A second after the plastic shovel hit my son’s arm, the
other boy’s mother was rushing toward the sandbox, a look of “can I not
relax for five seconds” on her face. I made my way over too — probably
with the same expression — trying to signal that it was fine (my son was busy
playing with some other germy, sandy toy, and barely seemed to notice), but she
was already on her knees, eye level with her son, speaking in language that
many millennial parents would recognize.
اضافة اعلان
“I see that you’re frustrated,” she said,
looking exhausted. “You wanted to play with that bucket, and somebody else is
taking a turn, and that is hard.” I joked, “Ah, naming the feeling,” and
added a comment about how my boys are basically feral by the end of the
weekend. I felt bad that she thought such a normal thing — toddlers throw!
Toddlers are maniacs! — required so much effort in response.
But that is the earnest vibe in parenting circles these
days. Parents seem to be reading from a script they saw on Instagram, trying
their best to be empathetic in moments when they might want to simply say “Stop
it” or “Because I said so”.
There Is not a lot of irony on the playground. Snark — the reigning
tone of Gen X parenting blogs (and the internet more widely) in the aughts and
early 2010s — is distinctly out. Millennial parents, guided by influencers, are
proudly try-hard, embracing the notion that a kinder, more respectful parenting
style can also be a form of self-healing.
‘Hardest job in the world’
“Gentle parenting,” an approach that steers away from
punishment and focuses instead on helping children become more self-aware, is
the term that has caught on, but it’s sometimes used as a catchall for a set of
emotionally focused parenting styles. The prevailing ethos is that it’s
important to acknowledge and understand a child’s feelings while maintaining
boundaries, and that parents, in turn, benefit from recognizing their own
feelings.
“It’s a generation that takes learning and self-growth
seriously,” said Becky Kennedy, 40, a clinical psychologist known as Dr Becky
to her nearly 2 million Instagram followers, and who Time magazine called the
“millennial parenting whisperer.”
“Things like feelings not being soft, feelings being the
core of who you are — there’s more acceptance of that,” she said. “I think it’s
a generation that feels like, I have one life. I want to understand myself. I
want to feel good.”
She was once approached after giving a TED Talk by someone
who told her that parenting was the only job people cared about on their
deathbeds. “I was like, Whoa, that was dark, but also yeah, I think it is,” she
said. “And so, for a generation that takes learning and self-growth seriously,
now they have the hardest job in the world, the one they care about the most.”
On her Instagram account, Kennedy shares videos about topics
such as what to do when your children lie or say no and how to get them to
brush their teeth. Some posts are specifically about parents, including a
recent video explaining that parents taking time away from their children is
self-sustaining, not selfish. This month, she posted a video called “Say This
to Your Child Today,” in which she walks down a New York City block talking
into her phone like a hurried friend on FaceTime, discussing how to deal with a
child who is in a difficult phase:
“Find that child tonight and whisper something like this,”
she says in the video. “‘Hey, I just want to tell you something. There is nothing
that you could ever say or do that would make me love you less. Do you hear
me?’”
“Is this giving your child permission for their bad
behavior?” she asks, her voice getting louder, more emphatic. “No! We have to
get out of that mindset. We all, adults and kids, have to feel good inside
before we act good on the outside.” (“Good Inside” is also the title of her
bestselling book and the name of her online platform.)
Another popular account is Big Little Feelings, created by
two longtime friends, Kristin Gallant, 36, and Deena Margolin, 33, a licensed
psychotherapist. (Gallant has three children and Margolin has two.) Started
just before the pandemic began, Big Little Feelings now has more than 3 million
followers on Instagram, and the mood is more moms-in-survival-mode. Practical
advice is mixed in with glimpses of the women’s own struggles as working
parents trying to keep it all together.
The New Dr Spocks
Every generation of parents has its gurus. Boomers flocked
to Dr Benjamin Spock, for instance; Gen X found the less-is-more parenting
style of the French through “Bringing Up Bébé,” and from pediatrician Harvey
Karp’s guides “Happiest Baby on the Block” and “Happiest Toddler on the Block.”
(Millennial parents might recognize Karp as the creator of the Snoo, an
automated bassinet.) But today’s parents have Instagram and TikTok, where they
can curate a panel of influencers from a sea of options and keep them in their
pockets, checking in multiple times a day.
It’s a realm largely led by women who are parents of young
children themselves. In addition to the women behind Big Little Feelings and Dr
Becky, who sometimes overhears parents using her techniques in the wild,
there’s Jazmine McCoy, a clinical psychologist who goes by “The Mom
Psychologist,” Emily Oster, an author, and economist who has a popular
newsletter, and a slew of others.
Among the millennial Instagrammers, there’s also a set
focused on specific challenges: sleeping, potty training, playing, eating.
Solid Starts, which helps parents safely introduce new foods and avoid picky
eating, has 2.6 million followers on Instagram. Taking Cara Babies, a sleep
training guide for exhausted parents, has 2.4 million followers. Busy Toddler,
an account dedicated to thoughtful play, has 2 million followers.
The tone on many of these popular parenting accounts is
often not only instructive but also soothing and supportive, not so different
from the way parents are encouraged to talk to their children. You are doing
great. You are not a bad parent. It is OK to make mistakes. This is difficult.
“I do think we put so much pressure on ourselves that our
identity almost becomes consumed with, Is my baby sleeping the best way that my
baby could be sleeping? Is my toddler doing this thing they should be doing?”
Gallant said.
“When we have two hours after bedtime, we are still
researching the best things for them,” she said, adding, “You’ll never do it
perfectly, so then you’re chasing more.” The most common question Big Little
Feelings followers ask is some version of, “Am I messing up my kid?”
Social media has some answers, but it is also part of the
problem. More than ever, parents can watch one another (or at least a filtered
version of one another) which creates community — and anxiety.
“The circles of comparison are bigger, deeper and more
accessible than they’ve ever been,” said Matthew Zakreski, 39, a child
psychologist in Roxbury, New Jersey, and a father of two young children. “The
way our brains are wired, it is, What is everybody else doing? Why am I not
doing it? What do they know that I don’t know? That sets us off on an anxiety
spiral and we seek information to fill that anxious hole.”
Playing the Long Game
The effect of all this information is felt everywhere from
drop-off to play dates, with millennials taking parenting seriously in a way
that might elicit eye rolls from older generations. Bridget Shirvell, 37, of
Mystic, Connecticut, was at a birthday party with her daughter when another
child was having a meltdown about leaving. “The mom was trying to talk about
the feelings, and one of the grandparents who was there was like, ‘How’s that
gentle parenting thing going for you?’” she said. “He just wanted her to put
the kid in the car and go. But I’m like, You just have to brush it off. We are
in it for the long haul,” she said.
“We are in it for the relationship we are going to have with
this child 20 years from now,” she added.
Newer parents have always been preoccupied with parenting,
and often find themselves talking only about their children, especially to
other parents. But for this generation, it can feel like studying for a PhD at
some imaginary parenting university, with an endless stream of homework and
classes. “We are circling the same books, the same podcasts, the same Instagram
people,” said Heidi Fichtner, 40, from Rochester, New York.
There is a lot to be worried about — the climate crisis,
debt, war, aging parents, the effects of the pandemic. The same generation of
people who watched the horrors of the Columbine High School shootings in
Colorado unfold live on TV, the victims roughly their age, are now forced to
process school shootings on repeat while their children practice hiding under
their desks. “There’s something to be said about this shift of raising these
kids in a gentle way in this world,” Fichtner said, using an expletive.
And so, the tone is earnest. Millennial parents are more
than OK with trying. As Alissa Floyd, 39, a friend of mine and a mother of
three in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, recently said: “I think there’s been a
complete misunderstanding of millennial parents. We are making the decision not
to care if we’re cool. What is cooler than that?”
Or as Margolin of Big Little Feelings put it, “I like being
cringe.” Gallant added, “I’m in there, too.” The three of us laughed. We didn’t
name the feeling, but I think we understood it.
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