People Are Sharing Parenting Trends They Disagree With And Here Are 30 Of The Most Hated Ones
The practices and norms around raising kids change over time, with each generation of parents redefining the classic role. These shifts take place due to a number of factors, including new research, technologies, or the desire to "do it differently than our old folks did." But that doesn't mean that all of them are automatically better than the older ways.
So when Reddit user The_WhiteMantis asked everyone on the platform to share the parenting trends that they wholeheartedly disagree with, people immediately started sharing their opinions. From making your children the butt of your jokes to never telling them "no," below you will find the submissions that received the most attention.
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The trend of oversharing kids' lives on social media. It's like turning your child's childhood into a reality TV show.
We contacted The_WhiteMantis, and the Redditor explained that they came up with the idea for their post thanks to the radio.
"The question popped into my head after I heard a conversation on the radio about the usage of phones by minors," The_WhiteMantis told Bored Panda.
"I did not have time to read all the comments due to the huge size of the discussion, however, I did notice some recurring themes: 1) providing devices to minors, 2) parents living vicariously through their children, and 3) being overprotective of them."
Never saying no to your child.
they have to know that they can't get everything. adulthood is gonna hit them hard
I’ve seen a small yet growing trend of homeschooled kids where the parents are completely neglectful of actual education and basically let the kid do whatever they want. They don’t follow standardised curriculum for the sake of “letting kids be kids.” If your kid can barely read at 10 years old, you’re setting them up to fail as an adult.
I hate when people dress up their baby girls in outfits a woman should be wearing. Like there are little girls outfits that are adorable and meant for a little girl. But no little girl should be wearing a body suit and ripped jeans or a crop top and low rise bellbottoms, it gives me the creeps.
It's so weird to me, because you KNOW those clothes are super expensive and the kids are going to grow out of it in a month or so
Moms and dads often do not follow a specific parenting style. In the United States, for instance, a nationally representative survey of parents with children younger than 18 conducted by the Pew Research Center revealed that when asked about their parenting habits, including whether they tend to be too strict or too lenient, excessively praise or criticize their children, be overprotective or grant too much freedom, and push their children too hard or not enough, a considerable percentage of respondents ranging from 34% to 53% reported that neither option accurately describes their parenting style.
Additionally, almost the same number of parents are either trying to raise their children in a similar way as they were raised (43%) or differently (44%).
Not teaching children proper manners/behavior
Please and thank you go a long a*s way in this life.
Also not helping kids with conversation skills. Conversation usually goes back and forth. With no phones involved.
Do gender reveals count? Lighting things on fire, blowing things up and potentially injuring a family member all in an display of obsession over the genitals of your fetus is cringy at best and a small scale natural disaster at worst.
I'm always willing for a gender to be revealed. But instead, it's always those same two genders that everyone already knows about!
Making your child's entire identity revolve around their extracurricular activities. Let them be kids, not robotic machines for your bragging rights.
Also don't force your unfinished dreams on your kids. They are separate individuals not your extension.
I guess this is kinda specific, but my son is autistic, so it applies to me. I hate the “Autism Mom” thing. The t-shirts, the unsolicited “advocacy”…it seems like an attention seeking thing to me. My kid has autism, ADHD, and anxiety, and it takes approximately 5 seconds of being around him to notice. I will fight for him always, of course, but I won’t use him as a badge either. I won’t hide his diagnosis from him, but I won’t let him use it as an excuse either.
And some of those shirts get borderline threatening too…”If you want to know fear, fight an autism mama bear”…or something like that.
Talking about the main factors that make parenting trends popular (regardless of their effectiveness), the author of the post believes the internet is arguably the main culprit.
"I think most parents get their ideas on how to raise kids from social media. It seems like a significant proportion of the user base on various platforms is over the age of 30, so it makes sense," The_WhiteMantis said.
Pranking your kids or playing jokes on them. Not all kids understand it’s a joke and it really upsets them. I hate seeing videos of parents thinking it’s ok to throw things at their kids or make them do dumb stuff for amusement. Like the cheese challenge thing. Throwing food at babies….awful behavior.
Not exactly a trend but: having like 5+ kids and forcing the older ones to basically raise the little ones. i know that sometimes the parents are not well informed about contraception, but it’s still not the kids’ problem! it’s one thing to have them help once in a while, but anything that stops them from living their own lives to raise YOUR kids is just ridiculous.
for example: not being able to take an extracurricular activity because they have to be home watching their siblings.
Confusing gentle parenting with permissive parenting.
You can be both gentle and authoritative. Authoritative is *not* authoritarian; it is the role of a parent to provide structure and boundaries for their children while also allowing them to feel their emotions and deal with the ups and downs of being a kid. Go ahead and soothe your children when they are upset and give them a safe space to calm down but you do not have to cushion their world for them in order to avert a meltdown.
According to C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children's Health, most parents of young children (80%) indeed say they use social media to discuss parenting topics.
Looking deeper, more mothers than fathers use social media to look for parenting advice or information (84% vs 69%) or share their experiences (63% vs 42%).
Never telling your kid no. You’re creating a monster that is going to ruin your life some day. Boundaries and consequences are essential to any kid- well human even- being successful in the world we live in.
Not just your life, but the lives of everyone else they will ever come into contact with. It will not be pretty when their future boss tells your now grown kid no they cannot do some harebrained c**p idea they come up with, and they proceed to throw a full red in the face meltdown tantrum because of it. Boss will just fire their a*s on the spot. You want to end up supporting your kid for the rest of your lives after they burn through every job they ever got with their spoiled brat behavior? Fine. Then never tell them no. But if you ever want to have your kid be a gainfully employed, self-supporting adult, then tell them no when you don't want them to do, say, have, take, touch, eat, drink, walk over---you name it---something that will end up hurting them, you, and anyone or anything else. Teach them how to live in the real world. That's your job as a parent.
“Gentle parenting” b***h hold your kid at the doctor if they need a test done. “I don’t think she wants to do this test/use this medicine” B***H SHE NEEDS IT. (I work in a doctors office).
Loud cartoons and games on tablets in public places.
Same with toys. Why kids toys “need” to be loud is beyond me. Why do they have three volume settings but they’re all too dang loud? The Leapfrog reader books are a good example. It’s a wonder parents of toddlers and young children don’t have hearing damage from how loud their kid are and how loud their kids toys are.
Experts aren't surprised.
"I think this data reflects what we've seen over the past few years," said Titania Jordan, the chief parenting officer of Bark, a parental control app that allows parents to manage their kids’ digital worlds.
"Parents are reaching out more and more for advice on social media for three main reasons: Convenience, new technology, and different ways of parenting."
Parents not having even minimal standards for their children’s behavior, and expecting other people to be alright with it. I really don’t care that he is having “big feelings.” He is lying in the aisle of the supermarket, screaming at the top of his lungs, having a full blown tantrum because you said no. Grow a pair.
While I do agree with the sentiment, this is not a good example. The child is screaming, because their parent is setting up standards. Standards like "I won't buy you anthing you fancy". And toddlers can't deal with those kind of emotions in a different way. They only learn it through experience. And what exactly are you supposed to do with a child to immediately stop a tantrum (if you don't want to cave in every time)?
Giving them "unique" names.
Driving your kids 200m to school.
Yes right, for safety reasons. And then driving like crazy and endangering other kids on the school ground...Where I work as a teacher this becomes more and more of a problem. Kids aged 13-16 with only short commutes, lots of bike lanes and great public transport. Wouldn't be necessary. I do understand it depends on the schools location and country. But here this just isn't necessary...and driving together with bikes or tag along in the bus would be good from a social aspect as well...
However, Jordan has concerns. "It’s not all roses. There is a ton of misinformation out there, and just because another parent is talking about something, it doesn’t mean they’re knowledgeable."
And this thread proves it.
I’m gonna go in a little bit of a different direction: parents not watching their own behavior when it comes to screen time, frustration tolerance, discipline, etc.
You’ve got to dig deep and figure out how to role model the behaviors you want your kids to do. If you are on your phone 24/7 and throw a fit every time the slightest thing inconveniences you you aren’t gonna have a good time with your kids doing anything different.
I disagree with ALL trends. Parenting is not supposed to be trendy. Figure out what works for you and your family and do that, but don’t expect everyone else to do the same.
Taking your kids to a restaurant and putting screens in their hands. How are kids going to learn how to behave in polite society if you don’t train them how to behave in social situations?
The lack of discipline and manners taught to the kids. I get soft parenting, I'm on board with no hitting and all of the abuse but kids still need to learn boundaries about what they could and couldn't do.
Went to a friend's plc and her 4 yr old starts screaming at me, freaking tf out, I'm like what's going on? My friend says " she wants your scarf. She won't stop screaming until you give it to her." Sorry..what??
Being overweight and allowing your children to follow the same path of obesity.
(Yes I get sometimes it's genetics, but genetics is not why appx 1/3 of Americans are obese and why the rest of the world isnt).
The sad beige mom trend. If you want to make the rest of your home sad and beige, that's up to you. But my God! Please let your child's nursery have some colour for their own development and well-being.
Child vlogging, its a bit weird tbh and I feel like things are gonna go to s**t for the parents when the kids become adults.
Weird orthorexic parents who make their entire personality their kids' hundreds of allergies . Gluten free, dairy free, nut free , meat free . EVERYTHING FREE! I’m sorry, I do not believe them .
I have celiac disease, I cannot understand why anyone would go gluten-free if they didn't have to. I miss nice bread so much!
Lawnmower parenting. Not only do they hover over their kids, they mow down anyone who does something they don't like. They're the "you can't wear that shirt where my kids might see it" and "you'd better allow my child into this 21+ establishment but not show them anything inappropriate" type.
Lawnmower? Thats new! Makes a lot of sense sadly :/ poor kids
Those “boy moms” that are grossly obsessed with their baby or toddler boys. Ew, f**k out of here with that emotional incest s**t.
Not (sensibly) challenging their comfort zone. How are they supposed to grow self-confidence when they're never challenged?
Can i add? Vice versa challenging it too much and making the kid uncomfortable or not accepting their no because 'their a kid'... kids need to learn to step out of their comfort zone yes but they also need to learn that if they are in an uncomfortable situation they are free to decline.
Helicopter parenting, or whatever you wanna call it.
As a child that was sheltered and despite my wishes, parents would always intervene and I became way to reliant on that.
Wasn’t until my mid-20s that someone helped me realized what was going on and I had to relearn how to live basically.
Sure my parents did what they thought was best, it ended up really screwing me later in life and I’m still in the process of figuring out what it means to be independent and how to fight for myself.
The Easter "baskets" kids are now getting. It is like a mini Christmas. Hell-I've seen kids that actually get a lot less for Christmas. It's is just disgusting how material we are and in turn making our children. Especially in a world where many people can't even buy sufficient groceries for their family.
I remember watching a documentary of 2 twins separated at birth and adopted out. Parents had no idea there was a twin . About 10 years later they found each other. 1 twin raised in the Netherlands in the country, the other in the U.S.A in the city. The doc showed their lives and them meeting up. What struck me was how materialistic the American parents were. The kids birthday was this huge affair princess party that must have cost a thousand or more bucks. The country twin had a homemade cake and a family party with 1 or 2 small useful gifts. The priorities were so different. Both sets of parents were in the same income bracket but just looked at what mattered in life differently. I felt sorry for the American kid honestly.
The amount of surveillance/tracking apps and more that parents have on their kids. It gets really sad when they hit college and they are looking for ways to detach from their parents knowing what/where they are up to 24/7.
Letting them harass and even assault strangers to let them "get it out of their system". Mam, your toddler is like US healthcare, the system is f****d.
Either teach your children that it's not OK to assault other people, or other people will do that for you
- Increasingly separating children's and adult spaces/activities (even in your family life) because you're scared the children will misbehave and/or be bored.
- everything becoming somehow more, not less gendered. All the boys and girls in my vicinity are either in blue/green/grey or red/pink/purple colour pallets. I wouldn't put a boy in a pink tutu and go "haha gotcha" when people think he's a girl but I don't get why a baby boy couldn't wear brightly coloured outfits and needs to dress like a German mechanical engineering student.
For me, having a "children's table" at meals during family gatherings is a missed opportunity. I learned a lot about adults and being an adult by watching them at family dinners.
Imho using chores as a punishment is a great formula to raise a slob. Chores should be portrayed as something you do to maintain a nice living space, help your stuff last longer and overall make things easier.
We (me and my brother) did them without pocket money, we didn't get any. We did chores because you have to, and you have to learn how to do things before you don't have others to help you
Letting the tablet raise them.
Not letting your children be inconvenienced or uncomfortable. Over protection maybe.
This statement excludes any form of abuse. It's sad I have to note that, but it's the internet.
Kids need to learn how to manage life not revolving around them. And they can't learn what they are not exposed to.
It’s one thing to shield your kids from stuff within your control, but expecting other people to stoop down to your kid’s levels so they don’t get hurt is borderline insane. People should know to not sacrifice their own child’s rights just to facilitate the needs of someone else’s child who thinks the world revolves around them. Speaking from experience of receiving this kind of messed up treatment. I had cousins who expected everything to work as they wanted and my parents let them and their parents abuse my rights for their happiness. From them eating decorations off my birthday cake at my birthday parties before the party even started to asking me to give a toy/instrument to them because they’re crying for it even though it’s not their turn with it, life growing up was so unfair and disappointing.
Lack of discipline, and treating kids like little adults, allowing them to make grown up decisions.
kids appreciate being given clear boundaries, they also appreciate that an adult is in charge, so that they don't have to be.
Teaching your kids about failure by beating them at something and then constantly teasing them for it.
There was a video that made the rounds on Reddit last week of a little girl crying out of frustration because her dad had been constantly whooping her at a video game. Every single thread was full of people saying “dad’s teaching her right!” But I heavily disagree. Beating your children at a game and then teaching them to take the L is one thing; but to get up, walk around your clearly distressed daughter who had been crying before the game was even over, and then striking a victory pose while you look her directly in the eyes is a horrible way of teaching that lesson (that’s what dad did in the video); and to the surprise of no one, the girl tries to kick her dad, which he then starts rubbing it in her face more when she misses.
As someone who was parented that way, it does none of the b******t parents think it does to the kid’s development. All it does is make them resent you and it shows them that being a sore winner is the right way, when a sore winner is far worse than a sore loser.
Using their child to promote their own political objectives.
Ugh, I agree this is really gross; I cringe so hard when I see parents do this -_-
Not letting kids wander about the world.
Yes, the world is fraught with dangers but if your kids has never walked around by themselves, how will they ever learn to navigate their own lives independently? .
they can't navigate their own lives independently if they are kidnapped, run down by a car, or dead. The fact is that most countries are pretty dangerous. Unless the kid is like 17, I do not think so.
If it's from Korea, it's the trend of putting their kids through private education to the point where they have no life beyond school and education. If they manage to get into uni/college, they have no idea what they are doing with their lives. Their parents have controlled every aspect of their lives since birth, so when they are an adult, they don't know how to make any life decisions on their own. Life goal? Career goal? It's whatever their parents would want them to do. To Korean parents, kids are an extension of themselves. (I'm sure other cultures can relate to this phenomenon.).
Sleep training by letting them cry when they are so young.
It seems like there can't be a happy medium for many people. Either they are letting the kids run the household, or they are so afraid of being 'soft' that they borderline abuse their kids to make them 'strong'.
I can't stand putting kids in sports/activities these days and pushing them to become athletes. It is one thing to expose your kid, they enjoy it, and you let them keep doing it. It is a completely different thing when you see kids in elementary school playing in every league their parent can enroll them in and doing training camps. If they are really good and you give them the tools, ok, but if your kid is mediocre at best then you are setting them up for disappointment.
I don't like the idea of letting them spend their life staring at screens. Instead, I tell them to go out and find some neighbourhood kids to get into trouble, and if any adult has a problem with it, they should keep their distance, and tell them to go talk to me.
When I was young the complaint was kids spending too much time staring at books.
Blaming non-parenting on covid.
The absolute obsession with counting "screentime" and keeping children away from anything technologic -- even here, under this post, there are numerous people being against teaching children technology from a young age.
I was born in the 1970s, and even I can see that's the direction the future is taking. By not allowing children to access smartphones and/or tablets until they are school-age (or even older!?) is not doing them any favors. Teaching proper etiquette and about the dangers is the way, not abstinence.
It's really ridiculous when it starts to look like American sex ed, where they think teens won't have sex if they're not told about it.
I'm 100% in favor of teaching young children how to use the things, and what to expect. Not just pretending they don't exist.
The one side is to show and teach them how they can use digital devices and how they should behave when online. The other side is children who get access to smartphones and tablets like a pacifier to calm them down. They are just scrolling around and see everything randomly, teaching themselves how to use the internet.
"If the child does not understand after several repetitions, then you can hit." This is just a terrible trend, because in the process of learning about the world, the child does everything that seems unusual and interesting to him, and when parents, instead of teaching why something cannot be done, beat the child, then he eventually loses confidence in them and begins to fear for his mistakes in front of them in the future.
I'm pretty sure the "trend" is in the other direction. A hundred or two years ago beating children in an attempt to make them learn was so normal that expressions like "spare the rod and spoil the child" were used to scorn parents who did not beat their children. These days it's a very small (but still too large) proportion of parents who still do this.
Raising children as "genderless".
why? What specifically gendered thing should we teach them? Fixing cars? Making sandwiches? Mowing the lawn? What is a skill that we should NOT teach someone because of their gender? I do not think there's any need to gender upbringing at all, until the kid gets to teens and needs to know about things like pregnancy risk.
A lot of kids eating in KFC etc after school. Or getting a Donut. Rather then have a home cooked meal. It seems to be something i have noticed a lot off.
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Late toilet training is my pet peeve. Kids going to preschool in diapers.
My cousin just did not seem to care about it, I think they just straight up told him he couldn't go to kindergarten w/ a pull-up, and he was like 'ok'. They bought him a toy for no more accidents and that was it.
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Constantly yelling at your kids. My s****y neighbour screams at her kids all the time, tells them all sorts of horrible things. Recently tho I heard the 14 year old scream at his mum "your a f*****g horrible mother" I was actually kinda proud of him
Religion: It is like a d!ck. It is ok to have one and it is ok to be proud of it. But don't air it in public, and don't force it onto children. I get it, you may have been brainwashed into believing in fairytales as a grown up, but please don't pass that on to the next generation. Teaching children good values and how to behave properly, can be done without threatening them with torture, or adding some kind of Devine authority into the mix. Religion does not have the patent when it comes to knowing how to behave, it has just highjacked some good ideas that is helpful when it comes to how to act around people (this is evident from the fact that some of the worst a$$holes can be "faithfull" Christians, and that there are good people amoung the atheists too). Let your children make up their own minds when it comes to how they see the world, instead of installing your own default software in them and letting the virus spread.
"...instead of installing your own default software in them and letting the virus spread." LOL! 🤣 I was initially raised Catholic, but saw some of the contradictions as a young child. This led my mother to question some of her religion's practices. Neither of us feels there's any good reason to be 'instructed' by other people in their viewpoints of a so-called faith, which is exactly what it's been for millennia. My now-wife respects this and accepts it, and I merely try to be a good contributor to society without the shaming and ostracizing that 'organized' religion keeps trying to force upon all of humankind in the name of their 'god' or 'belief' systems. Religion is ultimately a poison used to shame and coerce others, typically to hateful and divisive ends. The many documented versions of the Bible are an excellent example of how imperfect and bias-driven so-called organized religion ultimately is.
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This is so weird, I wrote about this under the above post about wholesome news, I keep getting a glitch on listicles lately. The first item always reads (Function) and the rest of them cut off after 10ish words. Anyone else having this?? Tech pandas, any advice?
I don't remember what exactly the doctors wanted to medicate him for. I think it was more for issues related to his condition, not the aspergers itself.
Late toilet training is my pet peeve. Kids going to preschool in diapers.
My cousin just did not seem to care about it, I think they just straight up told him he couldn't go to kindergarten w/ a pull-up, and he was like 'ok'. They bought him a toy for no more accidents and that was it.
Load More Replies... Constantly yelling at your kids. My s****y neighbour screams at her kids all the time, tells them all sorts of horrible things. Recently tho I heard the 14 year old scream at his mum "your a f*****g horrible mother" I was actually kinda proud of him
Religion: It is like a d!ck. It is ok to have one and it is ok to be proud of it. But don't air it in public, and don't force it onto children. I get it, you may have been brainwashed into believing in fairytales as a grown up, but please don't pass that on to the next generation. Teaching children good values and how to behave properly, can be done without threatening them with torture, or adding some kind of Devine authority into the mix. Religion does not have the patent when it comes to knowing how to behave, it has just highjacked some good ideas that is helpful when it comes to how to act around people (this is evident from the fact that some of the worst a$$holes can be "faithfull" Christians, and that there are good people amoung the atheists too). Let your children make up their own minds when it comes to how they see the world, instead of installing your own default software in them and letting the virus spread.
"...instead of installing your own default software in them and letting the virus spread." LOL! 🤣 I was initially raised Catholic, but saw some of the contradictions as a young child. This led my mother to question some of her religion's practices. Neither of us feels there's any good reason to be 'instructed' by other people in their viewpoints of a so-called faith, which is exactly what it's been for millennia. My now-wife respects this and accepts it, and I merely try to be a good contributor to society without the shaming and ostracizing that 'organized' religion keeps trying to force upon all of humankind in the name of their 'god' or 'belief' systems. Religion is ultimately a poison used to shame and coerce others, typically to hateful and divisive ends. The many documented versions of the Bible are an excellent example of how imperfect and bias-driven so-called organized religion ultimately is.
Load More Replies... This is so weird, I wrote about this under the above post about wholesome news, I keep getting a glitch on listicles lately. The first item always reads (Function) and the rest of them cut off after 10ish words. Anyone else having this?? Tech pandas, any advice?
I don't remember what exactly the doctors wanted to medicate him for. I think it was more for issues related to his condition, not the aspergers itself.
