how because they don't like it and no one wants to hear it because it's boring. I know one serious professional musician. He taught himself guitar for our high school punk band and got super interested in guitar technique. Now, you could say they learned "discipline" from the piano lessons. But how do we know? I don't see any relationship between who took the most piano and who became a doctor, etc. My view of piano lessons, and other enrichement, is that they are sort of homeopathy for parents' anxiety about their kids' future. Even when there is nothing to do for someone's medical condition, lots of people will turn to quack treatments out of anxiety, and these quack treatments involve a host of immeasurable concepts like "toxins" proposed to imitate the kind of causation we know of for better-known treatments. Same with piano lessons: your parents are too anxious about you to sit on their hands, so they make you practice piano and tell themselves, and each other, that you're learning "focus," some magic property that will stay in your brain one day even when they're not around. I don't buy it. Nobody made their kids take piano because they read a bunch of studies proving it makes your kid choose to go to med school or whatever; they clung to it automatically because they wanted to believe in it.
- pbhjpbhj 8y agoI didn't start piano until I was about 13, which I gather is relatively late (my parents thought I wouldn't want to go, I was a naughty child; mainly because I was bullied, but that's a different story). The piano was an absolute lifeline for me as a teenager, for catharsis primarily.
- lewis500 8y agoDon’t get me wrong. I think the actual activities parents get their kids to do can be wonderful experiences, especially if you undertake them on your own. What I’m skeptical of is that these experiences hydraulically translate into success as adults, which is what the parents are often trying to accomplish.
- InclinedPlane 8y agoIt's easy to forget that the purpose of parenting and raising children isn't to baby sit them for 18 years, cram them full of "information" and then turn them loose on the world. The purpose is to incrementally transform them from children into adults-in-training into full adults. That necessitates allowing minors responsibility, agency, and autonomy prior to becoming adults, otherwise they will have no experience (and no mastery) of those things when they become adults. And that necessitates risk, because without risk there is no true responsibility, agency, or autonomy. Kids are going to make mistakes, but it's important that they be their mistakes, otherwise they can't learn, they can't have ownership of their lives, they can't grow in their sense of self and in their emotional maturity, they can't acquire resiliency, etc.
- killjoywashere 8y agoI used to take the city bus for a quarter to the public library in the fourth grade, 2 miles away. My mom's the one who taught me to use the bus. I know it was fourth grade because we moved to another city when I was in the fifth grade. That was in 1988. My wife would barely let the kids play in the front yard despite us living in signficantly wealthier, lower-crime neighborhoods.
- pnw_hazor 8y agoMy oldest daughter still claims PTSD from my wife's reaction one time as a ~10yo she was caught playing outside in the cul-de-sac w/o permission while we were not home -- with boys no less. The horror. I wasn't home, and my wife swears she doesn't remember the incident, though younger sibling has offered corroborating evidence.
- skookumchuck 8y agoI've often wondered if a contributing factor to teen suicides is the parents' effort to remove all hint of failure from their kids' lives. This is possible when they're young, you can do the "everyone's a winner!" thing and it works. But the kids fail to learn to cope with failure in the small things, and by the time they're a teen the parents can no longer protect them from the consequences of failing. They have learned no coping skills, and cannot handle it.
- wonderwonder 8y agoRelentless really is a good word to describe it. It is just endlessly time consuming raising kids. I don't even feel like I am doing anything special, just making sure they do their homework, are entertained and safe. By the time their bedtime rolls around I am exhausted. Yet the thought of doing less does not even occur to me as I would see that as short changing my kids whom I care greatly for. I don't do it as some sort of fear of my kids not succeeding in a world with limited resources, I just see it as the natural duty of a parent to do everything I can to ensure my kids get the attention they need. Just a personal note, I found it irritating that the author felt the need to write “Intensive parenting is a way for especially affluent white mothers to make sure their children are maintaining their advantaged position in society.” I am pretty sure the mothers just want their kids to have the best lives they can, as do all parents regardless of the color of their skin. I don't think they approach it from the view that they are participants in some great racial struggle. Of course they want their kids to do as well or better than them, all parents do, or should. Seemed like a pointless, finger wagging thing to say.
- danmaz74 8y agoI remember the trope about "tiger moms" which was about Asian mothers. I wonder if it's still a thing.
- barry-cotter 8y agoIt’s the children of the winners of the meritocracy being crammed into enriching activities on the false premise that it will help their children in the tournament for their generation in both cases.
- danmaz74 8y agoWhy do you think it's a false promise?
- geebee 8y agoInteresting observation. There is a personal angle, and a group identity one. Some people tend to view personal decisions through the lense of group identity, especially as it pertains to power struggles between groups. Class struggle was a common point of analysis, and still is, though intersectionality tends to emphasize racial and gender struggles. For a mainstream news source, The nytimes leans heavily left and often will analyze social phenomena through the framework of group identity and power structures.
- strikelaserclaw 8y agoIts like we are engineering super workers for modern society. At some point, human happiness really needs to come up over trying to maximize production.
- em-bee 8y agoresponding to a few points raised in the article: children sleeping with parents is not monitoring them, but it is related to attachment theory (i think that is the term) where children who are very close to the parents in the beginning are actually more independent when they are older. in other words parents and children sleeping together is enabling free range parenting. babies sleeping alone in a room instead are more likely to develop anxieties that later make them much more dependent on parental support. watching TV together with the children is not needed to enhance the learning, but to protect the children from violence and many other things that passes as childrens TV nowadays. (tom and jerry is almost harmless in that regard. i am looking at power rangers and many others that i consider just unacceptable for kids to watch. heck even lion king shocked me when i saw it the first time. the cruelty displayed in that story is not something i want to subject my kids to. i'd rather let them run unsupervised into the forest, where they may stumble and get hurt, but won't be traumatized by an unrealistic and cruel story)
- uwbassist 8y agoI'm surprised to not see any reference to "Kids These Days: Human Capital and the Making of Millennials," a well-supported account of the interactions between parenting norms and the economy. In a sentence: there is more and more pressure on parents to train their kids, so they enter the workforce more valuable to employers.