You’re screwing up your kid: An American saga

Parenting is hard, confusing work, and we are often eager for people to tell us how in the world to do it. To parents, it can seem like a new child-rearing trend pops up every few years, complete with new buzzwords and new ways to screw up. This article explores the history of parenting advice and how it has been rooted in racism, classism, and toxic individualism.

Parenting advice throughout history

Parents have always gotten advice from one another and from their elders. But at least in the US, larger cultural trends in advice for mothers began to come to the fore in the 1830s and 1840s, with the rise of women’s magazines that promulgated “the idea of the moral mother, the pure and pious woman who operates from her sphere of influence, which is the domestic sphere.”

This represented a shift in attention towards mothers and away from fathers. The idea of children as innocent and better suited to the “gentle, soft influence” that mothers could provide was also introduced at this time. The idea of the mother at home, softly tending to the children, was always “full of assumptions about race and class, as well as gender.”

Related Facts

• Parenting advice tends to be cyclical and reactionary, with each trend reversing what came before.
• Making sense of the conflicting and overlapping ideologies of parenthood is, to some degree, about tuning out the noise and tuning in to your individual family.
• Pushing back on the kind of blaming and shaming requires us to understand parenting less as a series of individual success and failures but more as something we do as part of a community.

Key Takeaway

Parenting is not a one-size-fits-all approach, and listening to your child and adapting accordingly is key. It also requires understanding the history of parenting advice, which has been rooted in racism, classism, and toxic individualism. Pushing back on this kind of blaming and shaming requires valuing the logistical, intellectual, and emotional labor of caregiving and understanding parenting less as a series of individual success and failures but more as something we do as part of a community.

Conclusion

Parenting trends come and go, and it’s easy to be confused by the conflicting advice. However, it’s important to take a broader perspective on parenting advice and understand its history of sexism, racism, and classism. Ultimately, parenting requires understanding your individual family’s needs, listening to your child, and valuing caregiving as a community effort.