How we raise our babies and How our parents raised us? – 7 Things
Parenting has changed radically over the past few years. Let’s compare how our parents raised us versus how we raise our babies. We’ll discuss these trends in detail and the factors driving them. We’ll also note the pros and cons of these trends.
01. There’s an App for That
There is an ongoing joke that no matter what you want, there’s an app for that. You could check on your home security system via an app and respond to a visitor at the door.
The same technology can be used to verify that children have come home from school or check in on the childcare provider. You may be tracking the child’s feeding and sleep schedule via an app as well as your own exercise routine.
Entertaining a baby or practicing math facts are increasingly done with an app, too, instead of giving them a toy or flash cards.
02. Feeling Bad Is Considered Morally Bad
The self-esteem movement has taken over society. It was based on research that mistook correlation for causation. They saw that many criminals had poor self-esteem and assumed that good self-esteem prevented crime.
They also saw that many kids with great academic achievements had good self-esteem. The end result was an endless push to improve self-esteem.
The problem is that valid self-esteem comes from accomplishments. Telling kids they should always feel good no matter what happens deprives them of the opportunity to learn how to deal with rejection and failure constructively. Saying everyone is a winner actually contributes to anxiety, because kids think that we don’t think they can actually achieve things on their own.
After all, we’re depriving them of the competition that lets them prove they are better.
This movement hits parents in a number of ways. One is being told that you’re hurting your child if you hurt their feelings. This can lead to pressure by strangers to give your child what they want, regardless of the request, though the parent said no.
Unfortunately, this undermines parental authority and healthy boundaries. It also means that many parents feel like telling their children no is harmful, so they give in to every request.
The problem is that it leaves children ill-prepared to deal with boundaries later in life, whether teachers disciplining them for taking things or police arresting you for assaulting others.
Young adults who throw tantrums when they don’t get the coveted internship or encounter people who refuse to go along with their whims end up lonely and even unemployable.
Social media provides people with a great way to stay in touch. Unfortunately, it means that strangers may see that cute video of your baby in the bath. Whether they mock it or worse depends on the person.
Parents often overlook the fact that social media searches are routinely done before going on a date or interviewing someone. Now that cute kid video you posted several years ago could literally hurt them in real life.
Social media is crippling kids in other ways. They have many virtual friends but lack healthy, strong social relationships in real life. This leaves them anxious and lonely despite the illusion of connection. It also leaves them vulnerable to abuse and suicide, because an online hate mob makes it seem like everyone in the world hates them.
Spending too much time online also means they don’t learn how to relate to others in real life, limiting their ability to form real, close relationships in the first place.
04. Knowing Much More Much Sooner
Second trimester sonograms to learn the child’s gender are so common that parents who say they’ll wait until the baby is born to find out what it is are considered weird. A study found that prenatal blood tests are rather accurate in determining the sex of the child.
This opens the door to knowing whether you’re having a boy or a girl soon after you discover you’re pregnant.
05. The Evolution of Strollers Is Amazing
We’ve had collapsible strollers since around 1990. Travel systems that allow you to link an infant carrier to a stroller or car seat are even more convenient. These technologies continue to become safer and easier to use.
However, strollers are starting to revert back to the old designs where children faced the adult instead of facing outward. This is because studies suggested that facing outward interfered in the child’s language development.
06. The Evolution of Baby Furniture Is Ongoing
Drop-side cribs were considered convenient. They’re now considered too dangerous to be sold to families. Crib-bumpers were designed to prevent children from hitting hard crib raise and reduce the odds they got arms stuck in between the bars.
Now they’re considered dangerous, because they were choking hazards. We continue to see cribs and other furniture that can “grow” with the child, since parents don’t want to have to buy and sell furniture (or store it) as their children grow.
07. The Growth of Car Seats Continues
Car seats haven’t become simpler to use or install. However, regulations are making it necessary to use them longer than before.
For example, car seats are now mandatory for children up through the first two to three years of life. Then you’re often required to keep them in a booster seat.
This is based on research that shows that children in booster seats were nearly half as likely to be injured in a crash over children secured by only a seat belt.
Conclusion
Parenting has changed radically over the past twenty years. Some of the innovations that arrived when we were younger have been rolled back, while others remain in effect despite the problems they create. This means we may not make the mistakes our parents did, but we are likely to make new ones.