“Here Are A Few Things You Can Worry Less About”: Mom Starts A Thread With “Anti-Advice” For Parents
Interview
Parenting is notorious for being one of the hardest jobs in the world. You’re expected to drop everything for your kids all the time, provide anything they could ever want (But you can’t work too much because quality time is important!) and raise them to be geniuses who get into Ivy League universities on scholarships at the age of 16. But what if parenting doesn’t have to be so hard? What if you don’t actually need to sacrifice everything you enjoy to constantly cater to your little ones? What if you could eliminate the pressure to parent the way mommy bloggers and family vloggers say you should? What if you could come up with your own version of parenting that suits you and your family?
Recently, developmental scientist Dorsa Amir shared a thread on Twitter breaking down “anti-advice” she has for fellow parents, and many readers resonated with her wise words. Below, we’ve got the whole thread for you pandas to read, as a reminder that you don’t need to put any pressure on yourself, as well as an interview with Dorsa herself. We hope you find a bit of relief in these tweets, and then if you’re interested in reading another Bored Panda article discussing difficult lessons parents learn along the way, you can find that right here.
Developmental scientist Dorsa Amir shared a thread on Twitter with “anti-advice” for parents, and her wise words quickly went viral
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Being a parent is not easy, and just like everything else in life, we can’t be perfect at it. There will be days your kids arrive at school late or leave the house wearing their shirt backwards or days you’re speeding to soccer practice to pick them up 10 minutes after it’s already ended. There will be meals they don’t love, temper tantrums thrown in the grocery store and soup spilled on that brand new rug you love. But that’s just life. No human is perfect, and there is absolutely no reason to try to pretend like we are, to our children or to other parents.
We reached out to the woman who started this conversation in the first place, Dorsa Amir, to gain more insight on the topic. First, Dorsa shared what inspired her to tweet these thoughts. “I have a toddler myself, so I’ve experienced the ‘parenting perfectionism’ pressure firsthand,” she told Bored Panda. “There’s so much anxiety around making sure you give your kids the best start in life, and I sometimes fall victim to it, too. The thread was half for others, and half for me to just jot down what I know about child development and the things I can worry less about. Borderline therapeutic!”
Dorsa also shared that her son is almost two-years-old, and she feels very lucky that she got to “deeply study and think about parenting and child development for years” before having a child of her own. “That background knowledge was really instrumental in helping me navigate parenthood, and allowed me to be a little more carefree about it than I would be otherwise,” she explained.
We were also curious where that pressure to be a “perfect parent” comes from. “It comes from a variety of sources: our own families, the media, experts, ourselves!” Dorsa told Bored Panda. “But it’s interesting to me, as someone who’s trained in anthropology, because I’m able to more closely examine how these pressures and values vary across cultures, and that there isn’t necessarily one ‘correct’ way to do it. Instead of a tall Mount Everest of parenting perfection, there’s a mountain range with equally high peaks. Lots of ways to be a good parent.”
Finally, Dorsa left us with some more words of wisdom, “Just continue loving and supporting your kids! You’re doing great, even if it doesn’t feel like it all the time.”
There are infinite books, bloggers and people on Facebook or in your life that will tell you exactly how to parent, but sometimes, it’s best to just shut them all out and decide what works for you. You love your children, and nobody knows your family better than you do. So don’t feel the need to force your kids to read books years above their grade level. Not everyone has time to dedicate to raising little geniuses, and as Dorsa notes in her thread, kids are learning all the time anyway! Don’t sweat the small stuff.
If you have kids, we hope you pandas know that you’re doing a great job parenting. Kids want love, respect and support, and there are a million different ways we can go about giving it to them, so don’t feel pressured into following one particular path. We’d love to hear your thoughts on this “anti-advice” in the comments down below, and then if you’re interested in reading another Bored Panda article about parenting, check out this story next.
Many readers chimed in sharing that they resonated with Dorsa’s words and that they were relieved to hear them
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I remember dating a guy when I was in my 20's. We were going out and his car broke down so I told him no worries we could hang out at my apartment while his car was dealt with by the tow truck driver. After getting settled with a drink and some snacks I asked him what he wanted to do with out free time and he had no clue. I said what do you like to do when you are on your own. He said he wasn't sure. Apparently his parents had lined out his life so much he had no idea what he liked and now that he was an adult he had no idea who he was. I thought about it and realized we only had this date because his mom had set us up. It was like being on a date with a 12 year old who was sitting around waiting to be told what to do. Did not go out on a second date.
First comment mentions marketing and influencers. Yup - there's the problem right there. The constant pressure to meet a perfectly sanitised and *capitalised* ideal. Which is of course complete male bovine excrement. Keeping up with the Joneses is one area humanity has yet to evolve beyond. It had it's uses when we were developing civilization, but now it's holding us back.
EVERYTHING is educational, in one way or another. Life lessons are just as important as learning from a book. Failure, pain, loss of something or someone/pet are life lessons that must be experienced, and a really good parent will let this happen, as well as be there for them when it does. DON'T BE A HELICOPTER PARENT.
I remember dating a guy when I was in my 20's. We were going out and his car broke down so I told him no worries we could hang out at my apartment while his car was dealt with by the tow truck driver. After getting settled with a drink and some snacks I asked him what he wanted to do with out free time and he had no clue. I said what do you like to do when you are on your own. He said he wasn't sure. Apparently his parents had lined out his life so much he had no idea what he liked and now that he was an adult he had no idea who he was. I thought about it and realized we only had this date because his mom had set us up. It was like being on a date with a 12 year old who was sitting around waiting to be told what to do. Did not go out on a second date.
First comment mentions marketing and influencers. Yup - there's the problem right there. The constant pressure to meet a perfectly sanitised and *capitalised* ideal. Which is of course complete male bovine excrement. Keeping up with the Joneses is one area humanity has yet to evolve beyond. It had it's uses when we were developing civilization, but now it's holding us back.
EVERYTHING is educational, in one way or another. Life lessons are just as important as learning from a book. Failure, pain, loss of something or someone/pet are life lessons that must be experienced, and a really good parent will let this happen, as well as be there for them when it does. DON'T BE A HELICOPTER PARENT.
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