International- Parents nowadays seem to be taking more advice from parenting experts than family members.
- Family is invested in the well-being of the parent and the child, while experts focus only on kids.
A few years into teaching I announced to my class that I was pregnant with my first child. The next day at drop off a mother at my school said to her daughter, "Should we tell her Grammy's two rules of parenting?" My student, then 5 years old, promptly said, "Never wake a sleeping baby, and never make a happy baby happier."
I had heard the first rule but not the second. They were both equally brilliant in their simplicity — protect the contentment of the child and preserve the resources of the parent. To this day, those two rules might be the best parenting advice I have ever received, delivered to me by a 5-year-old, passed down through at least three generations of her family.
Now parents don't want to follow family advice
Fast forward 10 years later, and it's been a while since I've heard parents at my school refer to any sage wisdom from their own parents. From what I can observe, they are more often eschewing advice from their own families as being outdated. It's important to note that I am not referring to instances where parents are attempting to break a cycle of abuse; these are families who simply want to do better than their already good-enough parents did for them.
While not "expert," advice from family or friends offers something intangible and underestimated: it naturally comes from a place of vested interest in both parent and child. This differs from parenting experts who tend to focus solely on what's ideal for the child, without regard for the toll striving for such an ideal may be taking on a parent who is already stretched thin.
For instance, when a parenting expert posts a reel detailing how to de-escalate a tantrum, she may be sitting in a cheerfully lit, clean space with no background noise. Her nervous system is regulated, and she appears rested. But when a parent tries to execute the same approach in a house that looks like it was just ransacked, an episode of "Paw Patrol" blaring in the background, on four hours of interrupted sleep, knowing all the while that a pot of mac and cheese is burning on the stovetop, it's a bit harder to get down on eye level with your toddler and validate their big feelings.
Parenting experts lack the context in which we are parenting nowadays
The challenge here is that when parents attempt to replicate techniques and approaches given by experts who are doling out advice without awareness of the context in which the adult may be attempting to apply it, we can have parents parroting well-intentioned scripts and applying child-centric techniques at times when a boundary, act of self-preservation, or even saving lunch, could be more warranted.
As parents strive with increasing effort to improve upon the previous generations' shortcomings by turning to experts, not only are we slowly but surely divorcing the practice of child-rearing from practical, intergenerational wisdom, we may be inadvertently moving parents away from trusting their own rationality.
I recently connected with Katy Hill, a UK-based clinical psychologist who specializes in parental burnout, to get her take on this phenomenon. She observes, "the content parents are taking in on social media often lacks nuance and can be quite dogmatic so parents can feel a lot of shame and exhaustion trying to keep up to an unrealistic standard of so-called 'perfect' parenting."
We are getting advice from people who we've never met
In days past, when the proverbial village was more intact, families were receiving not just advice and information but insight and practical support from people who cared deeply about the entire family unit. Today, parents are seeking advice from people they have never met, likely never will meet, and who stand to gain monetarily from parental fear, uncertainty, and doubt.
In the sales and marketing world those three words, fear, uncertainty, and doubt, go by the acronym FUD. Parents have a lot of FUDs, especially as it relates to their children's well-being and their own capability as parents. Whereas family members or close friends may try to ease FUD, parenting experts may try to capitalize on it.
With this in mind we may do well to take expert parenting advice the way we should take all advice, with a grain of salt and a healthy dose of skepticism about the motivations of the person doling it out. And perhaps we can start turning more often to people in our lives whose only skin in the game is seeing us and our kids happy. And once we get there, let's remember rule number two of parenting: never make a happy baby happier. Chances are you're a good enough parent as it is, and if you want my expert opinion, that's more than enough.
Christine Carrig, M.S.Ed., is the founding director of Carrig Montessori School in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. You can sign up for her newsletter at The Family Flow or follow her on Instagram @christine.m.carrig. She lives with her husband and their four children.