What Seems To Be Tripping Up Modern Parenting Approaches

Let us make a list.

I am not personally sure whether it’s harder to parent now or 30 years ago, both because I don’t have kids and (as a result of the space/time continuum) I was not a parent 30 years ago either. It certainly seems harder, and a lot of the consternation about how Generation Alpha (those currently <14 years old) is being parented would seem to be tied to, well, a decline in parenting — or an increase in the difficulty of parenting.

What are some of the factors going on here, then?

The Costs

The “child care cliff,” as the academics call it, seems very real and almost necessitates two-income families — or, if the cost of day care skyrockets Y2Y, it necessitates a woman (probably, maybe a man) to return to the home in order to negate that expense. There seem to be more economic pressures, which take time away from active parenting.

Parents Wanting To Be “Friends” With Their Kids

“I’m the cool mom!” I’ve actually heard this argument from a lot of people, including my father-in-law: we used to view kids as people we raised, and now we view them as friends, and while you don’t want to only be “the boss” of your kids, the kids-as-friends paradigm cuts into…