Being a stay-at-home mother (accident, sibling, baseball, day care)
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I wouldn't mind if my kids grew up like I did. For the most part, it was harmless fun. There was that time we nearly blew ourselves up making a homemade cannon though...... In the summer, I remember spending countless hours exploring in the woods, hanging out with kids in the neighborhood, at the neighborhood pool or down at the school for arts and crafts.
Depending on the age of your child, I just don't think it works that way much anymore.
NOW, they are attending soccer practices 3 towns over with a 45 minute drive each way.
They are on travel teams (insert sport name here) and entire families spend week-end after week-end out of town attending said sport event.
Moms are spending lots of time chauffering to/from these time-consuming and far away practices.
It's just different now - everythings been 'kicked up' a notch for all of us Moms, working or not.
So, yeah, parenting consumes our whole life now and kids have less free time; they are very structured ~ especially if they are into organized sports or any team-type activity
Thanks to decades of detailed data, we know that the leading cause of severe injury and death in children is accidents or unintentional injury. We are a lot more aware of safety precautions, supervision being one. There is a middle ground of course, but I prefer to think we have evolved from the mentality of accepting the accompanying risk that comes with competely unsupervised children.
So are we now having a contest to see who is the most neglectful/least hovering parent?
can't win for loosing--
I think that there have always been some hovering parents--and terribly neglectful parents--most are somewhere in between. As the population has expanded--so have the numbers of hoverers. In many areas it is not a responsible thing to do to send your child out into the street--apart from a few nice small towns-=we no longer live in Mayberry. So now kids lives are a little more regimented for safety. Not everyone has a little wooded area with a stream, or trees to climb, or a school that they can walk to for arts and crafts. I do agree that kids should have plenty of time for free play, but in a safe environment.
So are we now having a contest to see who is the most neglectful/least hovering parent?
Hm, my grandparents raised me and they were never up my behind 24/7. As a matter of fact I had all the freedom in the world YET I never got in trouble. I don't drink, have never smoked nor done drugs in my life. On the other hand, my male cousins whose parents were always around turned out awful. Two are drug addicts and one was arrested for selling drugs.
What do you say to that?
What people don't realize is that being with your child 24/7 is not going to stop him or her from getting in trouble or doing bad things later on. Parents seem to think they have total control over what their children do but they couldn't be more wrong. All you can do is hope and pray that they don't turn out bad. Kids will do whatever they want to do when they are older. (and some when they are still young) Or do you think all criminals in this world were neglected by their parents? If you do, you might want to do some research.
ITA! with this. My mother never volunteered at my school and if she had to talk to my teacher, I was in deep chit! She didn't schedule play dates, drive me around or even know where I was half the time. I was EXPECTED to behave myself at all times and to know where I was and was not allowed to go. In the summer, she'd kick us out the door in the morning and tell us to be in when the street lights came on. I too am glad I had that kind of freedom.
I try to give more freedom to my kids than most kids have. It's easy with dd#2 because she runs with a solid crowd and I don't have to worry about what they are up to. For example, she once went missing after school and I was about to call the police when she, finally, came home. Seems she had stopped by the elementary school to visit an old teacher and she and her friends got enlisted to write "fairy letters" to the kids (the kids ask the fairies questions and the fairies answer them in letters) and her phone doesn't work inside of the school building. She makes it impossible to be mad at her even when she's broken the rules. I don't worry too much about where she is. I just ask that she check in now and again so I know she's alive. Now, her sister is a challenge because she doesn't pick the best friends. Her I have to watch more than I care to but you gotta do what you gotta do.
When and why did we become a nation of hover parents? Is it because we have so little to do at home these days that we feel a need to fill our time hovering over our children, playing chauffer, arranging play dates and entertaining them? Honestly, mothers didn't do this when I was growing up and we grew up just fine in spite of that.
OMG. Times change! There are a lot of factors that come into play here, one of them is that neighbourhoods perhaps used to be smaller and safer (or at least people weren't as informed and aware of the dangers), people knew each other, neighbours watched out for each other's kids. I was born in a different country, and my mom says women, including her, used to leave sleeping babies in strollers outside grocery stores while they went in to shop. She shudders now to think of all the possible dangers they weren't thinking of back then. Once, my mom's friend came by, saw me in my stroller and the sun was in my eyes, so she took the stroller around the corner. You can imagine my mom's reaction when she came out of the store and the stroller wasn't there, she practically passed out right there.
Point is, yes, things change and things may be done differently now for lots of reasons. However, no one is coming up to you and telling you to hover more over your kid. You are free to kick them outside for the day and let them roam. What I don't understand is why you think you have the right to be telling others that the way they're raising their kids is wrong, just because it wasn't how you were raised. Here's a shocker: just because your mom did it, doesn't mean that's the best way to raise kids! Since you love studies so much, do you have some actual proof of why it was 'better' to raise kids the 'old way'? Do you have stats to compare of, maybe, the numbers of accidental deaths and serious injuries of kids back then and now? To use the phrase you kept repeating here over and over about sahms, "just because you think it's better, doesn't mean it is". Based on your thread about your older DD, btw, she may have benefited from, and even preferred, a bit more "hovering" and attention - overly sexualized behaviour in teen girls is often an attempt to get he attention from boys that they're lacking elsewhere, primarily from parents. But it's not my place to judge or tell you how to parent. So why don't you stop telling others how to raise their kids, and maybe focus on your own instead?
Oh come ON, all other things aside, you handed that one to me loaded.
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Originally Posted by Ivorytickler
??? Care to clarify?
I see a major shift in parenting. Parents didn't used to hover over their kids. They used to let them be kids. Now parents sweat every detail. The only thing I can come up with is we have way too much free time on our hands these days. Got a better suggestion?
LOL, somebodynew, you're clearly barking up the wrong tree here .
Apparently no amount of non-hovering parenting or 'meaningful work' can instill a sense of humour into someone born without one...
Being a stay at home mom is a very difficult job. I left a military career and bypassed my college degrees to do it. I used to feel that stay at home moms had an easy life and ate bon bons all day. Boy was I wrong. There were many tears shed, exhaustion, frustration, and a deep sense of loss of one's self on many occassions. I would never change what I did because the love I have for my children is immense, but if you are having doubts, wait! Oh, and just another little tidbit. You will never be able to afford kids.
I wouldn't mind if my kids grew up like I did. For the most part, it was harmless fun. There was that time we nearly blew ourselves up making a homemade cannon though...... In the summer, I remember spending countless hours exploring in the woods, hanging out with kids in the neighborhood, at the neighborhood pool or down at the school for arts and crafts.
Like both their parents, mine are city kids. Were they to want to wander a woods with a horde of friends, it would require synchronizd scheduling, and probably carpooling. Even in the Happy Days, not all children grew up in the suburbs or in Mayberry.
And if upbringing is an indicator of life satisfaction as an adult, I'm considerably happier with their childhood-- or even mine, wolves, Granny Aconite, and all-- than that suburban idyll you're touting.
Quote:
Originally Posted by funisart
Not everyone has a little wooded area with a stream, or trees to climb, or a school that they can walk to for arts and crafts. I do agree that kids should have plenty of time for free play, but in a safe environment.
We actually are within walking distance of a couple of schools. Of course, in Florida, schools are surrounded by chain-link fencing, the gates of which are locked during off-hours. One of ds's friends amuses himself by squeezing between the gate posts, but most teenaged boys are neither that flexible nor that skinny-- and there's nothing to do once he gets in there, so he mostly just squeezes out again.
Last edited by Aconite; 10-08-2011 at 03:00 AM..
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... In the summer, I remember spending countless hours exploring in the woods, hanging out with kids in the neighborhood, at the neighborhood pool or down at the school for arts and crafts.
sure looks like that is the way it is headed
