Parenting Reality Check?
So I ran across this post this morning:
http://www.blogher.com/why-our-parents-put-us-shame
And she says that our parents were better for lots of reasons - our parents' generation cooked real meals, and disciplined kids (generally), and knew the value of money and weren't parenting philosophy zealots and made us play outside (until after dark) and didn't throw Hollywood birthday parties.
And I get it.
And she's right.
But she's also so, so wrong.
'Cause this ain't 1978 anymore. And I've checked the Megan's Law website and the pedophile DOES live down the street (sometimes...they move around a lot it seems) and I don't know why we don't always have time to cook a "real" dinner...but we don't. And I remember the lady who spanked her kid at the mall getting "caught on tape" and being national news for a couple weeks and... well, it's not 1978 anymore...
And while most of what the woman said in the article still holds true for us - we still make our kids play outside (more closely supervised than I think I was), we still eat real meals at the table, birthday parties are pretty much family and a few friends (though we might spring for the theme cake from the grocery store - or go to the roller rink and get a cheap cake or make our own) and so on - I still can't imagine it's anything like it was 30+ years ago... But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you can go back.
Probably not, though. If you could, I think we would have by now...
http://www.blogher.com/why-our-parents-put-us-shame
And she says that our parents were better for lots of reasons - our parents' generation cooked real meals, and disciplined kids (generally), and knew the value of money and weren't parenting philosophy zealots and made us play outside (until after dark) and didn't throw Hollywood birthday parties.
And I get it.
And she's right.
But she's also so, so wrong.
'Cause this ain't 1978 anymore. And I've checked the Megan's Law website and the pedophile DOES live down the street (sometimes...they move around a lot it seems) and I don't know why we don't always have time to cook a "real" dinner...but we don't. And I remember the lady who spanked her kid at the mall getting "caught on tape" and being national news for a couple weeks and... well, it's not 1978 anymore...
And while most of what the woman said in the article still holds true for us - we still make our kids play outside (more closely supervised than I think I was), we still eat real meals at the table, birthday parties are pretty much family and a few friends (though we might spring for the theme cake from the grocery store - or go to the roller rink and get a cheap cake or make our own) and so on - I still can't imagine it's anything like it was 30+ years ago... But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you can go back.
Probably not, though. If you could, I think we would have by now...
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