Seriously...as a parent I feel like I'm constantly stressed out on finding the right words and approaches to reinforce the right things but sometimes articles from "the experts":
https://archive.is/yP0yu
Just make me seethe with contempt for how out of touch and frankly awful some parenting gurus are.
Its not all bad to be fair. I agree with number 2 and teaching kids how to recognize their own emotions and think empathetically but then there's shit like number 3:
Furthermore, complaining about your job around your kids teaches them that work isn’t fun. As a result, they may grow up believing that adulthood is about spending half of your waking hours in complete misery.
Oh, well we can't have that can we? Oh no junior, I swear daddy definitely loves clocking in at 6am and answering emails and crunching numbers rather then going outside to play basketball with you or build that new lego set. What, you're grown up now and you hate your job and the way it makes you feel incredibly alienated in a way you never could have imagined? You just need to work on your attitude! Fuck that noise!
Even number 4, which I agree is good in practice, is arrived at for the wrong reasons. Its not about teaching kids some nonsense about being the sole arbiter and decision maker in charge of your life. Its about reinforcing the responsibilities and obligations you have to one another, whether that's doing work or going to help grandma get some things down from the attic, or getting groceries for the week at the store.
In a few years I genuinely hope we evolve to the point of realizing that teaching our children neoliberal mindset is its own form of abuse.
Fellow parent here. This makes me want to write an article called "How To Brainwash Your Kids Into Little Communists."
I remember back when I was more of a lib, I was definitely worried that my kids weren't going to "make it" because as a petite bourgeois I could sense quite easily that the world ten or twenty years from now is going to be a lot worse than it is today. These lib parenting articles are one result of that anxiety, I think. If we aren't part of the 1% in the Global North, we have to do absolutely everything perfectly in order to make sure that our kids have a shot of living decent lives...as the running dogs of the capitalists.
I remember being into the growth mindset. Don't say: "you're good at this," say: "you practiced really hard," etc., etc. Show that you can change yourself if you work hard enough. This kind of stuff was even posted around my kids' elementary school and is probably still there. It's not really that different from the liberal mentality floating around in the air when I was a kid, it's just kind of more codified, I guess. I actually don't totally disagree with it, I just think it's absurd to expect people who are being crushed by capitalism to do anything except survive (and even them, so many people don't make it no matter what they do). People who are into the growth mindset or similar meritocratic ideas seem to believe that everyone is just a monad floating in a vacuum, and that our connections to one another are mediated exclusively by the free market. There is no history, there are no material circumstances. Everyone everywhere starts life in exactly the same place, and if you can't make it, then it's because you're lazy, or you just haven't been given the right opportunity. Liberalism / fascism being exactly the same exhibit one zillion and three.
c/parenting when.
I definitely feel this, but I think abandoning the growth mindset completely is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. A lot of those think pieces took legitimate science and turned it into catch phrases. Having your kid see themselves as malleable and to challenge frustration with mor effort isn’t a bad thing. That said, I know it’s hard to teach that without playing into all this Protestant work ethic bullshit
So much this. I know for a fact my son is going to have hardships I didn't and less opportunities then I did when he comes of age. Urgh...I don't know how active c/parenting would be but I find myself often threading the needle between making sure he has the best opportunities within this system while also trying to remind myself its all fucking bullshit anyway and I don't want him to think life is all competition and hustling for success, and I'd love to get views from fellow travelers trying to navigate hellworld also.
+1 for c/parenting