Seriously…as a parent I feel like I’m constantly stressed out on finding the right words and approaches to reinforce the right things but sometimes articles from “the experts”:
Just make me seethe with contempt for how out of touch and frankly awful some parenting gurus are.
Its not all bad to be fair. I agree with number 2 and teaching kids how to recognize their own emotions and think empathetically but then there’s shit like number 3:
Furthermore, complaining about your job around your kids teaches them that work isn’t fun. As a result, they may grow up believing that adulthood is about spending half of your waking hours in complete misery.
Oh, well we can’t have that can we? Oh no junior, I swear daddy definitely loves clocking in at 6am and answering emails and crunching numbers rather then going outside to play basketball with you or build that new lego set. What, you’re grown up now and you hate your job and the way it makes you feel incredibly alienated in a way you never could have imagined? You just need to work on your attitude! Fuck that noise!
Even number 4, which I agree is good in practice, is arrived at for the wrong reasons. Its not about teaching kids some nonsense about being the sole arbiter and decision maker in charge of your life. Its about reinforcing the responsibilities and obligations you have to one another, whether that’s doing work or going to help grandma get some things down from the attic, or getting groceries for the week at the store.
In a few years I genuinely hope we evolve to the point of realizing that teaching our children neoliberal mindset is its own form of abuse.
then you’ll like this book: Bright-sided How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America
Absolutely. Mark Fischer’s take in capitalist realism has always struck a chord with me because when you spend two seconds thinking about it why is it so surprising that so many people are suffering from depression and anxiety when you have so much political, economic, and ecological uncertainty? I’m actually seeking a therapist/counselor at the moment and this is something very much on my mind. I know I definitely have personal shit I could stand to unpack and work on to improve certain unhealthy behaviors divorced from external forces, but in a post covid world I hope we can stop pretending that people who think their boss is out to get them is just negative thinking and paranoia.
Furthermore, complaining about your job around your kids teaches them that work isn’t fun. As a result, they may grow up believing that adulthood is about spending half of your waking hours in complete misery.
BUT IT IS THOUGH IT IS MISERABLE AND PRETENDING IT IS NOT WILL NOT TRICK HIM INTO LIKING IT WHEN HE HAS TO DO IT i hate this so much
My lib parents have been eating this bullshit lately. Every conversation is them trying to push this stuff on me and it gets very irritating when every conversation sounds like a self-help podcast
Furthermore, complaining about your job around your kids teaches them that work isn’t fun. As a result, they may grow up believing that adulthood is about spending half of your waking hours in complete misery.
They don’t have to talk about it, I understood this at a young age because they were always tired, stressed, and upset which led to them being very neglectful. Didn’t help that everyone claimed school was better than work when school was already hours of drudgery. Before I was 10 I already had a vague understanding that work was awful without anyone outright saying it, now my understanding isn’t so vague.
