Pic courtesy: Tembinkosi Sikupela from Unsplash
Day 21/100
About 50 years ago, this kind of question never existed. I remember when I was talking to my mom one day about kinds of parenting, she simply laughed it off. She said that the new generation is obsessed and have a name for everything. She’s right, I must admit. But it’s also true that there is so much information floating around in cyberspace these days, you automatically relate yourself with some category. In a way, it’s easy because you don’t need to explain much. When I tell someone, for example, that I’m a helicopter parent, they know exactly how I am as a parent (this is just an example, by the way. I’m not a helicopter parent).
But frankly, why do we have so many parenting styles these days? Were they really absent in the past or they existed but without names? Or did the names exist but we didn’t know them? From what I can remember, children in my times (early 80s) had two kinds of parents-- strict and liberal. There were no helicopter and penguin parents. Children, after a certain age, were left to be independent and they turned out well. They mostly were self disciplined and parents really didn’t need to interfere much. In the present times, there’s too much distraction for kids-- internet, television, movies, to name a few. If we leave the children unattended, they have all the resources to go astray. Information is available at their fingertips and children are quite fearless these days. Hence, whether we like it or not, whether we want or not, some level of monitoring is necessary. And this monitoring can be casual to very severe. And hence the names.
By the way, what kind of a parent are you? Did you know there’s bulldozer parenting and lighthouse parenting? Then there are unicorn moms, elephant moms, dragon moms, dolphin moms, snowplow moms and more. Now, that’s a lot of food for thought for a day. I know that you’re wondering why there are only different kinds of moms and not dads. The good news is, there are. And that’s for another post. Until then, whatever kind of parent or mom/dad you are, love your children but don’t live your unfulfilled lives through them. Let them just be.
