| ▲ | TrackerFF 4 days ago |
| I grew up in the late 80s/early 90s, and came from a rural place with a lot of poverty and at best working class people. We'd be outside all day long - being inside was considered a privilege. Weekdays and weekends. Decades later, most of my peers have middle-class jobs. Their kids are barely outside. Their parents are involved with them from morning to evening, or chauffeuring them between sports and other extracurricular activities. Interestingly, I've heard from parents that many feel like they're both suffocating and feeling inadequate, at the same time. While many kids, both teens and younger, reporting that they're not getting enough space. |
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| ▲ | throwaway732255 4 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| > Interestingly, I've heard from parents that many feel like they're both suffocating and feeling inadequate When my spouse and I were dating, we made fun of those “overly involved parents” who tried to live vicariously through their kids and over-scheduled them. Since having kids, my spouse has (over a one year period) put our 5 year old in: T-ball, swimming, dance, theater, Sunday school, church, soccer, gymnastics, library group sessions, and to my absolute bewilderment and dismay—beauty pageants. On any given week, there are 5+ activities outside of school. My spouse stays up until 2 AM “helping” our daughter on her kindergarten school projects. Never mind all the activities our 2 year old is ramping up into. I don’t think this is healthy at all for children, and it’s really created a rift in our marriage. It’s been so bizarre to me to see this change in behavior from what we discussed prior to marriage compared to now. I worry the kids are going to burn out. I certainly didn’t grow up this way, and my personality as a kid would not have handled this well. When I was my daughter’s age, I was living in a foreign country due to my dad’s job at the time (didn’t have many “scheduled activities” though). Personally, I always thought being able to experience other cultures at an early age added significant value to my upbringing. My spouse however is adamantly opposed to even vacationing in foreign countries due to a fear of “something happening” to the children. Again, this represents a change in perspective that only came about in the last few years. I’m not sure what has happened with my spouse, but it definitely tracks the article’s observation that parents are becoming increasingly anxious and fearful and we’re likely suffocating our kids’ development. |
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| ▲ | fallinditch 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | My friend is one of those 'overly involved' parents with his daughter: tennis lessons and competitions, sailing lessons and competitions, skiing lessons and competitions. He sacrificed a huge amount of time to give his daughter every opportunity. I asked him one time "do you think she might end up hating you for making her do all these activities?" He thought it would be ok. He said "it will open doors for her. She's now so good at tennis that wherever she goes she'll be in demand to join the ladies team." Looks like he was right: she got into a good university with a sailing scholarship, she is athletic, has a good relationship with her parents and is an all round happy and pleasant person. | | |
| ▲ | antonymoose 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Isn’t that a bit like raising your kid with the intent of playing in the NBA though? I understand that it worked well for your friend and I am not knocking athletics, my own daughter is doing gymnastics, but that seems like either a post-hoc justification on the part of your friend or a strategy with a low rate of success such that it seems a bit odd to go for as a parent. Personally, I’ve seen far more of my helicopter-parented high-performance peers burn out and die in the last 15 years (I am in my mid thirties). I grew up in the Gifted and Talented cohort but without that Tiger Mom kind of parenting. I did fine, got a full ride to a state school, make good money and work a relaxed remote job. Most of my cohort went on to MIT, Stanford, Carnegie, the Ivy Leagues. Of the dozen or so I really think only one made it through that pipeline unscathed and successful. Several dropped out to become bums at their parent’s house, one was homeless and became a stripper. Two have sadly taken their own lives despite seemingly good FAANG careers. These are all “good kids” from stable middle class or even richer families. It’s a bit strange to have watched. | | |
| ▲ | fallinditch 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | That's sad. There are so many factors at play. I would say that with my friend and his daughter, one of the reasons it worked out well was because they spent so much time together: traveling to competitions, driving to the mountains for skiing every weekend. They enjoyed each other's company and bonded over these shared experiences, and things like introducing her to the Beatles and the Grateful Dead. | | |
| ▲ | marklubi 4 days ago | parent [-] | | > They enjoyed each other's company and bonded over these shared experiences My son competes on the national and international level in two different sports, so we do a lot of traveling. The bonding is very important, just as it is knowing when to get out of the way and let them shine. In one sport, I drop him off and pick him up for practice (he gets distracted/flustered when someone is there watching him practice). In the other, I practice with him and am trying to stay better than him as long as I can. There are a few other things I think are important... If they don't want to do something, don't push them to. My son decided not to compete in a national ranking event in a couple of months because his competitions are on Thursday and Saturday and he would miss three days of school when factoring in travel. Try to anticipate their eventual needs and make sure the right tools/equipment/etc. are available for them before they realize they needed it. Also, have backup equipment just in case something breaks or fails. Make sure that they understand the 'why' behind all the things that both they have done, and what you have done, to enable them to get to that level. Finally, from a young age, teach them to "always do your best, and always do better next time." The first national competition he went to, he literally finished dead last out of over 250. When we were in the airport heading home, I let him know that it's alright if he doesn't want to do more of them. He didn't back down in the slightest, and asked me when the next one was because he knew he could do better. Next month will be the second time he competes in the Junior Olympics for that sport. |
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| ▲ | throw0101a 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Isn’t that a bit like raising your kid with the intent of playing in the NBA though? No: getting to the NBA is very difficult, but you don't have to be that good. You 'just' have to be good enough to play at the college/university level with a scholarship. One doesn't necessarily have to 'go pro'. I knew someone who got a scholarship to a business/finance program for cross-country running: he wasn't planning on being a pro runner. And doing these activities in high school is probably a good thing, from a social and health perspective, regardless of if it leads anywhere else. | |
| ▲ | leetrout 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Two have sadly taken their own lives despite seemingly good FAANG careers Sorry to hear that. Unfortunately I think we have way over indexed on "success" being tied to money and seeking these careers at companies that drive people to exhaustion and let the competitive environment drive everyone harder and harder with a ratchet effect. | | |
| ▲ | ares623 3 days ago | parent [-] | | IMO it’s less about success but a lack of reliable safety nets. Absent a good supporting environment, what choice does an individual have than to maximise their own outcome. | | |
| ▲ | everforward 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Not just safety nets, but the disappearance of the middle class at least in the US. It increasingly feels like people either make twice or more what they need to live, or half what they need to live. I can absolutely see why parents see the way things are, try to extrapolate out another 20 or 30 years, and feel like they have to make sure their child is in the "well-to-do" group. It feels like the days are gone where you could be an average performer at an average job and live an okay life. | | | |
| ▲ | philipallstar 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Do countries with reliable safety nets have lower rates of taking one's own life? What does reliable mean for a safety net? |
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| ▲ | bluGill 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Isn’t that a bit like raising your kid with the intent of playing in the NBA though? Not quite. NBA is for a tiny minority a a great well paying career. Most parents who raise their kids to play in the NBA will fail in that goal. However if you instead make the goal get a great scholarship playing basketball which is then used to pay for the degree that becomes their career it can be a great plan. However here it sounds like the sailing was done not to get a great career, but to get a great college scholarship. This is likely a great plan. I suspect that while there are more basketball scholarships than sailing scholarships, there is a lot less competition for the sailing ones. It wouldn't surprise me if the typical sailing scholarship was higher than the typical basketball one - if you want someone on your team you need to get them away from the other schools, while for basketball if someone isn't obvious NBA bound (and thus your star starter) if they go elsewhere you just pick the next kid on the list for the scholarship. The above isn't just sports. In music Violin vs Bassoon gets the same issues. Acting also fits in somehow. And your kids may well be doing more than one of the above. > I’ve seen far more of my helicopter-parented high-performance peers burn out I've seen a lot of kids burn out from all backgrounds. The real problem I see with helicopter is because the kids never get to make mistakes they don't learn how to deal with them. The less controlled kids learn to be a little cautious and so when they rebel they are not going to go as far. | |
| ▲ | micromacrofoot 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | note that this example isn't doing these things professionally, but leveraged them to get into a good school, which nets a lot of valuable connections... it's not all or nothing, this person will be fine even if they don't become a pro tennis player also I hear you on the suicides, but I grew up in a much poorer background and those are just overdoses in my situation.... there's easily a dozen kids in my graduating class that weren't pressured to do anything, had no idea what to do, and got addicted to drugs that killed them there's no single right path |
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| ▲ | trillic 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | What school is offering sailing scholarships? HINT: NONE. If this is true, I'd really like to know what program that is. Sailing isn't an NCAA sport, it's governed by its own association the ICSA. Sailing Scholarships are explicitly disallowed, in fact the bigger issue that's been happening in collegiate sailing is the opposite of a scholarship. Eager and wealthy parents making huge donations to sailing programs, rowing programs, lawn dart programs, fencing programs, etc to get admission into top schools where their kid wouldn't be able to get in on their own merit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varsity_Blues_scandal | | |
| ▲ | fallinditch 4 days ago | parent [-] | | I was probably incorrect stating that it was a scholarship, my bad - I know there were some incentives, but whether it was a financial deal or not I don't know. The main point for her, the student, was that due to her sporting achievements she was given offers of places from several of the top universities so she could take her pick. |
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| ▲ | rawgabbit 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | These extra curricular activities, were the secret game you had to play, to get into prestigious universities. At least, it was just a few years ago. Besides niche sports like lacrosse and rowing, there was the volunteer activities like serving at a soup kitchen. When Ivy League universities saw a resume like that, they knew which social class the student belonged to. | | |
| ▲ | csa 4 days ago | parent [-] | | So much of your comment is wrong: > These extra curricular activities, were the secret game you had to play, to get into prestigious universities. At least, it was just a few years ago. Extracurriculars have been a part of elite school admissions for about a century. It hasn’t really been a secret for most of that time. Some people (somewhat correctly) say that this requirement was added to discriminate against Jews at that time, but it was also an education idea (“Progressive Education” by Dewey) that gained popularity around the same time. Regardless of what the initial catalyst was, the universities seemed to like having folks who were “doers” as a significant part of their student body. > Besides niche sports like lacrosse and rowing These are not “niche sports” in certain parts of the country. > there was the volunteer activities like serving at a soup kitchen. I can tell you point blank that serving in a soup kitchen does not help you get into an elite school. For any school that ranks such things, if you have a laundry list of volunteer activities like this, it would get you the next to lowest rating in extracurriculars — this is basically the same as not doing anything. The key to getting an high rating for any volunteer activity would be to show leadership (which is something the elite schools says point blank that they want) and meaningful impact. > When Ivy League universities saw a resume like that, they knew which social class the student belonged to. I’ve got news for you. A wide range of classes of people do these things. There might be a floor at the absolutely lowest end of the economic spectrum (just due to instability of housing and food), but I’ve seen a ton of great examples from folks who were not upper or upper middle class. Often times necessity can be the mother of invention! I assure you that these stories stand out to admissions committees, with the biggest challenge often being simply to get some of these folks from modest means to apply. | | |
| ▲ | rawgabbit 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Really. A wide range of classes of people do these things. I didn't know. |
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| ▲ | scythe 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I think there are basically two kinds of micromanagement that need to be distinguished. The first one is encouraging your child to do something which you think has direct benefits, like learning to swim, which is good exercise and prevents drowning. The second is encouraging your kid to do something because you expect indirect social benefits: either some admissions officer will be impressed by an applicant who plays the oboe or the child will socialize with "the right crowd" or something like that. It's the second kind that can become pernicious because it creates an opportunity for the parent's own status anxieties and prejudices to be projected onto the child, like "lacrosse players are smarter than basketball players" so you want the kid to play lacrosse and not basketball even though they are basically comparable activities and this is dismissive of the needs and capabilities of children to learn to navigate social environments and pressures for themselves. | |
| ▲ | kjkjadksj 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | I would guess a parent who can enroll their kid in sailing for leisure could have paid for college anyhow |
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| ▲ | sekai 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > When my spouse and I were dating, we made fun of those “overly involved parents” who tried to live vicariously through their kids and over-scheduled them. > Since having kids, my spouse has (over a one year period) put our 5 year old in: T-ball, swimming, dance, theater, Sunday school, church, soccer, gymnastics, library group sessions, and to my absolute bewilderment and dismay—beauty pageants. On any given week, there are 5+ activities outside of school. My spouse stays up until 2 AM “helping” our daughter on her kindergarten school projects. Never mind all the activities our 2 year old is ramping up into. > I don’t think this is healthy at all for children, and it’s really created a rift in our marriage. It’s been so bizarre to me to see this change in behavior from what we discussed prior to marriage compared to now. I worry the kids are going to burn out. I certainly didn’t grow up this way, and my personality as a kid would not have handled this well. Parents appear increasingly terrified of childhood boredom, and thus meticulously cram their children's schedules with activities they feel are "crucial" for "development". | | |
| ▲ | Glawen 4 days ago | parent [-] | | > Parents appear increasingly terrified of childhood boredom, and thus meticulously cram their children's schedules with activities they feel are "crucial" for "development". It's insidious, but when my kids have nothing to do, and I see them on the phone. I don't like it and I feel the urge to plan an activity. | | |
| ▲ | Aeolun 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Uh, when my son asks me for the phone, I say no, and he asks me why, I just tell him it’s because I think being bored once in a while is healthy. As long as the rules around using it are consistent he can work with that (he’ll start running to get to the bus/train on time too, because he can only use a phone if he can sit down) | | |
| ▲ | calvinmorrison 3 days ago | parent [-] | | one of the reasons NPR is declining so badly, those of us who had to listen to it for hours on end in the back of a hot car and got a kind of bizarro world moss-coane stockholm syndrome aren't reproducing enough to inculcate another generation of mug toting radio listening, garrison keillor on sunday afternoon types |
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| ▲ | takinola 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I obviously don’t know your specific situation but having brought up kids in a similar environment, I may be able to offer some possible explanation for what you are living through. First, never underestimate the impact of your environment on your way of thinking. We all like to think we’re independent thinkers but really we’re much more influenced by the people we interact with than we could even realize. Once you have a kid, a lot of your social circle will consist of other parents so you will unconsciously absorb their values and motivations as well, including the desire to put your kids through all these hoops. Second, many professional class parents believe that the key to future success lies in getting their kids into the right school. Hence, it’s never too early to start the kid on the path to great grades, background experiences, scholarships, etc. I’ve seen parents stress out about preschool enrollments because of the “advantages” these schools provided. Lastly, this is very often the default path for parents. It’s just what you are supposed to do. Everything is set up in that direction. Defaults are powerful and govern our behavior much more than we all realize. Final last point, the truth is no one knows what works when raising kids. For every story of a free-range kid becoming self-reliant, there’s a story of a latchkey kid that became a bum. Therefore, parents are generally risk-avoidant with their kids (there’s no do-overs) and tend to do “good” and “respectable” approaches in child rearing (like signing them up for sports, extra curriculars, etc) | | |
| ▲ | pendenthistory 2 days ago | parent [-] | | These parents (who believe there is one path to future success) will be in for a rude awakening in the coming 10-20 years when all the traditional high-status career paths have dried up. Can they not see the writing on the wall? Not that I would ever be such a parent, but even if I was, there's no point in pressuring and forcing your kids into this lifestyle given the unpredictability of the future. My goal is just supporting and letting my kid do the things that interest them. |
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| ▲ | nathan_compton 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Have you considered talking to your wife instead of posting about it to a bunch of startup dudes? | |
| ▲ | xattt 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Some of it is likely “subconscious” long-term planning. University programs that result in high income post-graduation typically have prerequisites that include heavy extracurricular activity involvement. The truth is if you don’t do it early, it will be harder to scale up your ECs when your kids are older, which will then lower their chances in getting into something that provides a higher degree of insurance against financial uncertainty. | |
| ▲ | Aeolun 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Hmm, I’m fairly certain the ‘having children’ part is what triggers total collapse of the previous worldview. My spouse was adamant that we wouldn’t force our child to study excessively, but we’re at 7 years old and we have a 50cm stack of extra activities books that need to be worked through every morning and evening, in addition to the homework the school sets. It’s madness. The class teacher told me he’s not even involved with setting homework. I certainly wasn’t expected to do any homework at 7. It wasn’t until middle school we were expected to do some amount of homework. | | |
| ▲ | pendenthistory 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | The US? My 2nd grader has one piece of homework per week, which takes about 10 minutes. If there was more I would tell the teacher to shove it. Instead I talk to my child. If he's interested we talk more about that, otherwise we switch to a topic that interests him. We've covered a lot of science, astronomy and math. Lately I've been telling him about primes, factorization and cryptography. I think our conversations lead to a love of learning and curiosity that is 100x more beneficial than a 50cm stack of homework... | |
| ▲ | robocat 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I always thought it was parents being competitive - especially for unobvious social status signals. We notice competitive behaviours at our jobs - we expect to see it, and in many work situations competition is admissible. It is harder to notice competition in our social lives because we deceive ourselves with rationalisations (that appear reasonable) and the games are less obvious. Just a personal theory (I'm a late learner for even simple status signaling). | |
| ▲ | JuniperMesos 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Could you put your child in a different school that didn't do that? |
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| ▲ | YaeGh8Vo 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | What's striking is the helplessness that seeps through your message. As if you had zero control over what happens. You're just a bystander watching what happens to your children. It's time for you to wake up, and start exercising your own authority. | | |
| ▲ | em-bee 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | you are not married, are you? that's not how this works. while they certainly need to talk, and not just once, but continuously, you don't have the authority to change your partners behavior. you need to discuss your feelings about this matter and come to a consensus about the activities and the goals for your child. it won't be easy. if i were in this position, i can't imagine what i would do. i feel even stronger than GP about this, and i'd probably feel quite helpless trying to get my partner to understand how i feel about this. even just trying to get my voice heard. if you don't have a way to communicate openly in your marriage from the start, then talking about things openly can be very hard, seemingly impossible even. with one issue that my wife and me had, it first took me years to notice and understand the issue and start to speak up about it, then it took a few more years for my wife to recognize and acknowledge the issue for herself, and then she still struggled to do something about it. and very time i messed up somewhere in our relationship, it was a setback for her development too. and i can't even blame her. it's something she learned from her parents (which is how she eventually figured it out) | | |
| ▲ | lurking_swe 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | well i’ll also point out, as a married man, my partner doesn’t have the “authority” to unilaterally decide how our child is raised. Notice the word OUR. There is no “I” in the word our. It’s a joint decision. If it’s not, then you’re not operating as a team. If you’re not operating as a team…then you have a marriage problem IMO. Simple as that. The healthy marriage outcome would be talking about it and compromising in some fashion. “my way or the highway”…yikes. | |
| ▲ | 4gotunameagain 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Don't forget that there are many indians lurking hackernews. With their particular views about women. | | |
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| ▲ | toomuchtodo 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Let us know how his divorce goes. |
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| ▲ | dashtiarian 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I was raised in such a house. This happened because my mother was an underachiever, and also because my father and grandparents were dead so she was unchallenged doing this. But you are alive my friend. Don't let your child still have nightmares, regrets, and feelings of constantly not being enough in their 30s. If your child does'nt have a childhood she can never become an adult. | |
| ▲ | dec0dedab0de 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Yeah, they definitely need time to look out a window and imagine. But I think there is serious value in organized activities. From Junior high through high school I had a rule for mine to do one thing with school, and one thing outside of school. I would have supported more than those 2 things, but I'm so glad I didn't have to. I'm thinking about enforcing the same rule in college, with a caveat that Gym and Girlfriend don't count, but it seems weird to make those kinds of mandates for someone that has a job. | | |
| ▲ | amenhotep 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Enforcing? He'd presumably be an adult, and the entire point of university is to get out from under your parents' wings. This sounds like a horrible idea. |
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| ▲ | 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | honkycat 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | My parents made me do everything, and were so fucking mean about everything, I ended up missing out on the things I actually enjoyed b/c I didn't want yet another thing to get yelled at about. Specific: guitar and music To be fair: part of it was to be rid of me and to not have to watch me. Beauty pagents? Go take a good long look in the mirror. That is pathetic. Is that what you want your kids to value? Passivity? Whatever the fuck beauty pagents encourage? At least dance is a skill. | |
| ▲ | solumunus 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Instagram Mom algorithms is what happened, probably. | |
| ▲ | eaenki 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [flagged] |
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| ▲ | dns_snek 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > Interestingly, I've heard from parents that many feel like they're both suffocating and feeling inadequate, at the same time. While many kids, both teens and younger, reporting that they're not getting enough space. Is that surprising? All of that sounds fully consistent to me when parents suffocate their kids with expectations and activities instead of meeting their actual needs. They feel like they're suffocating them because they are, they feel inadequate because deep down they know it's wrong, and kids feel like they're not getting enough space because they aren't. |
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| ▲ | 1659447091 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > We'd be outside all day long - being inside was considered a privilege. Weekdays and weekends. Similar, except in a city. On weekends, when an adult may be home, we get sent outside as a form of grounding -- "outside. now." -- or if we watched too much tv/video games, and wouldn't come back inside til dark. No asking what we did, where we went, only that we came back in the same health we left. Not having parents home after school (11-14 y/o) meant after-school cartoon binge for a couple hours, then outside to roam around with other kids that didn't have adults home. We'd get in trouble if they came home and we were playing video games or watching tv. |
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| ▲ | 3D30497420 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| It doesn't even require poverty/rural areas/etc. I grew up in (basically) sub-urban USA to a solidly middle-class family and I was always out wandering around the neighborhood or on my bike. |
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| ▲ | HexPhantom 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The irony is brutal: kids lose unstructured time and independence, parents lose breathing room, and nobody feels good about it. What used to be normal "being outside all day" now reads as neglect |
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| ▲ | dlisboa 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| It's a cultural shift. Your peers are now way more aware of child abuse, kidnappings, murders, than your parents were. Not that yours were necessarily bad parents for that time but there is way more information today of the issues with the world. I certainly wouldn't let my kid walk home alone in the woods at night: are we really sure this degree of freedom is so developmentally important to be worth the risk? I'd also say it's more likely that your peers are more personally present than parents of the 80s/90s, when parents would often just leave children alone and don't really talk to them. That in itself has been shown to provide good outcomes for children. So it's not all bad. |
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| ▲ | ileonichwiesz 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > Your peers are now way more aware of child abuse, kidnappings, murders, than your parents were. They’re technically more aware of those risks, sure, but any of those crimes are less likely than ever before. This increase in awareness and anxiety isn’t based in data, it’s based on sensational lies and myths. Those lies cause strong feelings and get eyeballs and clicks, and so they spread really well through our fractured media ecosystem. Nearly all child kidnappings are performed by one of the parents, and there’s no confirmed case of a child ever dying from poisoned Halloween candy. | | |
| ▲ | joncrane 4 days ago | parent [-] | | To be fair, one of the reasons for the decrease in crime may be the steps taken by average people to minimize it, due to anxiety. | | |
| ▲ | medvezhenok 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Yeah, I wonder if you plotted crime rate vs time spent outside or something like that (car accident rates are usually reported as an average of an accident / # of miles, since how much you drive changes your likelihood of being in an accident) |
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| ▲ | raxxorraxor 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | They are more aware but bad at putting it in perspective. This is the classic "fear leads to bad decisions". Granted, depends on where you live, but statistically woods are probably a lot safer than a city with a lot of traffic. Sure, regionally that is not true, you might meet a Grizzly and/or Canadian. > are we really sure this degree of freedom is so developmentally important to be worth the risk? Absolutely. A child has to grow up and detach from it parents at some point. It doesn't at all mean having a bad relationship, just being independent. Helps if you aren't a complete beginner by the time it inevitably happens. | |
| ▲ | cpursley 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | This idea that parents who let their kids play without 3 layers of bubble wrap and parental hovercraft mode don’t also talk with their kids and aren’t present is not just insulting, it’s far from true. Over coddling causes more problems than it prevents, it’s especially obvious when you compare the maturity levels, mental health situation and general early adulthood outcomes for non-Anglo kids in other developed nations. | | |
| ▲ | watwut 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | I like how contemporary parents are either overly involved or lazy having forgotten how to parent ... whatever is needed to blame them for the moment. | |
| ▲ | dlisboa 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | There's just no discussion that modern parents are more personally involved in their kids development than parents in the 70s/80s. That's just a fact, not an insult. I never said you can't raise kids without all the overprotection and also be present. The issue of over parenting seems to be a developed nation issue, I agree. I'm not in one and here kids don't do mountains of activities, but violence rates are very significant. There's just no point exposing my son to it in the hopes he comes out the other side unscathed, when even I don't want to be out alone at night. That's "vibe parenting", not an intelligent way of raising children. | | |
| ▲ | quesera 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | You're making a different argument, throughout these threads. The article is about the US. You say you are "not in [a developed nation like the US]", but instead somewhere that "violence rates are very significant". That is just not the US. Headlines are scary, but the statistics don't support the fear. The worries you describe are absolutely irrational for 99+% of US parents. I don't know where you are and I don't know the statistics for your area -- things might be worse there! But your comments sound like irrational US parent fears, without including that context. | |
| ▲ | cpursley 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | No, it’s specifically an Anglo country phenomenon. It’s not really an issue in places like Denmark, France, Spain, Russia, China, Chile. There’s several books on the topic if you are open to recommendations. | | |
| ▲ | medvezhenok 4 days ago | parent [-] | | I'm curious about book recommendations on this (as someone raising kids in the US but originally from Russia) | | |
| ▲ | cpursley 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Bringing Up Bebe, The Danish Way Of Parenting, The Coddling of the American Mind. These are pretty similar to Soviet style, but perhaps a bit less structured. We are basically raising our daughter Soviet-style to the extent that we can; so far so good. It's difficult in a culture where ADHD American style of child raising is prevalent. |
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| ▲ | mothballed 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | From a very young age when I wondered around the rural midwest, I had a gun. Usually a 20ga shotgun or a .22 rifle. Don't think my parents were too worried about me getting kidnapped or murdered. I used it for hunting but I knew what to do in the case of self defense. Another one of those things that aren't allowed now. | |
| ▲ | screye 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Not sure if 'aware' is the right word. More like anxious. Kidnappings and murders are exceedingly rare, even more so by strangers. Abuse primarily occurs at home, with acquaintances and at places of education. Moving a child from free form play to structured classes is moving risk around, but isn't reducing it. When there is a big community of kids, there's safety in numbers. Highly supervised play reduces the kids involved, and takes away safety in numbers in exchange for constant vigilance. An aware person would see the numbers and Calibrate risk accordingly. There is risk involved in everything and helicopter parenting has done little to reduce it. It's an anxiety spiral. | | |
| ▲ | senordevnyc 3 days ago | parent [-] | | How are the rates of murder, kidnappings, and child sex abuse compared to a few decades ago during the free range parenting golden age? |
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| ▲ | smallnix 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > the risk What is the risk really? I mean put in numbers. | | |
| ▲ | dlisboa 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Do you have children? Would you point them a loaded gun that's only, say, 0.5% likely to go off and shoot them? 1 in 100k cancers also disappear spontaneously, should I wait and see for my kid and not treat them? When it comes to your own children the only number that matters is 1. The 1 time it happens their lives, your life, is over. | | |
| ▲ | Loughla 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | That's not really an answer though. My kid walks home from his friend's houses in the woods at night alone all the time. He has never once been eaten or kidnapped. Statistically your children are more likely to be victimized by you than a stranger. So by your logic, you should probably keep them away from you. Right? | | |
| ▲ | hylaride 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Nominally I agree with you, but your example is classic survivorship bias. The chances of getting kidnapped are and always were far, far, far less than automobile related injuries and deaths, yet we just see that as a normal risk of modern life. I have been wondering if the fact that the current generation of 20-somethings isn't going out as much is because of this "over parenting" that they received. I'm sure it's also TikTok, living costs, and avoiding other vice related behaviour (drinking, sex) at such high rates, but it does make me think... | |
| ▲ | dlisboa 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | That's a useless statistic in this context. Statistically you're more likely to be killed by yourself than someone else. So, do you kill yourself to get it over with? Do you let a shooter shoot you because statistically it's better that the gun is on their hands than yours? Ridiculous, right? It's just a zero insight use of numbers. | | |
| ▲ | Loughla 4 days ago | parent [-] | | That's literally my point. I did exactly what you did, just in a different context to point out the absurdity of the statement. | | |
| ▲ | lucyjojo 2 days ago | parent [-] | | i see it as blatantly ignoring risks because they don't align to your worldview |
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| ▲ | Mistletoe 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The risk they die from drug overdose or something because they are maladjusted from being hovered over may be orders of magnitude greater. We live in a far safer time than people think with regard to violent crime (see graph below) and a far more dangerous time with regard to mental health and depression. Also obesity. Most people die from heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. All made more prevalent by shuttling your kid around constantly instead of them using their own two legs like nature intended. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/10/31/violent-c... | |
| ▲ | jdross 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It is precisely this anxiety that is the issue being discussed. Parents are terrified of what might happen to their kids, so too little happens to their kids (both good and bad) | |
| ▲ | rendaw 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Do you let your children ride in cars? The risk of death in a passenger vehicle is over 100x that of being kidnapped. | | |
| ▲ | mothballed 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | I wrote a long winded thing about my personal experience but deleted it because it was too personal and too depressing to think about. The summary is that the risk of a CPS investigation of a kid playing or walking independently is probably 10-100x that of suffering a car accident. And the average car accident is way less traumatic than being ripped away from your family, tossed in a foster home, and feeling like your parents have abandoned you forever because they could not protect you from the state. | | |
| ▲ | Thorrez 4 days ago | parent [-] | | That's terrible. What's the solution though? Stop letting kids play outside? I think the solution should be to reform CPS so it's not so traumatizing, and have more governmental awareness campaigns of the benefits of kids playing outside. I see government billboards all the time about anti-smoking, eating healthy, prediabetes screening. There can similarly be billboards promoting kids playing outside. | | |
| ▲ | mothballed 4 days ago | parent [-] | | 1) Childhood independence protection 2) At the bare minimum, victims of CPS reports should be able to face their accuser. Currently laws anonymize reporters, this is not compatible with an open and balanced justice system. Also, needs to be heavy penalties and liabilities for abusing CPS reporting -- asymmetrical risks would end up with just getting the same result over and over again. 3) Cultural change. People that curtail child independence of others' children should be shamed, publicly. People that let their kids have independence, left the hell alone. | | |
| ▲ | em-bee 4 days ago | parent [-] | | there would not be any issue with anonymous reports if CPS would look for actual evidence before doing anything else, and reject any anonymous report as baseless if no evidence is found. innocent until proven guilty must hold here too. |
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| ▲ | 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | mgraf1 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Your analogy is missing something. Not letting a child explore the world has an opportunity cost. They miss out on opportunities to develop independence and psychological resilience. The book "The Anxious Generation" covers this in detail. | | |
| ▲ | Loughla 4 days ago | parent [-] | | I work at a college, and can tell you that (while everyone views their childhoods with rose colored glasses), at my institution, statistically kids today are less able to cope with difficulty than they were when I started my career. When I started, the top three reasons for students leaving the institution were a) family priorities (work), b) transportation, and c) grades (overall GPA less than 1.5). For the 2024-25 academic year, the reasons were a) anxiety, b) grades (overall GPA between 2.5 and 3, with less than 2 'd' or 'f' grades for the final semester), and c) unstated reason related to interactions with faculty or staff (difficult conversations about study habits, or realistic major/timeline conversations). In other words, they hit one small barrier, or have to shift gears even slightly, and everything goes to pieces. We don't let them make decisions when they're kids and the stakes are low, and then don't understand why they can't make decisions when they're adults. . . Or, there are a minority of parents that seem to enjoy making every decision for their kids. It's not great. |
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| ▲ | rurp 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The chances of your kid being abducted by a stranger because you let them walk home from school are so many orders of magnitude lower than 0.5% that the analogy doesn't make any sense. You're probably more likely to kill them by handing them a plate of food or some other benign every day factor that isn't nearly as dramatic as anything the national news covers. | |
| ▲ | phito 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | That sounds like maladaptive anxiety. | |
| ▲ | 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | dec0dedab0de 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | 1 in 100k cancers also disappear spontaneously, should I wait and see for my kid and not treat them? As a parent, a cancer survivor, and the child of a high anxiety parent, Yes, yes you should wait and see. Every doctor's visit is a chance to catch something worse. That said, if you're a chill parent reading this, you should probably be more proactive about it. There is a middle ground, overreacting is usually worse than under reacting, but it is important that you react. | |
| ▲ | 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | shlant 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Your peers are now way more aware of child abuse, kidnappings, murders, than your parents were does being more aware of these things mean you necessarily make better decisions overall for you children? Are humans good at translating news they see into accurate risk assessments? |
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| ▲ | mlsu 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Kids are in this weird position where they are placed on a pedestal (they’re sooo important! My little future leader!) but yet they have no real agency in their lives and are very restricted from making decisions, even ludicrously simple ones like can I take a walk outside by myself for half an hour. I don’t have kids yet but I am thinking a lot about this, and I can only conclude that kids should be treated much more like adults. They should have jobs and real responsibilities, and also should face the same pressure that adults do. Nobody expects me to be a CEO someday. If I want to, I have to push myself. |
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| ▲ | ajsnigrutin 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Similar generations and i've noticed the same thing, but living in an urban place, in a large complex of socialist apartment buildings, in a country that fell apart from a larger socialist one to a smaller capitalist one. Two of the biggest differences were extracurricular activities and technology... back in my day, you maybe had one or two 'after school' things per week, usually immediately after school, for an hour (so you'd end at two oclock instead an hour earlier) and you then went home, where you had one tv per family. When your parents came home, the tv was gone, dads football, moms series, evening drama movies... and what were you supposed to do then? Read? Well.. you went out. ...same as most of your friends. We sat on benches, played football, basketball, girls wanted attention, got attention, from young-kids age to the age of neighbors caling police due to 'loud teenagers' outside. And now? Every parent with kids has their kids in one additional language course, some music classes, sports, and not like once a week for an hour or two, but two, three times per week each, at different locations (=driving them around, even though there are a lot of busses). The kids are physically tired from all that, and then they get home, don't even have time to get bored, and even if they did, they now have a tv, phone, computer and a gaming console right in their room. Their friends aren't outside either, since they're being chauffered around for their activities. No proper socialization with peers, no time to do stupid stuff, no time to be bored... nothing. And it's not even worth it... none of those kids will be a professional sportis/musician, it's just wasted time... yes, excercise, but we exercised too, by being outside, walking, biking, playing footbal with stones, etc. tldr: blame parents |
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| ▲ | ileonichwiesz 4 days ago | parent [-] | | > And it's not even worth it... none of those kids will be a professional sportis/musician, it's just wasted time... I can’t agree there. The point of extracurricular activities is to teach the kid new things and expand their horizons, not the (admittedly highly unlikely) possibility that those activities will become their career. Most children won’t become historians either, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t teach history at schools. | | |
| ▲ | ajsnigrutin 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Sure, but in addition to everything they learn at school (and get tired of), do they really need 3x2 hours of violin, 3x2 hours of tennis and 3x2 hours of spanish weekly? + weekend tennis matches. (my coworkers kid taken as example, 12yo) I like my job too, i learn a lot of it, but that's basically half-time of a second job (if you include commute) for a 12yo kid... that's just too much, both for the kids and their parents. | | |
| ▲ | watwut 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Kids oftentimes want to do that. And with foreign languages, notably english, relying on school means they likely wont learn it. |
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| ▲ | blitzar 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| A trend amongst peers I have noticed ... people are parenting in the opposite manner to the way their werre raised. Your parents were very active / suffocating ... do free range parenting. Your parents let you roam outside with few sports, clubs and activities ... do 7 day a week scheduled activities. You went to private school ... send kids to shittiest free school you can find. |
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| ▲ | AnimalMuppet 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Most of us had parents that made mistakes. Some of those mistakes hurt us, stunted our development, or damaging our psyches. When we become parents, we try not to make the mistakes that our parents make. But the problem is, there's more than one set of mistakes. In fact, they often come in pairs. If you move too far away from one mistake, you may not wind up in the sweet spot. You may be doing the other mistake. In Zion National Part there is a hike called "Angel's Landing". You wind up on this ridge, with a 1000 foot dropoff on one side and a 500 foot dropoff on the other side. If you move too far away from one cliff, you fall off the other. Parenting is like that. Take permissive vs. discipline, for example. If you avoid discipline too much, you may damage your kids by being too permissive. | |
| ▲ | IAmBroom 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > You went to private school ... send kids to shittiest free school you can find. You're making that up. |
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| ▲ | squeefers 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| > and came from a rural place with a lot of poverty > We'd be outside all day long > most of my peers have middle-class jobs. >Their kids are barely outside. wonder what the link is there then? |
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