The Relentlessness of Modern Parenting • Hacker News Board

Re: The Relentlessness of Modern Parenting

#161

Post by GreeniFi » Tue, Jan 08, 2019, 11:41 PM UTC

rconti wrote: post #95

GreeniFi wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Southern Africa (although not South Africa). Just before the end of apartheid, everyone was gearing up for a fight and everyone was pretty angry. Two men talked the region off a precipice, Nelson Mandela, literally a prince of peace (he was a prince). And secondly Desmond Tutu. And maybe the humanity of young men like those we encountered, who could just as well shot us. It happened elsewhere and at other times.

It's also possible the impact (however small) of free range children such as yourself, helped the militia men you encountered find their own humanity.

Thank you for pointing that out. It could also have been their free-range childhoods. These soldiers would not have been press-ganged. I’ve read that elsewhere in Africa, child soldiers are forced by older soldiers to commit atrocities together (rape etc) in order to form a sort of perverse bond or espirit de corps which is otherwise not present when you’re forced to be there.

Re: The Relentlessness of Modern Parenting

#162

Post by elipsey » Wed, Jan 09, 2019, 1:37 AM UTC

anyfoo wrote: post #121

elipsey wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a great deal of sympathy for that “damned if do, damned if you don’t” problem that really engaged parents describe, and I feel like I have observed this issue with an outsider perspective. My spouse and I live in SF now (I’m a programmer, she’s an engineer) but we’re not exactly from here in either the geographic or social-economic sense. She grew up in northern Idaho and Montana, I grew up in Alaska. Her pare…

I'm not sure you would have been better off being raised how your parent (hah!) poster described, as you kind of allude to in your last paragraph yourself. Maybe your parents were too laissez-faire and too lenient in how they treated your missteps, but I don't think that means that parents should take control over their children's free time and force activities upon them. You say that you would have preferred your cu…

>> Maybe your parents were too laissez-faire and too lenient in how they treated your missteps

This isn't quite what I mean. I don't think they should have been stricter, or more authoritarian or punitive (although they were those things at times). Nor do I think this is usually all people mean when they talk about "helicopter parents". Rather, I wish they had been more available to help me when I had problems that were beyond my own interpersonal abilities to solve, or that involved other adults and authority figures that did not have my best interests at heart.

When my stepson had problems in school, I went to the school, talked to the teachers, negotiated on his behalf, nagged him to finish his homework, and even helped him do it. My parents weren't always available that way; they were busy, and I think they kind wrongly assumed that other adults would be sane, fair, and reasonable.

In public school, college admissions, even early jobs that one holds as a minor, there are all sorts of situations that are really difficult to handle as teenager, and I think it's often a good thing when parents help with that kind of stuff. This might sound overbearing or entitled on the part of the parents, but I think it can and should be done, in moderation, with a humble and respectful attitude. Lot's of the authority figures in my life at that age truly did not give a fuck about what happened to me, beyond their own trifling convenience. I needed someone on my side, and that's what I'm talking about.

Re: The Relentlessness of Modern Parenting

#163

Post by danmaz74 » Wed, Jan 09, 2019, 9:30 AM UTC

barry-cotter wrote: post #126

danmaz74 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember the trope about "tiger moms" which was about Asian mothers. I wonder if it's still a thing.

It’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.

Why do you think it's a false promise?

Re: The Relentlessness of Modern Parenting

#164

Post by lewis500 » Wed, Jan 09, 2019, 4:13 PM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #104

lewis500 wrote: post #62

Looking 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 h…

I 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.

Don’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.

Re: The Relentlessness of Modern Parenting

#165

Post by aeontech » Thu, Jan 10, 2019, 3:48 AM UTC

thisisweirdok wrote: post #155

aeontech wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even 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,…

Sure 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.

I don’t think we disagree? My point was just that there is no guaranteeing safety and success for your offspring.

Re: The Relentlessness of Modern Parenting

#166

Post by jacobolus » Thu, Jan 10, 2019, 10:10 AM UTC

InclinedPlane wrote: post #97

thisisweirdok wrote: post #21

Not 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 ro…

Look at the graph of spending on children, look at how the lines for the bottom 3 quintiles have gone down since the '80s and '90s. That's very disheartening to see, parents are going to try their hardest to give their kids the best chances, and yet 60% of families have been squeezed by the economy into providing less for their children than previous generations. This despite inflation adjusted per capita GDP nearly…

My suspicion is that a big part of this is declining family size among all income brackets. The reported numbers are per household rather than per child (excluding households with no children).

Amount spent per child might be flat or even still even be slightly rising for these groups (though obviously nothing like the booming spending of the wealthy).

Re: The Relentlessness of Modern Parenting

#167

Post by uwbassist » Thu, Jan 10, 2019, 4:27 PM UTC

I'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.