Why Our Parents Put Us To Shame

this article is right on!

great article

agree

I LOVED this article. Here, here to the previous generations! It helps remind me that parenting doesn't have to be so difficult - that I get so wrapped up in wanting everything to be perfect for my kids that I forget about living the moment. Thanks for the reminder.

I have always been amused rather than offended by people who become militant and obsessive about things that are really quite simple if you let them be, among them parenting. So many well-meaning parents who have to find out the hard way that if you hover, you'll end up with kids who can't function unless they're hovered over; that if you let yourself become a short-order cook for each meal, you'll end up with kids who won't eat it because they know they don't have to eat it and all they have to do is fuss a little and they'll get chicken nuggets and fries; that if you fear dirt and grass stains and bruises and cuts and the occasional broken arm, you'll end up with kids who are too scared and suspicious of the world to really live in it. . . .I could go on for years.

Lighten up, parents. Let your kids play, make friends, ride bikes. KICK the little video-game-addicts outside. Don't be so fearful that you make your kids fearful. I've had college students who had never been allowed to make their own friends, and now they're making terrible choices because they don't know HOW to make choices.

Parenting is hard but it's supposed to be fun. If you're not having fun, you're doing something wrong. I had a blast with my own kids, and now I have a blast with other people's kids. Oh, and my own kids are heavily into spelunking, hiking, canoeing, rafting, and other activities that some of their friends weren't allowed to partake in until they left home.

Saddest of all? Kids who were raised with a fear of the unknown and all things "stranger" who are now too afraid to leave home at all.

Good luck with that one, helicopter parents.

P.S.If you're still hovering when your kid is in college, you might want to know that we're all laughing at you. And pitying your kid.

P.S. S. Actually, I'm sort of doing that right now. Lighten up.

I'm glad I'm not the only parent out there that still idolizes my simple childhood. We played outside until the street lights came on and even if my mom wasn't a gourmet cook we still had a hot meal on the table most nights and it didn't come from a McDonald's. My mind is blown when I see kids at Target or a restaurant with their eyes glued to the damn Nintendo DS. We were never allowed to take our toys to a store or out to dinner, we were expected to participate in the outing.

I don't think a simple childhood that the author is talking about is what causes bad things to happen to children. Unfortunately it's a part of life that all parents, old and young, have to deal with and always keep in the forefront of in their minds.

Looks like you hit a nerve. I'll steer clear of that. Just wanted to say, 'well done.' I am looking for ways I can safely send my kids out to play. I haven't found any yet and it really bums me out.

I dont understand all the people that are offended by this article. Who are mentioning all the kids that died and were kidnapped, and blaming the parents for lack of supervision. They act as if this doesn't still happen today.

Dispite being overprotective and overbearing parents, keeping our children in safe bubbles, bad things still happen. I think the point she was trying to make is that she was happy. Its the simple things children need, not expensive toys. I understand that the world wasnt perfect, but neither is ours. Stop blaming the 50's generation for the problems back then, they did they best they knew how just like we are doing.

Im sure that 20 years from now, our kids will be having a discussion just like this, appauled by our parenting habits.

I like this article and I've thought those very thoughts many times. It seems that some people are missing the point -- it's not about money or that particular people who were horrible in your life -- those issues transcend time. It's about simplifying and just pure unadulterated living. The author is careful to point out that many things have changed for the better. Just not all…

Eating a home-cooked meal. Nothing fancy, but there's something lovely remembering memory of my mother (and father) cooking a meal and saying "dinner's ready."

Playing outdoors and using your creativity to create your fun was magical. No shrink-wrap magic fun pack can replace that. We learned how to make ourselves happy.

Parents were more sensible about situations where discipline would be involved. They used baby sitters. They didn't bring babies into movies or restless young children to fancy restaurants. If we got out of line, we went to our rooms with no fanfare. Being ignored for a couple hours did the trick.

And for zealots, I know what she means. There is a great deal of harshness, division and judgement over what was once just "they do it this way" ... end of story.

My parents are both gone now, but as I read about birthday parties and reusing old party decor, I'm reminded of a particular piece of wrapping paper my mother thought was so pretty that she continued to cut and re-use it from when I was about 5 until we laughed at how small it was and still used in my 20's. A tear is runs down my face thinking of Mom's beaming smile over a scrap of pretty paper. Those simple parties were actually fun. These stressful over-planned, expensive parties I see today… not so much.

The title intrigued me because I say the same things alot of the time. My difference is I dine out with my family now as much as I did when I was a kid. Maybe a pizza delivered once a week, otherwise, we cook every day. On the stove, grill, or in the oven. With pans. We only hit drive-thru if we are traveling. I don't know anyone else that dines out alot or doesn't cook, so I couldn't really relate to that one. The birthday party either. My kid gets a cake, a card, and present, like every other kid. If there are kids getting ponies and jumping things, I'm watching a movie. These kids you know much be rich. I have to say, I've never seen that at a birthday party. I don't believe in spoiling, so I wouldn't get it for my kid even if I could afford it. And I am out to impress no one, so I really don't care what my neighbors think. - just you tell you a bit about how I am. I do think kids need to disciplined more today. Being afraid of really laying in on them hurts them not learning lessons. I didn't get grounded or things taken away, I got my butt beat and I knew better. That's why there are so many brats out there now. They need a good butt whooping. People can be against it all they want, but we got our butts beat for decades and we all turned out fine and none of us acted up or we know what we would get. It works. Yes, we also grew up around people smoking, chewing on garbage, and swimming in dirty creeks. And we are all fine. I'll tell you what really get to me are these poor, poor little boys and girls and that have to ride a bike with a darn helmet on. Are you kidding me? Fall down and get up, you sissy. Really? My kid got a helmet and knee pads for his birthday and Christmas and they all went straight to the trash. Poor kids. I really feel for those poor kids. It's 90 degrees outside and they have a plastic helmet on their head. Making their head wobble and sweat and that cheap plastic thing probably does no good anyway. Probably would break. Plus, when I fell, I feel on my knees and elbows, not my head. I guarantee you, if you get hit by a car, you're getting hurt, helmet or no helmet. Again, poor kids.

Also, this everyone wins thing is sick. No, everyone does not win. In real life, some people win and some people lose. Are these kids going to thrown tantrums in high school when they lose at track or flunk a test? What are you teaching kids? Not real life, that's for sure.

And, yes, I jumped around the back seat, the front seat, and survived. Parents did rock back then. Today's parents need to quit turning a child into a badly behaved sissy and lighten up. Let the kids be kids, without helmets. Please.

THANK YOU. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you for writing this story and making it so cohesive and logical and sensible. This is how I grew up--no, I didn't live in Pleasantville, I was raised in a bit of a group effort by both sets of grandparents and my mom after my parents' relationship torpedoed very soon after I was born. But regardless of where I stayed, I remember playing in the rain, eating home-cooked meals, treasuring the toys I had, making my own friends, working for my own money...all of it. Sweet memories, colored by nostalgia, are now consuming me.

This is how I raise my kids now, or as much as possible. My kids do it all: play in the rain or outside if I can get them to do it (by limiting their computer time), making friends, walking or biking to school, making their own friends, getting dirty, etc. They spend time with the neighbors and the neighbors send their kids over here. We borrow cups of sugar and lend money and tools when needed. We run errands for each other and do potlucks. We gripe about our kids and aren't afraid to discipline them, or discipline our kids' friends, within reason, because we know we can expect the same from the friends' moms when our children act the fool over there! How can I do all this? Well, mainly because I don't live in the US anymore. We relocated to Costa Rica almost 10 years ago. Not that I don't love the US--but it's changed so much, I don't want to go back and raise my kids there. Things are too fast, too expensive, too scary. I know we'd have serious culture shock. I know that's not an option for many people, but honestly, we never thought it was an option for us, either. We ended up moving down here after our house burned down. We thought, why not REALLY start over again? Best thing we ever did. Now our kids are bi-lingual and have the benefits of knowing there's more to the world than the US. They are tech-savvy thanks to me and my husband, but they're also very innocent about the bigger, wider, uglier world because we keep their lives simple. I cook three meals a day myself, bake my own bread, and do basically everything from scratch. We watch movies together and play games, but we don't have cable anymore, because it was a waste of money. My kids all love to read and write, they play until the sun goes down outside and then with each other inside until they fall asleep where they ended up, exhausted and sunburned. No, it's not a perfect existence, but it's a damn sight better than what many of the people we know from back home have in terms of really living instead of running and being scared about everything all the time. I thank my lucky stars every day for the house fire that forced us to make a huge decision and reclaim the life we wanted. I know not everyone can do what we did, but they CAN do more about how they view their lives and how they live them.

That's where it all comes in: culture. I see some snarky, mean-spirited, and condescending remarks by some responders, and they make me shake my head. How can people NOT long for the "good old days" and wish that for their kids? Your line about lead paint was obviously a joke--c'mon people, do you not get hyperbole and comedic license?? And seriously, can you really say, all you uber-chic modern mamas out there who delight in being as complicated and pretentious as possible, can you really, deep down in your soul, say that you don't wish things were simpler? I know the world is dangerous and different now, but we can still have a smattering of that longed-for nostalgia if we realize that culture is what WE make of it. If we insist on living like we're in a hostile atmosphere, where we can't do anything without vetting, sourcing or googling, we only perpetuate the cycle. Stop for a moment and try to disconnect. Stop labeling each other and ourselves! Be YOU, not someone who every else expects you to be. Sigh.

Lighten up, ladies. You know you wish you could just let your kids go out and play. They actually can, within reason, if we ALL try to make things better.

Although I agree wholeheartedly in some ways, in others, I saw that the attitude of 'everything will be fine, don't worry' was a way of dealing with things they assumed they had no control over.

My son is 17 now. I was 43 when he was born. Many of the tragedies I knew of and experienced made me more watchful, more attentive. It is true, once my child was at school I could no longer be watchful. And, than, everything went awry

My mother had 9 children all naturally, one at home. We always had home cooked meals with portion control..I started working for many necessities when I was 12 as did some of my siblings.

My Dad initially in the service WW11, became a policeman but out of a need to constantly increase his income took many different jobs and played many differrent roles.

At 85 and 88 they have outlived two of my brothers and brother-in-law who all died before they were 50.

I celebrate their tenacity and longevity !

I read an article recently, an opinion piece, about how my generation was actually the least parented. I wish I had kept it in my favorites. I think your piece more reflects the generation prior to mine because I didn't see a whole lot of what your remembering. Most of my friends' parents were divorced and chasing their own pursuits like sex with a new partner, a career, sowing wild oats and casting off the restraints of their childhood.

And anyone who lets their child just go out and play is a rather poor parent. My heart is breaking for that little girl in Missouri, the THREE year old, who was taken in front of her home where she was riding her bike.

Why do I feel, after reading some of the comments, that a lot of people read the title, and maybe the first few lines and then commented?

I think I get it. Our parents rocked - b/c even though we didn't have car seats or seat belts, they did their best to keep us safe and let us be kids. We played outside, a lot, not sitting in front of the t.v. or computer games as so many kids do today. And I remember the neighbors all knowing each other and the kids playing in the neighborhood and neighbors coming over for cookouts. Now, we don't even KNOW our neighbors. And just b/c we played outside didn't mean we were unsupervised - as some commenters jumped to the conclusion too. I remember my parents being out there with us. Families just seemed to interact more. And THAT is why our parents rocked.

Just because YOU didn't die due to careless parenting or dangerous retro products doesn't mean thousands of other children didn't. No cake? The obesity/diabetes epidemic had to start somewhere.

Every one of our parents, friends, siblings or even us who voted in politicians who waged war on drugs and terrorism that have done nothing but drain our bank accounts and retirement accounts and enrich the already wealthy are to blame for a world so unsafe we can't let kids play in the front yard. They also have spent those billions denying climate change and continuing to rape the environment, so "green" is not a lifestyle choice but a prudent way to do business. All with our parents' and elders' consent.

They trusted their neighbors, uncles, second husbands and churches blindly, and look where that got tens of thousands of molested children. And those same folks are to blame for not having enough kids to populate an entire neighborhood with outdoor play cohorts, so we now have to make dates for them.

This sounds like the same "walking barefoot to school, in the snow, barefoot, uphill both ways" rant we listened to, just in reverse.

Parents today could definitely lighten up, a lot. But the fact that they're so nailed down isn't irrational.

Whenever I read something like this - and I did, for all intents and purposes, grow up in a 1950s small town - I think, yes, some was better, but some really sucked. As much as small town life is really a village raising all its kids, there was also a whole lot of breathing down your neck in all the wrong ways. School, even public school, was a lot more parochial for all the waxing nostalgic for readin', writin', and 'rithmatic. I ran very wild up hills and barefoot with 13 channels of cable and drive-in movies and dinner every night on the table. My Grandfather lived with us and would not eat anything unless it had PA Dutch white sauce on it. My mother suffered in silence cooking when inside I knew she wanted to clobber him.Some of it was very Disney. Other parts of it were straight out of Angela's Ashes with lots of pain, fear, and drudgery of having nothing else to do, eventually, but begin drinking early to while away a creative mind in a town that kept its buttons buttoned and its shoes shined. And those shoes were not white after Labor Day. Add in 12 years of old time Catholic School complete with non-nonsense discipline delivered by rulers, and a dad hugging his naughty little girl to shush her seems wonderful. So yes, I agree...kids today need to get outside more, get their faces out of screens (she said, ironically) etc. But whenever people say things like, "Back when I was a kid, we didn't wear bike helmets and I turned out okay", I like to point out that my neighbor who had his head smashed in a helmetless bike accident isn't around to raise his hand and say, "Uh, not all of us turned out okay." The past has it's wonderful parts, sure, but I think we sometimes rose-color it because it's the only way we can deal with forgetting the not-so-rosy parts.

There are several things in this article I agree with, but there are so many factors that affect this kind of stuff. Two working parents in several homes or more single parents; a more dangerous society; the more prevalent need to "keep up with the Jones'"...the list goes on. I don't think any one generation is perfect or does it better than another, I just think society as a whole has changed. I know my husband and I are trying to be the best parents that we can be to our son, and I think that's all we can really ask for.

That opens many doors to discussion. Thanks

love love love!! i am a mommy of four....23, 19, 6 &3. i grew up on a farm in the 70's with out cable and internet, we had a rotary dial phone, we were outside all the time as well. life was blissfully simple. my husband makes great money, i stay home, we life well under our means and take great family vacations. i cook everyday! breakfast, lunch and dinner. but i do use toaster strudles and oven store pizza as well. we grow a veggie garden and have three chickens and my big kids have had cell phones and cars since they were 16. i spank if my kids neeed it and i dont care who sees me or where i am, my children are always outside playing...

i hug and kiss and say i love you to my kids several times a day. all my kids are still living at home right now....i must be doing something right.

thank you mommy be thy name!!!! i love this and it makes me remember whats really important....live is great!

Great posting. The whole issue reminded me of a great book I read a while back. Last Child in the Woods:Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder.

B.S. Enough with the "We're not good enough" nostalgia. If there's one reason why the older generation was better t han us it is because they didn't whine about how unworthy and spoiled they were. Only a truly spoiled person whines about how spoiled they are. THIS is the great failing of our generation and the nation as a whole.

AND, back in the 70s, when I was growing up, women didn't have nearly the presence in the job market, so more time was devoted to family. This is common sense. Mothers left the house en masse and so did social and familial cohesion.

So, if you're going to beat yourself up (and the rest of us) for being uber-efficient and hyper-achieving, then quit your job so you'll have more time to cook "real" meals and re-connect or disconnect from the kids.

But I refuse to feel guilty for needing to connect with my kids more with the little time I have with them.

Amen, sister.

Not everybody from my generation (born in the 80s and 90s) is a spoiled pony-riding little brat. Some of us had discipline and work ethics forged into our bones from the day we were born. I grew up on a farm, hated it, went to college, and now I work in a cushy tech writing job for a software company in the Silicon Valley. However, that is not the reason why I am replying to this thread. I'd like to point out that your soap box is really no different than that of the soy milk family, the reduced carbon emissions family, or any of the other families that you pointed out in this article. Both you and them have an agenda and a soap box and a vision of how you would engineer society to be better. These soap box people and their ideas aren't what is wrong with this country. In fact, I'd say they are some of the best things that this country has left.

The real problem that you dance around but never quite nail in this article is that more privileged generations take what they have for granted. They think that what they have is entitled to them. The problem isn't with having too much. If people want ponies, soy milk, reusable grocery bags, and Prius cars, then so be it. This is America, right? We can have those things. The problem is with what we don't have. We have values in our efficient cars and ponies, but we don't have values in responsibility, honor, discipline, hard work, or integrity. And, as you said, we don't have family meals cooked by the family at home. That's our problem.

Great article. I am 56 years old, never married, no children, and profess that the best years of this country are behind us. I often yearn for the 50's and 60's again. Those were the best years of this country. Sure, I was disciplined, and I lived through it with no regrets. My parent's generation had more respect for people, greater respect for their country, and were more dedicated to their jobs. Baby boomers have only one thing in mind, "ME". It was evident in their childhood. My father vowed and declared, "God help the country when the baby boomers are running things". I can only say now God help us, we are there. I stand firm in my conviction that the best years of this country are truly behind us, never to be seen again.