HuffPo: "Today's Parents are getting a raw deal"

[Geostache]

I wasn't sure if this belonged here or in the "Mustachianism Around the Web" sub-forum. But it struck me as particularly Mustachian:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rhonda-stephens/are-todays-parents-getting-a-raw-deal_b_9645450.html

"On weekends, Dad was in charge of outdoor work and if you were thirsty you drank out of the hose, because 2 minutes of air conditioning and a glass of water from the faucet might make you soft"

"We aren’t prepared to tell our kids that they won’t have it if they don’t work for it, because we can’t bear to see them go without and we can’t bear to see them fail. We’ve given them a whole lot of stuff; stuff that will break down, wear out, get lost, go out of style, and lose value."

[onlykelsey]

It ignores other problems that earlier generations didn't deal with (college debt, low starting salaries, lack of union jobs, etc), but makes a good point often heard around here.  I was born in the late 80s and it seems like that was sort of when tides were changing.  I remember my cousins 5 years younger than me getting multiple game systems, etc, and those 5 years older than me seemed go be living in an entirely different era.

[kanga1622]

I agree with a lot of what he says.

I was born in 1980. I was the baby (by 10 years) in a family of 5. My siblings all say I was spoiled rotten. I truly believe that my parents were in a much better place financially by the time I was born and once the other 4 were out of the house, they had a LOT more discretionary income available to spend on me. Did I get pretty much whatever I asked for, yes. Did we eat out a lot, yes. On the other hand my parents had a good amount of savings and had made wise, frugal decisions that were more obvious when the number of people living in our house was much larger. Larger families at younger ages made a huge difference on a lot of decisions.

It is hard to balance the best way to raise your kids and a lot of it does seem to depend on "lifestyle." We waited until we were late 20s to have kids and had no debt other than our mortgage. That gives us a lot more options. We are appalled by the gadgets that many kids have and yet we use an old iPod Touch (that we bought used) as a white noise machine for bedtime.

We go out of our way to teach kids smart money habits. My 6 year old will look at the grocery ad and tell me about the "good" deals he has found. This leads to a discussion of what the normal price of that item is and if it is truly on sale. He often hears that something is not in the budget when he asks for it. I've already discussed with DS that the car we are currently driving will likely be handed down to him in 8+ years when he is ready to drive and he better start taking care of it now.

My kids won't be sleeping in on the weekends (we certainly don't get to now so why should they in a few years) and will be responsible for doing a lot more chores than their current lists. I think it just takes a lot more concerted effort to keep kids grounded/less spoiled these days when the mentality for many is appearances/status. I would love to see my kids' generation flip this whole paradigm around and take things back to a more traditional approach of less is more.

[robartsd]

My parents were quite a bit more involved in my life that the author's. Mom was a SAHP who oversaw regular chores and took us on outings. Dad worked a 4/10/40 workweek and volunteered at our elementary school regularly on his day off. We were allowed to play outside (we could even go down the street a few houses down on the sidewalk - perhaps even go to a friend's house around the block on our own if Mom knew that the parent at the other home was expecting us), but we were never locked out of the house. As teens we were allowed to go even further on our own by bike, as long as a parent knew the plan of where we were going and when we were expected to come back.

I never felt that my parents as viewing children as free labor. Sure, we were expected to do regular chores around the house and occasionally were expected to help Dad with projects. We ran a weekly recycling drive collecting newspapers from neighbors over a few blocks (Mom drove the van while we went up to the porches to retrieve bags or bundles of newspaper) to pay for annual membership at an animal theme park an hour's drive away.

Of course the point of the article is that the "normal" parenting activities in the US now are producing a large crop of young adults who have not yet grown up; not that the author's parents are a perfect model.

[little_brown_dog]

Overall I agree with the sentiment of the article, but some of it appears to glorify the "old" ways. Old school parenting has its benefits surely, but there was also a lot more serious injury to kids back in the day as well due to lack of safety equipment and parental supervision. Everything has a trade off.

I personally want to strike a balance between the two if I can help it (baby is still too young to contribute anything but smiles and a daily poopy diaper). Chores, lots of outdoor and unstructured play, and strict rules and discipline for moderate to large offenses all make sense to me. But I also want to be compassionate, loving, accessible, and supportive. I want to be the mom that makes her kids feed and water the animals, clean their breakfast dishes, and wait their turn, while also being there to hear their fears and worries.

[solon]

"Our kids have..."

"We do [this] for our kids..."

It sounds like the problem is the author. I want my kids to turn out well, and I don't do any of these things for my kids, because that wouldn't help them turn out well.

[Cassie]

I think many parents today are helicopter parents and they are not doing their kids any favors. Also giving them all sorts of material things will lead them to expect to lead that type of lifestyle when they leave home which they could not afford. It really is a disservice to their kids.  I was never locked out of the house or did I do that to my kids but I was strict like my parents.  However, they were not free labor. They helped with some chores but didn't do the majority.  They had school, homework, jobs, sports to keep them busy too. My kids walked to  things unless it was too far away or too late at night. Also they had more freedom then kids do now days.  Society in general has not helped because parents get reported to CPS if their kids are playing outside alone which is ridiculous unless the child is very young. WE all have seemed to convince ourselves that the world is more dangerous then what it really is.

[Jack]

there was also a lot more serious injury to kids back in the day as well due to lack of safety equipment and parental supervision.

[Citation needed]

[little_brown_dog]

there was also a lot more serious injury to kids back in the day as well due to lack of safety equipment and parental supervision.

[Citation needed]

Here is an article that sums it up nicely. I don't have exact studies, it is just something we learned in our degree program. Death by accidental injury among children has been dropping over time. Things like seatbelts and carseats are a big reason. http://www.nber.org/digest/dec99/glied.html

[Cassie]

The first car seat my oldest had you had to be 6 months to sit in it and it was very high up (1973). 4 years later when I had my 2nd it was already considered unsafe and they had new ones for babies that were much like the ones of today.  Our first cars had no seat belts in the back seats.  I am sure the improvements in those 2 things have helped immensely.

[galliver]

I found interesting the juxtaposition between "Adversity is a GOOD thing. It teaches you what you’re made of." and "We just don’t have the cojones our parents had." (The two quotes being overall representative of the author's sense of "I got the tough-love upbringing of the '70s" and "My kids are soft and weak and there's nothing to be done *shrugs sadly*")

I think the parents from the 70s whose kids contracted parasites by drinking from the hose, or got hit by a car, or had psychological issues from being seriously bullied may have a different perspective on those "idyllic" days. Playing in dirt, camping, swimming is good but so is washing hands after using the bathroom and before meals and drinking water from the tap, not the hose. Let them go to the park, but give them a cheap cell phone just in case. Don't steamroll over any social or academic problem they encounter, but be available to advise. And to tell them that sometimes, teachers can be wrong, too.

[tobitonic]

there was also a lot more serious injury to kids back in the day as well due to lack of safety equipment and parental supervision.

[Citation needed]

The auto death rates for adults and children alike have been dropping consistently for more than 40 years in the US, primarily due to the kinds of safety features lots of folks on this site rail against. A quick example involves car seats. The current laws in the US are the best they've ever been (rear-facing is required until 1 across the country and until 2 in a handful of states). It's still woefully poor compared to best practices in Sweden (and now Norway), where the standard is to rear-face until 4. That said, things used to be much worse in the US, and we've come a long way. Another example would involve seat belts in general, which weren't even *required* across the US until 1968 in cars.

When it comes to crashes, children are much safer than they used to be. The rate of motor vehicle crash deaths per million children younger than 13 is less than a quarter of what it was in 1975. The rate at which children die as passenger vehicle occupants has decreased 60 percent, while the rates at which they are killed as pedestrians and bicyclists are each about one-tenth of 1975 rates.

[Mr. Green]

It is sadly humorous that they title this a "raw deal" since every parent gets to make their own decision about how they raise their kids. It would be like me choosing to work an extra 40 hours a week and then calling that a raw deal. Sounds like a great way to pass the buck, rather than admit that my status quo was my own making.

[cats]

there was also a lot more serious injury to kids back in the day as well due to lack of safety equipment and parental supervision.

[Citation needed]

This is totally anecdotal, but an interesting progression of childhood injuries across generations in my family:

Great uncle (b. ~1910): lost an arm due to childhood mishap with finding explosives abandoned during a recent civil war (in an area that is currently very much 1st world).
Uncle (b. 1950): lost a finger due to childhood mishap with power saw
Me (b. 1982): lost finger due to a sharply closing door, but as my mother was there to see it happen, got straight to the ER and had it reattached. I have some scarring but full use of the finger.

So in my family at least, childhood injuries have been decreasing!

[SwordGuy]

It ignores other problems that earlier generations didn't deal with (college debt, low starting salaries, lack of union jobs, etc), but makes a good point often heard around here.  I was born in the late 80s and it seems like that was sort of when tides were changing.  I remember my cousins 5 years younger than me getting multiple game systems, etc, and those 5 years older than me seemed go be living in an entirely different era.

Yep, those pioneers had it SO VERY easy, didn't they.

No need to get an axe and a saw to cut down trees with manual labor, or to dig up stumps with axes, shovels and a mule. 

No need to stand behind a plow pulled by a mule, horse, oxen, or spouse and plow the land, either.

Nope, those lazy pioneers just sat in the shade whilst their robotic servants whisked power tools about doing all the hard work.

No need for anyone to pack up every thing they could carry in a wagon and travel across country through Indian country or roads beset by bandits in order to get a small farmstead.  With no house on it .  Or no Home Depot to buy the lumber at. 

No sirree, bob!  They sure had it easy!

And my Grandfather's generation, now there were some slackers!   Whilst our current crop of college students curl up in a ball and whine that they need a "safe space" from harsh language, they were hitting the beach under artillery and machine gun fire at Tarawa, Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima and Normandy.   Why, thousands of them were so darn lazy they just lay down in the sand and died! 

And, of course, my own generation had it easy too!   No need for expensive college loans when Uncle Sam would give you a job.  Hell, give isn't the right word.  Uncle Sam was downright insistent that folks take the job he provided.  Free on the job training, too.   And world travel to gloriously happy countries like Vietnam. 

Darn, I bet there are a shitload of folks in my generation who would have traded a draft notice and a tour in Vietnam for the inflation-adjusted median student loan debt our students today have!   Such a deal!

Oh, yeah, those student loans?  The median new car price is THOUSANDS of dollars higher than the median student loan debt.  I sure see a lot of people posting how happy they are with their new cars on Facebook.  So how can a median student loan, that's so much lower than the median new car loan, be so very onerous?

Cry me a river.

[JustTrying]

A friend posted this article and it cracked me up because even the title screams "Woe is me!" when the reality is that parents make parenting decisions, and then get the deal that they dealt to themselves.

[shelivesthedream]

The thing that kills me about these articles is that the author never EVER concludes with "And so from now on we are taking our kids out of half their activities, giving them a full roster of chores and making them go to the park alone every day." The author made their parenting choices. No doubt they thought they were right at the time, but if they can write an article to a national audience bewailing what they have done with their children and then not change anything... Well, tough shit. You made your bed, you can lie in it.

I do think there has been a generation of generally spoiled parenting, but I also think that the next generation is reacting against it. I'm hoping/expecting the "monster-creating" generation to be a blip.

[onlykelsey]

It ignores other problems that earlier generations didn't deal with (college debt, low starting salaries, lack of union jobs, etc), but makes a good point often heard around here.  I was born in the late 80s and it seems like that was sort of when tides were changing.  I remember my cousins 5 years younger than me getting multiple game systems, etc, and those 5 years older than me seemed go be living in an entirely different era.

Yep, those pioneers had it SO VERY easy, didn't they.

No need to get an axe and a saw to cut down trees with manual labor, or to dig up stumps with axes, shovels and a mule. 

No need to stand behind a plow pulled by a mule, horse, oxen, or spouse and plow the land, either.

Nope, those lazy pioneers just sat in the shade whilst their robotic servants whisked power tools about doing all the hard work.

No need for anyone to pack up every thing they could carry in a wagon and travel across country through Indian country or roads beset by bandits in order to get a small farmstead.  With no house on it .  Or no Home Depot to buy the lumber at. 

No sirree, bob!  They sure had it easy!

And my Grandfather's generation, now there were some slackers!   Whilst our current crop of college students curl up in a ball and whine that they need a "safe space" from harsh language, they were hitting the beach under artillery and machine gun fire at Tarawa, Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima and Normandy.   Why, thousands of them were so darn lazy they just lay down in the sand and died! 

And, of course, my own generation had it easy too!   No need for expensive college loans when Uncle Sam would give you a job.  Hell, give isn't the right word.  Uncle Sam was downright insistent that folks take the job he provided.  Free on the job training, too.   And world travel to gloriously happy countries like Vietnam. 

Darn, I bet there are a shitload of folks in my generation who would have traded a draft notice and a tour in Vietnam for the inflation-adjusted median student loan debt our students today have!   Such a deal!

Oh, yeah, those student loans?  The median new car price is THOUSANDS of dollars higher than the median student loan debt.  I sure see a lot of people posting how happy they are with their new cars on Facebook.  So how can a median student loan, that's so much lower than the median new car loan, be so very onerous?

Cry me a river.

Was that freeing?

I don't think it's fair to compare the advantages of one generation to another without also comparing the disadvantages.

Also, this is really a complaint by a generation x person about their millennial kid. I'm not sure what sort of hardships generation x has gone through, but I think I would rather be in that generation that 20 years earlier or later.