Non-Parents Give Crappy Parenting Advice
Parenting is different from what you expect
If you aren’t a parent, and you haven’t spent a significant amount of time around children since you were a child yourself, your parenting advice is probably bad.
You would think that, having been a child, you would have a lot of knowledge of at least one side of the question, but it isn’t so.
Most people have childhood amnesia: that is, most people don’t remember anything before about age three, and have a spotty memory of things before about age six. What this means is that, when you’re trying to think about how children work based on your own experience, you’re probably imagining someone aged about seven to about eleven.
Children change a lot as they age. For example, when I talk about handwriting classes at my kid’s microschool, I often get pushback. “Kids don’t need to learn to handwrite! I wasted so much time learning to make these beautiful S’s and A’s! Sure, they need to be able to scribble down a few sentences on a piece of paper, but you shouldn't do a whole class on it.”1
…Well, you see, the kids don’t know how to scribble down a few sentences on a piece of paper, because that is a thing you have to learn. It’s a thing you learn in kindergarten and first grade, like my students.
Similarly, it’s easy to dismiss as condescending and manipulative a parenting technique like “do you want to put on your shoes now, or in five minutes?” “That wouldn’t have worked on me when I was a child,” you’ll think. And you’re right! It doesn’t actually work on eight-year-olds. But two-year-olds have a developmental need for autonomy and control over their lives.2 Often, when a two-year-old protests “DON’T WANT SHOE!”, the thing they actually want is to have a say over the shoes situation. By letting them pick the time they put on their shoes, they get the control they need, and you get the going-out-the-door you need.3 Eight-year-olds are more used to being able to make choices, and if they object to putting on their shoes it’s far more likely to be because they actually don’t want to wear shoes.
What’s worse, parents very commonly make the mistake of treating their children as if they’re younger than they are. This mistake is very natural. Adults don’t undergo a complete revision of their preferences and abilities every year, so if you’ve figured out how to interact with an adult, you can just keep doing that forever. Children change radically over time, and it’s very easy to assume that if something was good six months ago it’s also good now. Therefore, many people remember chafing at particular rules or feeling patronized by particular ways of talking—but those rules or ways of talking were completely appropriate for them when they were younger, their parents just failed to change strategies quickly enough. However, because of childhood amnesia, those people don’t remember being younger, and therefore assume that the rules are naturally too strict or the way of talking naturally patronizing.
Even if you have an opinion about an age you remember well, you might have forgotten other important details. I spent many years wondering why on earth my mother dragged me to so many activities I hated when I regularly had screaming, crying, miserable meltdowns about how much I hated them. “How hard is it to notice that your screaming, crying child doesn’t want to do that allegedly fun thing?” I thought.
And then I had a child. I realized that small children—at least ones with my genes—melt down a lot. They melt down because a situation is unfamiliar, or a plan changed, or they misunderstood something, or they’re just tired and grouchy. I didn’t remember all meltdowns of that sort I had, because they didn’t make a huge impression on me. I remembered being forced to do things I hated, but not all the times I had an equally dramatic response before being introduced to something I really loved.
As a parent, you want to clarify misunderstandings and signpost plan changes and make sure children are well-rested. But sometimes you’re like “I don’t understand what you misunderstood about this situation but I am sure you will figure it out once you get there” or “the new, unfamiliar thing will only become an old, familiar thing if you do it” or “you’re grouchy now, but doing something fun will cheer you up.” And so you drag your loudly protesting child off to do an allegedly fun thing.
Of course, you should also refrain from taking your child to fun activities they actually hate. But figuring out which is which is hard and requires good judgment, and it’s easy to err in both directions—something I didn’t appreciate before I had a child.
Further, when a person with little experience of children gives parenting advice, she’s generalizing from the experiences of one person—herself. You would never say “I, an adult, like it when people make plans with me a week in advance instead of the day of. Therefore, everyone should make plans a week in advance.” Only New York Times thinkpiece writers do that. But all kinds of completely normal people assume that, if they would have liked to be treated a particular way as a child, all children would like to be treated that way.
Children are as diverse as adults. Some thrive on schedule and routine; others prefer it when things are more flexible. Some are anxious and frightened; others are reckless and fearless. Some love trying new foods; others would prefer a diet of buttered pasta and white bread. Some thirst for knowledge; others would rather do nothing but play Minecraft. Each of these personality differences implies a different parenting style.
You might generalize from your experiences of your friends, but remember that your friends tend to be like you. Advice that works great for a bright, driven, curious child works poorly for a child who is slow in school and unmotivated to learn. Even very specific traits can be shared among a friend group. For example, it’s not uncommon for everyone in a group of friends to have taught themselves to read—even though phonics is vital for most children.
Ideal parenting techniques depend not only on the child but also the parent. Again, think of an adult relationship. You might have a weekly meeting with your girlfriend to discuss problems and it works great, but if you were dating someone else she might be too forgetful to ever actually have a meeting so problems go months undiscussed. Both people in a relationship—and the specifics of how they interact—matter.
One parent might be creative and high-energy and love turning everything into a game; another parent might get bored and frustrated by playing Let’s Race To See Who Gets Their Clothes On Fastest! One parent might have an excellent grasp of child psychology such that their children don’t even think of misbehaving; another parent might use punishment. One parent might love being busy and going outside the house every weekend; another parent might like staying at home and reading a book. Different parenting techniques are useful for each parent.
Finally, a lot of non-parents aren’t really aware of the constraints that parents are under. I’m all for empathizing with children and validating their feelings and making them feel heard, but sometimes that will take twenty minutes and we needed to leave for school five minutes ago. I’m all for free-range children, but sometimes letting your child cross the street by herself will get Child Protective Services called on you. I’m all for children having separate bedrooms, but sometimes you live in the Bay Area and you couldn’t afford a bedroom for each child without crippling debt.
I think this is particularly common regarding children in public spaces. I promise you, no parent is happy about their baby crying on an airplane. But people have many reasons to need to travel with babies: maybe Grandma is sick and wants to meet her grandchild before she dies, maybe their best friend is getting married, maybe they are going fucking insane and they just need a week off on a beach sipping cocktails. And—babies just cry sometimes. Even if you’re the best and most empathetic and most devoted parent in the world, sometimes your baby will cry and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. I’m sorry, I know it sucks, I am all for you texting your groupchat and going ARRGGGHHHH. But “babies shouldn’t be crying on the plane!” is essentially banning parents of young children from travel.
Similarly: my child is running around the BART station because they need to get their energy out somehow or we’re all going to have a bad time; my child is watching a noisy YouTube video because my phone doesn’t have a headphone jack and it was this or a meltdown; my child is crying in the grocery store because I was three-quarters of the way through checking out when they saw the Skittles and I just want to be done; my child is in the nice restaurant because it’s the only restaurant in six blocks that’s open and we have to eat. I agree that parents should try to minimize the amount that their children disturb others. But I think some childfree people don’t quite realize that their preferred norms for children’s behavior amount to “children shouldn’t be allowed to leave the house at all.”
Please extend grace to your friends who are parents. Ask why they’re doing something instead of jumping to criticism. Recognize that you may be missing something important. And try not to hold your opinions too strongly if you rarely interact with children at all.
More reasonable is the complaint that the kids should just type, but we have a mostly screen-free school because child-led learning pairs badly with the ability to watch Let’s Plays on YouTube.
Parents complain most about the “terrible twos” and the “terrible teens”, because these are the two times children really start clamoring for autonomy.
Some people say that offering a binary choice is manipulating the child into believing that there’s no third “no putting on shoes” option. I don’t believe this because I have never in my life met a two-year-old unwilling to respond to “do you want to put on your shoes now, or in five minutes?” with “NO SHOE!”
Of course, just to prove your point about children being diverse, our just-turned-two-year-old doesn't fall for the false dichotomy trick everyone recommends and indeed says, "NO SHOE". So we have have to launder all of our asks through a toy animal trying to do the task, failing, and then asking her to show them how it's done. Her psychological need appears to be autonomy and that includes it being "her idea" to do the thing. Anything that we explicitly offer is not a valid choice.
As a kindergarten teacher, I appreciate the caveat in your first sentence. I think I have a lot of advice to give to new parents around *what types of child they might get*, *how little control they have* post birth about which type they get, and most crucially, how to think in terms of being fertile soil for the seed you've gotten, rather than disastrously attempting to mold an unformed piece of clay..