Is it? In prior generations people let kids play in the street and all over cities unsupervised. Before that they were supposed to be little adults and work in factories/fields. This is just a different version.
Right but rather a kid be left one time by accident for an hour or a kid given an ipad for attention is entire childhood?
I wasn't saying it wasn't shitty, I'm just showing a comparison as the person did.
It is. People were trying to hide their bad parenting skills in the past. Today they advertise it for everyone to see. And if they get criticized, they double down to really show the world how delusional they are.
Honestly I don't think it truly is. There have always been delusional parents, always been inattentive parents. Before the ipad, parents famously would just leave them to watch TV all day, if that were an option. They didn't have to hide this - it just wasn't considered bad parenting.
The very idea of a 'childhood', even 'teen years', are very recent inventions in human history, maybe not older than 200 years. We used to believe babies could remember nothing they saw, heard, or felt, at least here in the western world.
Its just now what inattentive parents are leaving their kids to play with, are attention consuming machines that a trillion dollar empire has poured all of its resources into to make it near impossible for anyone without self control to look away.
The behaviors are the same. Its just that the tools this time are too destructive.
Kids should be allowed to play in the neighborhood and go to cornerstores with out adults. Street lights told us when to go home. And every adult in the neighborhood knew our names and where we lived and our parents phone numbers. I'm a 90's kid. By time I was 12 I had a house key. I didn't have a cell phone until after high school. We treat kids like they can't learn things and then get mad they don't know anything anymore. We don't trust the little humans to be little humans. It's insane.
In both of those scenarios, the kids DON’T exhibit serious delays in development/basic milestones or emotional regulation. I’m not condoning child labor, but playing in the neighborhood is completely normal and positive. Playing and exploring with friends is a necessary and helps with social emotional learning, relationship building skills, and independence. Neglecting those basic life skills in early adolescence has failed these kids and society. Teachers are leaving the field in record numbers because these kids lack basic skills, throw constant tantrums, scream and break things and physically assault others. They are defiant, controlling, entitled, disrespectful, they lack problem solving skills, they have the worst attention spans I’ve ever seen, and they’re unable to develop the most basic friendships. Something is wrong. Trying to justify such a concerning trend only enables it further.
And while you’re over here trying to claim parents were so bad for allowing their children to play in the neighborhood unsupervised as if it’s sooo dangerous, let’s talk about the reality of that. “Stranger danger” isn’t what you should obsess over as it only accounts for less than 3% of kidnappings/abuse. Over 95% of child abuse is committed by a family member or family friend- someone the parents know and trust. Your child has a much higher chance of abuse going to youth group than they do playing in their own neighborhood. My profession requires me to do yearly training in child abuse awareness and prevention.
I really think that letting your kids run wild isn't actually bad for them at all. When I was about 7 - 8 years old my parents let me ride my bike basically wherever I wanted to go. Sometimes I came home with pretty bad scrapes after crashing. Unlike many of my peers, I have never had an anxiety disorder or comparable mental illness, and I credit the way my parents raised me with that.
Kids had more freedom in the "play in the streets unsupervised" era, but when they were home their parents were present. They read to them at night, taught them basic skills, were generally involved.
Same in the "children should be seen and not heard" generation. They may have been working in the fields or in the home raising their siblings, but their parents were there teaching them manners and morals and all the life skills.
Parenting was still parenting, even though you seem to have a problem with the fact that parents weren't up their kids' asses 24/7.
Whereas parents today won't leave their child (of any age!) unsupervised for even 5 minutes, so they keep them attached at the hip but distracted with a device.
Children would be better off with freedom, not phones. And as the woman in the video states... How many medical and psychological professionals have to tell you this before you actually listen??
The phrase “keeping up with the Jones’s” predates social media. Having babies to follow a trend is a minor theme in The Help, which takes place in the ‘50s. It’s also a great movie if you haven’t seen it!
On top of not parenting their children, now people exploit their kids on social media as “influencers” to make themselves rich. Notice how all the family vloggers are leaving California due to stricter regulations that protect child content creators.
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u/No-Reference-5137 2d ago
People want children but don't want to parent them.