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>Parents today spend more than twice as much time today with their kids today than fifty years ago That's a good point but there's some detail missing here: ho

>Parents today spend more than twice as much time today with their kids today than fifty years ago That's a good point but there's some detail missing here: how are the kids being raised. Historically, kids were raised within a tribal or quasi-tribal structure. When you have grandparents, siblings, cousins, uncles and aunts always around, room to play and explore, you don't need parents to be there 24/7 hovering over you. You learn independence as well as a way to interact and negotiate with others. What this looks like is the worst of all words. The kids are abandoned to a set of nannies and managed activities, while the mother and father live their own lives.

barry-cotter 7y ago
> Historically, kids were raised within a tribal or quasi-tribal structure. When you have grandparents, siblings, cousins, uncles and aunts always around, room to play and explore, you don't need parents to be there 24/7 hovering over you. You learn independence as well as a way to interact and negotiate with others. Mostly untrue in Western Europe for more than 500 years[1] and very much untrue in North America, to an even greater extent, since after WWII especially, but also before. Relatively late marriage and forming a new household upon marriage has been the norm in Western Europe since the 1500s in the North Sea region. North America was different in having earlier marriage because of labour scarcity and land abundance but nuclear families rather than extended family households were the norm in every decade and century among European descended peoples and those who assimilate to their culture. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_European_marriage_pattern https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_European_marriage_patt...
- zamfi 7y ago
  The quasi-tribal group doesn’t have to be actual relatives. Stay-at-home parents (mothers, really) in the neighborhood often played this role, even after WW2.
- macspoofing 7y ago
  The larger point was that though kids don't need their parents hovering over them and planning their activities, as it happens now, they still need a community - whether that community is are immediate or close relations, or a tribe, doesn't matter. If a kid has 6 siblings, you almost don't need parents to be anything other than income providers since the kids will socialize and raise themselves. The alternative of a parent living their own life, and abandoning kids to a nanny and a set of structured managed activities isn't that great. The nuclear family is perfectly fine too. That was also a reality throughout a lot human history. This mother describes the worst of all worlds. She's not involved in the lives of her kids. The kids are shuttled between her and her father. The nanny and her preschool teacher are the primary caregivers. It just isn't great. The fact that she wrote this article in the nyTimes to pat herself on the back for what a great job she's doing for society (Hint: She's not that important and society will survive without her) - is distasteful.
- Nimitz14 7y ago
  You seem to think that because a family moves into their own house they do not get support from relatives? This is obviously completely false, and until ~50 years ago most people lived near their relatives, who would obviously help out a lot with raising a child.
  - barry-cotter 7y ago
    Geographic mobility in the USA has been declining for decades but it’s still probably the most mobile least rooted nation in the Western world. Whether you’re talking about immigrants from abroad or internal migration from the North to the Sunbelt and South or post WWII migration to California, the Great Migration of Southern Blacks to what’s now the Rustbelt or before that Appalachians and Okies to the West Americans are extremely mobile. Most people live near their family still but a culture where the professional classes move away from home for college and probably move again for their first job will have a lot of people living nowhere near any family. Even apart from the professional classes people from economically depressed classes join the military in droves and they move where they’re sent and often settle there after their enlistment.

barry-cotter 7y ago

> Historically, kids were raised within a tribal or quasi-tribal structure. When you have grandparents, siblings, cousins, uncles and aunts always around, room to play and explore, you don't need parents to be there 24/7 hovering over you. You learn independence as well as a way to interact and negotiate with others. Mostly untrue in Western Europe for more than 500 years[1] and very much untrue in North America, to an even greater extent, since after WWII especially, but also before. Relatively late marriage and forming a new household upon marriage has been the norm in Western Europe since the 1500s in the North Sea region. North America was different in having earlier marriage because of labour scarcity and land abundance but nuclear families rather than extended family households were the norm in every decade and century among European descended peoples and those who assimilate to their culture. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_European_marriage_pattern https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_European_marriage_patt...

zamfi 7y ago
The quasi-tribal group doesn’t have to be actual relatives. Stay-at-home parents (mothers, really) in the neighborhood often played this role, even after WW2.
macspoofing 7y ago
The larger point was that though kids don't need their parents hovering over them and planning their activities, as it happens now, they still need a community - whether that community is are immediate or close relations, or a tribe, doesn't matter. If a kid has 6 siblings, you almost don't need parents to be anything other than income providers since the kids will socialize and raise themselves. The alternative of a parent living their own life, and abandoning kids to a nanny and a set of structured managed activities isn't that great. The nuclear family is perfectly fine too. That was also a reality throughout a lot human history. This mother describes the worst of all worlds. She's not involved in the lives of her kids. The kids are shuttled between her and her father. The nanny and her preschool teacher are the primary caregivers. It just isn't great. The fact that she wrote this article in the nyTimes to pat herself on the back for what a great job she's doing for society (Hint: She's not that important and society will survive without her) - is distasteful.
Nimitz14 7y ago
You seem to think that because a family moves into their own house they do not get support from relatives? This is obviously completely false, and until ~50 years ago most people lived near their relatives, who would obviously help out a lot with raising a child.
- barry-cotter 7y ago
  Geographic mobility in the USA has been declining for decades but it’s still probably the most mobile least rooted nation in the Western world. Whether you’re talking about immigrants from abroad or internal migration from the North to the Sunbelt and South or post WWII migration to California, the Great Migration of Southern Blacks to what’s now the Rustbelt or before that Appalachians and Okies to the West Americans are extremely mobile. Most people live near their family still but a culture where the professional classes move away from home for college and probably move again for their first job will have a lot of people living nowhere near any family. Even apart from the professional classes people from economically depressed classes join the military in droves and they move where they’re sent and often settle there after their enlistment.