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.
This is incredibly true. To highlight: my son played dumb in kindergarten for the longest time and the teacher was getting a bit concerned at his reading progress. I thought we were doing fine but he did one 1 on 1 session and the teacher called me to tell that he actually needed to get moved to the advanced reading group and, she suspected, was playing dumb to get more attention from her. I noticed the same thing where he will often 'forget' words/letters during bed time reading because he wants me to read in the voices. Eventually I started just reading the stories to him at bed time again and having him practice reading in other times.
This is the constant issue and stressor with parenting though. Its not only ok indulge and cater/shelter to your children.....its necessary
It’s a weird balancing act. I guess you could call it dialectical. I’m definitely of the opinion that raising children is one of the few inherent and justified hierarchies in life. So it’s a parents’ job to undermine their own authority as it becomes appropriate