As you have been growing and learning as a parent, do you ever get well-meaning advice from loved ones, or even perfect strangers, about how to handle issues with your children?
It’s inevitable, I think. People who love us especially want us to learn from their mistakes and trials and errors. They remember being in similar situations with their own kids and believe they have the answers for us. This happens to me. I used to get really defensive and offended by the comments. I felt like I was being told that I wasn’t doing it right, or I would imagine that they couldn’t possibly know because they hadn’t been “educated” like I was. Sometimes, this is true. Our loved ones from older generations were raising children in a very different atmosphere with MUCH different information.
The newest techniques and the old being handed down were born of people either surviving much different circumstances or of a new burgeoning interest in using scientific methods for studying behavior.
From the scientists, I believe there were and are lots of kinks to work out. It began as a field dominated by men branching from other fields to explore using the same techniques in studying human babies and families. I love science, but being unbiased and universal when designing studies and choosing subjects is an ongoing battle for most scientists. Beginning a study where either outcome is equally desirable by the scientists might be impossible. A hypothesis is there, and designing a study with that in mind often leads to the production of that outcome by design. And this is even easier to do when so much of the feedback given is subjective. The way different people interpret behaviors can vary wildly. Can we depend on science to tell us the “right” way to parent our children?
On the other hand, relying on techniques handed down through the generations might not be the answer either. The world is changing so quickly, and our need to adjust our parenting accordingly is natural and inevitable. To not grow and change to meet the demands of a new world would be damaging and short-sighted.
Our grandparents survived war and depression. They learned to do without and survive. They learned methods to survive bombings in school. They were conservationists because of immediate need. They planted gardens and recycled and found uses for everything because to throw anything away was wasteful and might mean there would be nothing. Then times changed and there was suddenly more than enough. All was plentiful, and new technologies created convenience foods and packaging and MORE of everything. It must have felt like famine to feast for so many. It was a luxury not to worry about throwing things out……so we did. Waste became an epidemic that we are answering for now.
We are readjusting to a new climate, new circumstances. There is enough, but we are teaching our kids not to waste for different reasons. There were new technologies, new scientific formulas for our food, our skin care, our cleaning products. We created and used these scientific breakthroughs indiscriminately and have begun to pay the price for our blind faith in chemistry and science. Some have been miracles, but others are curses that we are now trying to undo. We have to learn to parent in a time and place that is very different from that of previous generations just as they likely did. What does this mean?
Do we dismiss the advice of others because we know our circumstances are different? Do we dismiss all scientific breakthroughs because of the possibility of faulty scientific method? Do we accept and absorb everything we are told?
Truly, it is all up to you. What I am trying to do is use filters. When I’m offered advice by a loved one, I try to remember their good and loving intentions. They want good things for me and for my children. That matters, and I want to be grateful for that. I ask myself how it would feel to me to put that advice to use in my home. If it feels wrong, I leave it. I try to do the same with science. When I hear about new breakthroughs and techniques, I run it through my filter. I am grateful that someone is exploring these things and offering ideas. I imagine what it would feel like putting it to use in my home, then I decide.
All parents are different, and so are our kids. There is too much variability and grey area to say that there is one right way. What I want for myself is the ability to be grateful for all the information I get and the discretion to use or not use it wisely.
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