45 Of The Most Controversial Parenting Opinions To Leave You Fuming Or Nodding In Approval

Or vote for another political party, or change their religion, or have special needs, or .....it is not just that one thing that unconditionally love goes for

A proper hand shake at a proper social distance should be acceptable to most. I've shaken hands (?) with small children and they seemed to be pleased.

This should be way higher

And who gets to decide? Only if you are clever enough? Only if you are educated enough? Only if you have the correct views? Only if you belong to the correct party? This is arguing for eugenics. At some point people would put their own opinions as facts, and Jews, Gypsies and Disabled would be unable to procreate.

I witnessed endless scandals and domestic violence between my parents. I repeatedly saw how my father would threaten, insult and humiliate my mother. I grew up being convinced that this was normal in every family. Then, as a young adult, I spend a vacation in a friend's house. Her parents were so kind and respectful to each other. To me this was unreal, and I thought "they act it out so well. They surely must yell and insult each other when I'm not present". :(

A lot of creativity can stem from boredom.

Oooh, louder for those in the back. Many parents I know (including mine) are like: "I raised you, therefore you are my property and you must do what I say. Your opinions and feelings are irrelevant as long as you live under my roof. And be careful not to ever talk back to me, unless you wish to sleep outside in the street."

This. I finally matured to realise that babies and toddlers can't talk and became a lot more tolerant of crying. Unless they are being a cantankerous little barstard like the one on the tube last night...

Also girl dads who have a creepy almost incestuous possessiveness of their daughters virginity. I have daughters and they were both told the consequences of not being careful and how to watch out for themselves. Rarely, if ever do you see boys go through the same. Y’all just need to stop

That's the kind of parent that will wonder one day why their children never visit them.

Abusive partners will do this too. It’s always wrong, regardless of who does it

Stop describing my mother!

Absolutely! Two happy homes are better than one miserable home

And also I went buck wild any chance I did get away from my mother

This sentiment is often misconstrued as children having equal rights in decision making in the family. No, the parent HAS to tbe the one making the decisions. Input from the child is valuable and explanations when this input is not heeded is valuable for the child to grow, but the parent has the last word. We have the word ‘childish’ for a reason. And we have the expression ‘responsible adult’ for a reason.

Yep. People wonder why my daughter is so trouble free. It's just that we explain things to her since she was a baby. We tell why something is dangerous/wrong or not.

Having and being responsible for a kid is completely different than being one

And in some cases, you literally mess up their life. My mother used to compare me with my classmate (who was very good in math and physics): "Why can't you be smart like him? I'm sure he does math problems every day! But you are stupid and lazy!" Fast forward several years, I was a college student, and my former classmate now had a crush on me. And I couldn't stand him, just because my mother's words were so fresh in my mind.

It's like on the planes, you put the oxygen mask on yourself first then on the child. If you are not ok how are you going to have a good relationship with your kid?

You are never really ready to be a parent.

Ditto

i actually agree with nesto. it’s important to be grateful for what you have. im not saying you need to serve your parent for the rest of your life to make up for it, nor am i saying this is okay for the parent to use against the child in an argument. all i am saying it that it is important for children to acknowledge that some people have less, and they need to practice gratitude.

I swear, sometimes I think the only reason some people have children is to have endless content for their social media 😫

I think of the times my dad offered me guidance. And i wonder about how things would have been if i'd been smart enough to listen.

Agreed.

my dad was a parent that purposely parented with fear and he thought he was the best dad ever. he used to purposely make me scared of him (he used to tell me most nights before bed he could read my mind and if I thought something bad he would know it and he would tell everyone what bad thing I was thinking about) because he thought it would make me more submissive to his rules. that was not helpful to my growth in any way

My mother wanted to use me as her therapist to talk about her negative emotions. Our relationship faltered partially due to that (amongst other things).

I feel this one. I used to wish to have guests at home because only then my mother would be nice to me (for the guests to see what a "good parent" she was). Otherwise, she'd constantly scream, insult and even slap me for minor mistakes (like, if I dropped a teaspoon on the floor).

Neither are doctors visits, injuries, crying, potty training, or any kind of trauma or moment where someone might make fun of them for the rest of their life

My son's iPad has access to 3 sites between 7am and 7pm. He actually found a loophole in the parenting controls. I added the specific URL's to some train videos on YouTube as they were embedded in one of the sites. However doing that actually opened up all of YouTube and he discovered that pretty quickly. It was quite surprising to see him watching other videos when I thought that only the specific ones were allowed.

Same with teachers

Natural consequences are often the best teacher. As long as it isn't something that is REALLY dangerous, let them have at it once in a while.

I wish abortion was such an easy option for everyone. Forced birth should be a crime, not the other way around 😡

Oh man I heard it all as a kid .. continuously and repeatedly .. all the awful stuff that happened to her. While she was ignoring all of the awful stuff that was happening to me .. Thanks mom

I’m not a slave either, though. I will ask my kids for help - they can learn skills that way (like making their own meals and cleaning their own spaces), I can spend time with them doing tasks together that I wouldn’t have if I did it by myself AND I can also, if they are lucky, motivate them to earn pocket money by doing jobs, which is also a valuable life lesson.

When my son was 18 months, it became a nightmare to feed him. Every meal was an opposition game. We tried a lot of things until we realised he wanted to eat by himself. Meals became a mess but at least, he ate. When my daughter was 18months, it became a nightmare to feed her. We thought "aha, we already know this game". Well it was not the same game. She has sensory issues, some textures trigger her gaging reflex. She needed pieces to chew with her 2 teeth, purées didn't work for her, it still the same nowdays.

When I was a baby, I tried to eat the cats and the dog. Whilst this in retrospect surely wasn't the best thing to let me do, as these animals could have retaliated against me, I now almost never get sick because neither cat nor dog paws are clean. Also, toddlers are still dumb so better don't leave anything out they might swallow.

My MIL parented with thick layer of guilt .. and all of her kids have paid a high price for her cheap methods of control.

Brother only wanted my toy after I started playing with it.

I (childfree) had this conversation with a coworker (mom of a 9) just this morning. Mom yelled at kid for something. Kid calmly pointed out Mom had it wrong. Mom realized it, and APOLOGIZED to the 9. I was blown away.

The best way to evaluate the life choices of an older person is by whether or not any of their adult children will still speak with them.

MotherRobinson

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Children are not the parents retirement plans also

lots of people have kids so they have an excuse to prolong their own childhoods tbh. that was my parents. i wish they hadn't had kids tbh. and that's a very weird bad conclusion to cope with when you are the kid in question.

I don’t think that’s how time-out works. The purpose of time out is not punishment; the purpose is to calm down the situation. If it’s a very young child, the parent should stay within the child’s eyeshot. Older children may require a few minutes of solitude.

I see a lot of kind people who confuse healthy boundaries with being selfish and vice versa. When nobody depends on you, being selfish is a good enough boundary, you just walk away when you don’t like it. But with kids there has to be a very precise boundary where you neither walk over them nor them over you. Kindness won’t figure that out.

Just hope they are fair. You were their role model.

Spanking actually is illegal in a whole bunch of countries. Recently there was a post on BP with a map of countries where it isn't legal to spank/hit your own child, and it involves most of Europe.

it is also evil. like i know OP probably trying to shame people but like that is very much evil incarnate. don't hit babies. why do we even need to explain this to people i'm tired.

This one is a slippery slope, when it comes to setting rules and guidelines, and enforcing those rules.

You think you had 'problems' before...

And homeschooling often doesn't work out at all and leaves kids unsocialized as they were never with others their age

This is why Grandparents are a must. Dropping the kids with Grandma and Grandpa for a week on school holidays was a treat for kids and parents. Not so sure about Grandma and Grandpa though :P

So you can’t *ever^ withstand an awkward conversation with someone you’ve met before but have mostly forgotten? Ooh-boy do I have some fun news about middle-age for you! That shït never ends! The older you are, the more people you’ve likely forgotten! You just learn to nod, and be polite, and try not be such a self centered idiot

why i praise my father to the skies. he was not perfect but he taught me that authority should respect me and that i was allowed to shout at authority and that saved my f#cking skin on several occasions.

Ah the first one that's complete BS. If we did that, no one would have kids anymore.

Everything you do to others may have bad impact even when you mean well.

How about we do away with both and just have a " Parents Day"

This is not a universal thing. I have a kid with ADHD and a kid with ASD and a third kid and a husband that works crazy hours. While I try to give them separate activities where I am able, it’s simply not logistically possible at time AND sometimes they need each other for a bit of scaffolding to feel secure in trying new places and activities.

I believe we should be grateful for everything we have.

Excuse me, but this one is REALLY homophobic/transphobic and discriminatory against single parents that had to separate from a toxic spouse.

My O My

My O My

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What "contraption" are we talking about?

SO TRUE. 'parental fragility' I love that. I read that like half to two-thirds of all people were abused as kids and that has haunted me every time I run into the myths about 'every parent tries their best' uh statistically speaking they do not actually.

Going to add to this one .. 'when they are young'. As kids mature, if you've done your job, they may need less parenting and more companionship ..

The important thing is to have actual conversations with your children so they learn media literacy and critical thinking. keeping people in ignorance is not a solution to anything. knowledge is power.

I'm 65, and a parent. A while back, i asked MY mum, 'how old do kids have to get before you stop worrying about them?'. Her answer: 'They NEVER get that old'.

Am I the only one that had to reread this a few times to understand what was being said?