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.

    • Orannis62 [ze/hir]
      ·
      3 years ago

      One of my favorite somewhat more understated bits of parody in Disco Elysium centered around this idea, with the bookstore owner with the completely commodified relationship with her child, complete with hyper-marketized buzzwords and literally praying to the free market

    • Ericthescruffy [he/him]
      hexagon
      ·
      3 years ago

      I LOVE IT. I don't know how I feel about telling them about sea monsters but I've always been hugely anti corporal punishment and with the pandemic I did a lot of self reflection and realized how counterproductive I feel yelling is. I like the articles point that yelling at your kids is essentially going down to their level and teaching them so many of the wrong lessons. Children will emulate the behaviors they see in front of them. I'm still a WIP and don't always practice what I preach but its had a really really positive impact on my entire parenting style and my son's behavior in refusing to yell and catching my own emotions.

        • Ericthescruffy [he/him]
          hexagon
          ·
          3 years ago

          Yeah, its funny because I really like theory that storytelling was an essential component of how humans evolved to work with larger and larger civilizations.....but while it might just be my logic/skeptic bruh from my tweenage years rearing its ugly....I just kinda have this inherent instinctive dislike of basing ours and our children's actions and behaviors on made up bullshit. I feel like that's how you wind up reinforcing bad shit like patriarchal gender roles also.

          Telling stories is great...just...maybe stay closer to truth then ficition.