Do you ever ask yourself – why is parenting particularly challenging these days?
As we look around we see signs of families struggling – amongst our neighbours and friends, in newspapers and on TV, in fact, anywhere we look. How do we make sense of this?
Sometimes the question is so big that it feels confusing and overwhelming. But one simple answer is that we are standing at a time and place in history in which the world is in a rapid state of change …. and consequently so are our ideas about parenting.
Changes within our lifetime
Think back for a moment on your own childhood years.
When you look back you may remember a world that looked very different to today. Perhaps you had a dad who went to work and a mum who stayed at home with the children. You may have played cricket in the backyard with the neighbours, kept busy building cubby houses or spent hours watching the old black and white television.
A lot has changed since the time when we were children -and these changes in society have influenced the ideas our generation have inherited about raising children.
Let’s take a moment to consider some of these significant changes …
1. Our society has become more liberal-minded
– since the 1960s and the time of the hippies, Bob Dylan and the Vietnam War we living in a society more willing to question authority and the status quo
2. Greater opportunities for women
– more women have been moving into the workforce and challenging their traditional roles within the home
3. Increasing access to information
– there has been a greater emphasis on educational opportunities for a wider range of people, leading to greater knowledge in the hands of the average person
4. A greater interest in the rights of the individual
– since the 1970s there has been the development of the self-esteem movement and promotion of assertiveness training, both emphasising the rights of the individual
5. A focus on children’s rights
– gone are the days when the father was head of the household, now the family motto is “I’d do anything for my kids”
6. A higher standard of living
– in general, the standard of living has improved for the average family, from the era of the black and white TV and one-car family to today’s explosion of gadgets and mod-cons
7. Living in a consumer-orientated culture
– our current economic growth relies heavily on consumer spending, and so we find ourselves living in a consumer-orientated culture that invests heavily in marketing and creating a perception of ‘need’
8. Easier access to finance and credit
– financial institutions have responded to this consumer-orientated culture by increasing lending and encouraging a ‘buy now and save’ mentality
9. More dual income families
– often both parents are working and it’s no longer ‘wait till your father gets home’ but more likely ‘wait till anyone gets home’.
10. Increasing divorce rates
–partly due to the changes above, there is an increasing likelihood of marriage breakups and family breakdowns, with more children living in single parent or blended families.
So the world is a very different place to the one when we were children. It is not surprising then that our ideas about parenting have also changed.
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Next: 1. Today's 'softer style' of parenting
