One thing all parents can agree on is wanting to do the best for their children, right? But here’s the rub: what is a child at their best?
Is the best a child who excels at everything? Is the best a child who is mentally healthy? Is the best a child who is kind? Is the best a child who is physically strong? Is the best a child who is more academic than their peers? Is the best a child who will grow into an adult capable of earning a six-figure salary?
Hanging babies in cages out of windows of high rise flats in the 1930s to give them fresh air
Theories about the best ways to parent are nothing new – they’ve been debated for the best part of a century. Some of the more ‘genius’ ones? Hanging babies in cages out of windows of high rise flats in the 1930s to give them fresh air, and in the 1960s, giving babies coffee from the age of six months. Hardly methods that would be approved of today.
It was the 70s when many more options seemed to become available to parents
However, it was the 1970s that seems to have been a watershed moment for parenting which, sociologist and lecturer at University College of London Dr. Charlotte Faircloth explains, was the advent of developmental psychology – the idea that what you do with children during childhood has life-long implications.
“Whether you breastfeed or bottle feed – whether you let a child cry it out in a separate room – all these things started to be seen as important as they will start building habits for the rest of that child’s life and their relationships,” she says.
The internet has filled a gap where once you might have asked your mom
“Obviously throughout history people have raised children differently but it was the 70s when many more options seemed to become available to parents; for example you could be a strict routine parent or a relaxed attachment parent.”
iStock / shapecharge
Now, some 40 years later, parenting styles are more prevalent than ever with books lauding the best ways to bring up baby hitting bookshops all the time. In particular, there is a pervasive pattern of parenting experts or authors conflating a country with an approach to child rearing, often based on cultural norms or expectations.
But why do we look to align ourselves with a certain parenting style as opposed to just doing what feels right? Psychologist Emma Kenny feels that our need to be guided by other ideas and ideals is hinged in self-doubt.
The way you raise your children is a lifestyle choice
“One of the most concerning things is the lack of trust we have in ourselves,” she says. “Ask yourself why you are asking someone else how to parent?”
However, Dr. Faircloth thinks this need to be part of a community is about increased social isolation.
You go online and find your community of people that speaks most to your own identity
“Having children these days can be quite a socially isolating experience because of things like social mobility and people living further away from their families, mothers and communities,” she says. “You look to external expertise to tell you what you should be doing.
iStock / AntonioGuillem
“Particularly, the internet has filled a gap where once you might have asked your mom or just done things the way everyone around you was doing them. These days you go online and find your community of people that speaks most to your own identity.
“The way you raise your children is a lifestyle choice. It has moral implications about the sort of person you are rather than it being a pragmatic thing to get through the day. It’s become what sociologists would call intensive and all the choices are overlain with a moralized vision of what it means to realize the next generation of children.”
iStock / Geber86
So, what are some of the world’s most prevalent parenting guides – and what can they offer us? And what should we keep at arm’s length?
The Tiger Mother
This is a term which came to prominence in 2011, when Yale Law professor Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn Of The Tiger Mother was published, which detailed parenting methods that rely on authoritarian tactics and place utmost importance on academic success.
Refusing to accept they achieve grades lower than an A – is common in Asian families
Chua argued that her approach – which included not allowing her daughters the opportunity to watch TV, have playdates or sleepovers, not to mention refusing to accept they achieve grades lower than an A – is common in Asian families. She also felt vindicated in her efforts because her daughters both did exceptionally well academically.
iStock / DragonImages
However, this all-work-no-play regime raised eyebrows and concerns then, and now, some seven years later, the term “tiger parenting” is usually used with derision.
Chinese parents can do things that would seem unimaginable – even legally actionable – to Westerners
Of course, most parents would want their children to do well at school and for many parents boundaries and rules are an essential framework for a child’s life, security and happiness. However, tiger parenting seems to put academic success above everything else – making childhood a pressurized and, to many minds, joyless experience.
Chinese mothers can say to their daughters, ‘Hey fatty-lose some weight’
The Chinese toughness perceived by many Western parents extends beyond academic pushiness, asserts Chua:
“The fact is that Chinese parents can do things that would seem unimaginable – even legally actionable – to Westerners,” she writes in her book. “Chinese mothers can say to their daughters, ‘Hey fatty-lose some weight.’ By contrast, Western parents have to tiptoe around the issue, talking in terms of “health” and never ever mentioning the f-word, and their kids still end up in therapy for eating disorders and negative self-image.”
In China, according to Chua, straight talk is not damaging to self-esteem, and in fact helps to make children stronger.
Bringing Up Bebe
When American writer Pamela Druckerman moved to Paris she was so struck by how differently the French approached parenting that she wrote Bringing Up Bebe – a how-to manual which essentially applauds her adopted nation for their no-nonsense tactics and pillories her home country for being so overbearing and indulgent of their children.
French families let babies ‘cry it out’ for a while to encourage self-settling
“I’m hardly the first to point out that middle-class America has a parenting problem,” Druckerman writes. “In hundreds of books and articles, this problem has been painstakingly diagnosed, critiqued, and named: overparenting, hyperparenting, helicopter parenting, and, my personal favorite, the kindergarchy.”
She goes on to explain how French families let babies ‘cry it out’ for a while to encourage self-settling, only offer their children ‘adult’ food when they start weaning and say non liberally.
iStock / MNStudio
But is this French way really all it’s cracked up to be? Do all French kids sleep through the night from a couple of months old, as she says in the book? Are they all well behaved with a grown-up palette and living tantrum free lives with a beret on top?
Firstly, Druckerman’s France is essentially just Paris. Secondly, the rather detached approach reported by Druckerman – all the bottle feeding and crying it out and slinky maman’s with pert breasts (the French maman doesn’t breastfeed) and well-coiffed hair might suit some women but for many, many others breastfeeding is a privilege and a joy and plenty of new mothers just don’t care whether their hair looks like it has been caught in an egg whisker or if their thighs touch.
iStock / travnikovstudio
Never being seen dead in a sandpit or Gymboree class with your kids
And okay, the reinforcement of boundaries and rules is valuable – routines have long been believed to make children feel secure, for example, but other parts of the ‘French’ way, like never being seen dead in a sandpit or Gymboree class with your kids just seems, well, tres froid! Bringing Up Bebe is about saying no to your kids. But all the time, really?
Dr. Faircloth points out that the French have an entirely different childcare structure which must impact how they parent – and is therefore worth remembering before comparing and contrasting.
“In France they have a system of support that we just don’t have in the UK [or the US],” she says. “They have childcare fully funded from three-months-old, and I’m not saying having only three months off is good by any means but when you try to take the individual practices away from the context it’s not that helpful.”
Achtung Baby
Stereotypes of Germany as a nation would have you believe that everyone is punctual, direct, efficient and somewhat distant. And with those clichés in mind, you’d be forgiven for assuming that as parents they are authoritarian to the last.
German parents not only allow but actively encourage their offspring to flirt with danger
Not so. According to Sara Zaske whose story echoes that of Druckerman’s in that she left the States to live in Berlin with her young family and wrote Achtung Baby all about her experiences, German parents are all about instilling self-reliance and freedom in their brood. It is sort of all about parenting without neuroses or overprotection (read: helicopter parenting).
Use sharp knives, walk to school alone and literally play with fire
Zaske writes about how German parents not only allow but actively encourage their offspring to flirt with danger: use sharp knives, walk to school alone and literally play with fire.
She focuses on the value of giving your children courage, detailing her daughter’s fear of a certain piece of apparatus in her local park:
“For nearly a year, she repeated her climb up and down that dragon without going into its mouth or trying the slides. Then one day I heard her call out, “Mama! Mama!” I stood up and looked around. Where had she gone? I raced over to the tunnels thinking maybe she was stuck.
“‘Mama! Look up!’ I did, and there she was waving at me from between the dragon’s teeth. A few minutes later she came flying down the tall slide like it was no big thing. I couldn’t help noticing the light in her eyes and the way she stood a little taller. She walked around like she was the queen of the park. She had conquered the dragon.
iStock / Juanmonino
“This courage was catching. It wasn’t too long until I heard another ‘Mama! Mama!’ over my head. This time Sophia was in the dragon’s mouth with three-year-old Ozzie at her side.”
Freedom and self-reliance make children secure and confident – no one can argue with that. But the trouble is that parents by definition are worried about their children and find letting go really difficult. Great in theory but in practice – not so much until you consider that the author actually returned to America and brought German ideas back with her. And they caught on.
Mamaleh Knows Best
Firstly, yes we know ‘Jewish’ is not a nationality. But as a culture more than as a religion, Judaism certainly has its fair share of stereotypes. Most prominently? The overbearing mother.
This closeness and sense of community is a difficult thing to emulate or strive for
In Mamaleh Knows Best, Jewish mother Marjorie Ingall debunks myths surrounding Jewish family life but also explains the way that Jewish people bring up their children so often results in adults who are, above all, inquisitive good eggs who nurture a healthy suspicion of authority.
There is much emphasis on family – on both overarching and day-to-day levels. This closeness and sense of community is a difficult thing to emulate or strive for if you have been brought up in less huggermugger circumstances. For many it might feel like pushing a square peg into a round hole.
iStock / lisegagne
The Danish Way Of Parenting
The Danish approach – as written about in The Danish Way Of Parenting by Jessica Joelle Alexander and Iben Dissing Sandahl – is kind of so perfect and wholesome it borders on the nauseating.
“Rewrite your child’s narrative to be more loving,” reads one extract. “Make a list of your child’s most negative qualities and behaviors and write them out as sentence. ‘She isn’t very academic.’ ‘I think he has ADHD.’ ‘She is so stubborn.’
The focus is on separating behavior from child
“Then try to rewrite the sentences identifying the source of those behaviours. For example, the one who isn’t very academic may love reading and be extremely social… Try focusing on the positive side to your children’s behavior so they feel appreciated for their uniqueness rather than labeled negatively.”
The ethos is one of fresh air even on freezing cold days, which research suggests is a typically Scandinavian ideal, and the focus is on separating behavior from child. So, a child isn’t naughty, she is affected by naughtiness.
And this is well and good except who the hell has this kind of patience? No parent I’ve ever met.
The country have this tradition of the pedagogue which is somewhere between a childcare worker and a teacher – and we don’t have that
“Scandinavia has much higher taxes and have extended parental leave,” says Dr. Faircloth. “Fathers take extended periods away from work – and the country has this tradition of the pedagogue which is somewhere between a childcare worker and a teacher – and we don’t have that.
iStock / MaxTopchij
“There is just a whole different type of intellectual and cultural understanding as to what it means to raise children. But again, when you try to replicate it in these parenting manuals, it just sort of assumes that the person who will be doing all that cultural work is the mother – which is of course not very fair on her.”
So, what’s best?
“The most important thing to remember is that most parents have their children’s best interests at heart,” says Dr. Faircloth. “Parents should go with what feels right to them but that’s not helpful for parents who might have been reading so many of these books that they no longer know what their own instincts are anymore.
Anything that is passionate, loving and fun and keeps them happy and fed is great parenting
“I meet a lot of people who are very anxious about their relationship with their child because life has become so medicalized and framed in this language of risk aversion. It is very hard to tell people to relax because a lot of parents have lost their bearings.”
iStock / altmodern
Kenny believes parents need to be kinder to themselves: “It is almost impossible to create any system and expect anyone else’s interpretation to be anything but subjective,” she says. “Let yourself not feel that guilt that society tells us we need to feel. Anything that is passionate, loving and fun and keeps them happy and fed is great parenting.”
Be the first to comment