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I'm wondering if it might have something to do with the so-called and misnamed self-help industry-- giving people the idea they can't do anything without advice, support, help, etc.?
As for raising kids specifically, though, one point I think is important is everyone has different advice- and that's both regular folks and the 'experts.'
Why not? It's an anonymous way of getting some advice. Way back when my kids were little, I would ask my mother, or a friend. The tricky part with being limited to friends or family is that it's harder to ignore the advice if it doesn't fit.
Why would anyone want anonymous advice for the most precious of life's gift? Surely if you need advice for fundamental concerns about raising children, isn't it better to go where you know the source and where that source is trusted than complete strangers?
Parents raised children for thousands of years that way and it worked. I see no evidence that asking strangers is any better. It might be more convenient but better or even as good? I'd point to the break down in own own society on so many fronts as evidence it isn't nearly as good.
If a person has a hard time not taking advice from certain family members because of how the advice giver will react, isn't that a sign of some dysfunction in that family, that is: not being able to be honest and open about such things?
Why would anyone want anonymous advice for the most precious of life's gift? Surely if you need advice for fundamental concerns about raising children, isn't it better to go where you know the source and where that source is trusted than complete strangers?
Parents raised children for thousands of years that way and it worked. I see no evidence that asking strangers is any better. It might be more convenient but better or even as good? I'd point to the break down in own own society on so many fronts as evidence it isn't nearly as good.
If a person has a hard time not taking advice from certain family members because of how the advice giver will react, isn't that a sign of some dysfunction in that family, that is: not being able to be honest and open about such things?
Case in point just now....someone asking about a speech delay...chances are they have never had to desk with the issue before...what is wrong with getting a bit of help figuring where to start?
Why would anyone want anonymous advice for the most precious of life's gift? Surely if you need advice for fundamental concerns about raising children, isn't it better to go where you know the source and where that source is trusted than complete strangers?
Parents raised children for thousands of years that way and it worked. I see no evidence that asking strangers is any better. It might be more convenient but better or even as good? I'd point to the break down in own own society on so many fronts as evidence it isn't nearly as good.
If a person has a hard time not taking advice from certain family members because of how the advice giver will react, isn't that a sign of some dysfunction in that family, that is: not being able to be honest and open about such things?
Because it's giving access to a wider range of experiences. Grandma may think the key to getting an infant to sleep through the night is to begin cereal feedings at 2 months. Most medical advice is to wait far longer, closer to 6 months. There are very few posters who are qualified in the medical sense, but I know of a couple, and I trust them.
We never went to nursery school as kids, it was off to kindergarten at 5. My mother would not be able to counsel me on that. Or dealing with cell phone/computer/video game use, or a myriad of other situations that my parents never had to deal with.
And sometimes, when a problem crops up, it's difficult to admit to people close to us that everything isn't wonderful with our kids.
Case in point just now....someone asking about a speech delay...chances are they have never had to desk with the issue before...what is wrong with getting a bit of help figuring where to start?
In the old days, it would just be a "dumb" kid who would stop going to school in the third grade and stay home at the farm pitching hay bales.
Because it's giving access to a wider range of experiences. Grandma may think the key to getting an infant to sleep through the night is to begin cereal feedings at 2 months. Most medical advice is to wait far longer, closer to 6 months. There are very few posters who are qualified in the medical sense, but I know of a couple, and I trust them.
We never went to nursery school as kids, it was off to kindergarten at 5. My mother would not be able to counsel me on that. Or dealing with cell phone/computer/video game use, or a myriad of other situations that my parents never had to deal with.
And sometimes, when a problem crops up, it's difficult to admit to people close to us that everything isn't wonderful with our kids.
I am talking about the threads about smoking Marijuana in the presence of their children, read some of the replies.
Then there is the child not bathing or showering thread. I almost fell out of my chair. My point is that it really doesn't matter who is posting, how can anyone say they trust someone that anonymously posts on the Internet? You have no idea who they are, none.
If it is a medical concern, go to the Internet instead of a physician who know the history and has far more resources available than some anonymous internet post?
There were phones before cell phones, play has always been around. While some of the tools and products have changed, common sense hasn't.
I just read some of the threads and have to wonder what is really going on.
I think the over medication of kids because Jonny looked out the window a few times coincides with the run to Internet parenting styles. If you read the threads here you'll notice almost identical threads on lots of forums. A lot of them are written to and replied to by the same people.
It take very few people to create the appearance of a significant problem in forums. Worse is that anyone really says they can trust someone when they have no idea who they are.
If anyone thinks that parenting forums and the like aren't viewed and frequented by people you'd never let in your home or within 10 miles of your kids, better take a breather and ask yourself on what basis do you give trust out so easily that someone with an alias on the Internet is a trusted source of information when it comes to your children.
It just looks like many people (not pointing finger at anyone specific) are more concerned with an identify thief stealing their credit information than knowing where some of the information you might rely on the parent your kids comes from.
Just observations from reading some of the threads and the responses. Its children being talked about, not how the Honda is running.
I was a child of the 60's and 70's. back then moms were called Housewifes and were home raising their kids. The majority of the women on my street stayed home with the kids and managed the home. I only knew two women that worked and it was because they were not married.
So what did all these moms do with their free time? The time that they were not cleaning, chasing kids, doing the laundry, cooking food, and talking to the mailman, milk man, or in our area the Helms Bakery Man? LOL They were talking to the other moms and learning how to manage a home from them. Most girls in High School went to classes called Home Economics or Home Ec for short. That is the place they learned all these valuable skills, or at least the skills that their own moms didn't show them. The fact is most of them probably learned these things from their own moms. I was in High School from 1979 till 1983 and they still had home Economics as a class or "major" so to speak.
Learning to raise kids was a big part of that as well.
A lot of parenting is common sense, is that so lacking these days that it takes the Internet to deal with some of the most basic questions like when a child should be given alcoholic beverages or when should a child ask not to sleep with their mother?
I don't think parenting is as common sense as you make it seem. Of course it's common sense to not drop the baby and pick her up when she cries. But without any outside knowledge whatsoever, would you know when it's okay to give babies eggs for example? Yes people in the past didn't have the internet but they didn't live in a vacuum, they asked their relatives.
Child mortality rates were much higher in the past, so maybe the answer to "how did they manage?" is "poorly".
How can you even say they managed to raise their children poorly in the past?
With all the murders, teen pregnancies, suicides, bullying, kids attacking teachers, no respect for parents, etc. etc.
Children who were raised in the past had manners, were disciplined, were well behaved and certainly did not carry weapons nor attack teachers daily in school or shoot each other just for fun.
Mortality rates were higher because the advances in medicine have grown leaps and bounds from then until now and that has nothing to do with how childen were raised.
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