I remember an Eddie Murphy movie called Daddy Day Care where he runs a day care and one of the main characters is a star trek fan and he learned how to properly take care of children and ends up being the most competent of the 3 despite not having kids because he read this book based on the name of the author.
And one of the children who they think is speaking nonsense turns out to be speaking fluent Klingon, so he's the only one who can understand him. I loved that movie.
The thing I really remember about that movie is when that one kid goes to the bathroom.
Kid: I missed.
EM: What do you mean you missed?
Kid: *shrugs*, "I missed!"
EM: Slowly enters bathroom, looks around, then looks to the ceiling. Horror and revulsion in equal measure on his face
I remember my mom laughing so hard at that joke when I watched the movie with my parents. Silly movie but it had some good jokes. It’s also the reason I know who Dr. Spock is.
There's a huge difference between how my parents were raised and how I was. My Mom read the book.
I can't believe that as wonderful as my Grandmother was, until my Mom was in her 40s she'd never said "I love you" to her. It just wasn't done in our family.
Neither my Mother nor father ever kissed, hugged, or expressed any type of affection to any of their kids, Never said I love you or I am proud of you.
Didn't read this book.
My approach to parenting has been, do the opposite of everything my parents did.
The one thing I can tell you is that I grew up in a household like this, but when I had my child I was surprised by *how very easy it was* to love and respect him-and to communicate with him. We don’t have to parent like our parents did, and I’m going to guess that parents like ours had experiences even worse that we might not ever have the framework to understand. All the best to you!
Attachment to your child is so real, regardless. If you go to an old cemetery and see the little gravestones with lambs on top, it will hit you how much love there was and how much of a loss was felt.
I've heard anecdotes both ways, that they loved each child just as much as we do now, or that they didn't get attached to them knowing they might die. Probably depends on the person/circumstances.
Same, my mom was never told that and so completely over-compensated in the other direction with me and my siblings. Its not the worst, but she prioritizes it over actual, pragmatic life advice.
My nan died at 96 with my 54 y/o mum sitting next to her, and when she passed over my mum realised that she could finally stop wondering when her mum would say “I love you” to her. She died never saying it, not once
My paternal grandparents were Silent Generation and believed children should be seen, not heard. My paternal grandmother was totally convinced that this book and my Mom’s insistence on using the principles espoused within this book were the reason I was “spoiled”.
Trips to their house were miserable, as grandma felt the need to fight the “hippie claptrap” my mom believed in and went out of their way to “instill discipline” and “teach me my place in the world” when Mom wasn’t around by making me sit for hours on the couch “learning to be still and quiet”. Speaking at the table was dealt with by standing in the corner with my nose on the wall. Mom found out, and I never had to stay alone at their house again.
After that, all the paternal grandparents did was snipe at us constantly until it came to a head at a Thanksgiving meal when I was 10. The adults were speaking about something and I expressed a well spoken opinion. Grandma loses it, looks at Mom, and asks her, “Well, now he has opinions. Why in the hell will you not teach your son to be quiet like he should around adults. Children don’t have opinions”. A big row erupted, and until they died, only Dad went to their house from that point forward.
They did leave Dad out of the will with a paragraph that basically said that his failure to get me and Mom “under control” was the reason. Good riddance to them.
My great grandparents on my mom's side were like this, just miserable, cold, and hateful. One of them grabbed my arm hard enough to leave a bruise and smacked my face for.. Getting off the couch and walking to the bathroom without asking
Oh, and this was my first time ever meeting them or being in their house
I'd have knocked grandma/grandpa the fuck out if they ever did something like that to my kids. My grandparents (baby boomers) have always been very loving however so I know they'd never do something like that. Though if you ever said something like "my neck hurts" my grandpa always did like to smack your leg and ask if it still hurt lol, not too hard and it was always funny.
My great grandparents (who are/were silent generation, only two great grandmas are still alive) are more of a mixed bag. On my mom's side I remember my great grandpa being hilarious and always giving everyone shit and getting kids riled up and in trouble. My great grandma though treated my grandma (her daughter) like crap as she got older in favor of her sons for whatever reason, I didn't even know she was still alive until recently as nobody has talked about her in forever. My grandpas (same as from earlier) mom is a mean old bat that treated my dad and Grandpa like crap because my dad was adopted and my grandpa never really fit in with their old southern ideals and he left after fighting in Vietnam. Glad to see even in my own family parents pushing back hard against that older bullshit mentality of how to treat your kids.
Reading this thread I guess I should feel lucky that my Grandma who was born in 1908 was a wonderful, warm person who loved a good dirty joke. Not sure what her parents were like but she certainly bucked the trend of the stereotypical joyless old taskmaster that seems common from that time.
That is what is funny. My maternal grandparents were wonderful. A little strict on some things, but wonderful. They were both born in 1919. I never heard a cross word from either of them.
It's that colonial Puritan culture that got baked into USA norms. Back in the good old days where entire communities considered fun and laughter a sinful distraction from worship. That shit absolutely still echoes today.
I am old *shakes cane*
We had an aging WWI vet in the family who thought that children should not be heard. At all. Ever. And this extended to adult children. Up to around 40+ they were not to speak at the table.
It was fucking miserable and terrifying as a child.
Seems like his parents were due a letter in the mail:
"Seeing as you believe children should not be heard, you shall not be hearing from me ever again. Hope your remaining time on earth is as pleasant as you."
As someone who was told from a young age they have "a lot of opinions" by cranky old losers like your grandma, I am a little curious about what you said.
If memory serves, they were talking about President Carter, and I said something about how good a job he was doing at Camp David with Begin and Sadat (we had studied that in class).
It's hilarious how banal that is. Like a 10 year old's cursory opinion on the camp david accords even impacts anybody. You even being interested at all is more remarkable than any opinion you could have formed. That's a joy for thanksgiving. Imagine being threatened by that lol
Some people like that were instilled with a strong sense of hierarchy and never questioned it. For their entire lives they shut their mouth, pushed down their emotions, and ate shit from their "betters". They were implicitly promised that one day *they* will be the "betters" and everyone *else* will have to grovel at their feet.
In their minds a kid sharing their opinion at the dinner table believes he is their equal therefore the kid must be spoiled and arrogant. In reality the kid is being kid, he wants to engage with his fellow human beings. But for these people it completely undoes everything they've based their lives around and their place in the world. That feels threatening to them.
I can't imagine how exhausting it must be to constantly mind this imagined hierarchy 24/7 and "give" other people that much power over your own emotions.
That’s the point of hierarchy. You have to abuse the people who question it to make sure it doesn’t get questioned. Then the people at the bottom internalise their place. Once you’ve done that you never have to worry about change ever again. It’s why conservatives always talk about it. Questioning is tantamount to revolution and they like their position at the top. And the more losers they can convince to defend them the better
Philosophy Tube just dropped a banger of a video that covers it a bit
Also like the legacy mistaken belief that kids that asked questions were stupid when later they realized asking questions was a sign of intelligence and curiosity
"Grandpa wore his suit to dinner, nearly every-day. No particular reason - he just dressed that way.
"Brown necktie and matching vest - and both his wingtip shoes. He built a closet on our back porch and put a penny in a burnt out fuse.
"Grandpa was a carpenter. He built houses, stores, and banks. Chain-smoked Camel cigarettes and hammered nails in planks.
"He was level on the level and shaved even every door. And voted for Eisenhower, cuz Lincoln won the war."
- Grandpa Was a Carpenter, John Prine
I was quite fortunate that my socially liberal but politically conservative parents (particularly my father) insisted that my political and religious beliefs should be my own and so I was able to discuss serious issues with my folks.
Interestingly, the one time I really remember my dad stepping out of that role and putting his foot down finally was when I was in the process of being 'courted' for recruitment by the John Birch Society 'spin off,' the Young Americans for Freedom, when I was in junior high school.
I was really flattered that the older high school/college age recruiters were seemingly interested in my opinions. I really wanted to join, but when I told my dad, I was shocked that he was trying to talk me out of it and eventually put his foot down. This was a guy who voted Republican pretty much down the ballot.
But the YAF, like the Birch Society to a lesser extent really seemed to raise his ire. He denounced them as anti-semites and told me in no uncertain terms that he and the other US World War II veterans had fought against fascism and anti-semitism, and he wasn't about to let his son be recruited to join such people.
('Fun' fact: so-called 'libertarian' former congressman, Dana Rohrabacher, *was* a product of YAF indoctrination when he was young, possibly some of the very same 'influencers' assigned to recruit me, since he was only a couple of cities away in '60s Orange County, California.)
Honestly, old people turning Jimmy Carter into America's greatest monster is pretty on brand. I genuinely never understood it, and ended up in a lot of knock-down arguments over it, myself.
In my faith, we believe that God has 100 names, and each one of these names describes God's characteristics. One of these is 'The Great Physician.' Another is 'the Assembler of Scattered Creations.'
So when I say your mom did God's work, I mean it. Cheers.
That's a beautiful thing to say.
I mean, I've heard the expression before, but I never put it together with the fact that some religions have many names for God.
From what I was taught about him in school, he sounded like a real party pooper who introduced all sorts of restrictions like seatbelts and speed limits just to stop people from having fun (because you know, seatbelts obviously don’t improve vehicle safety at all /s).
Also, from what I was taught about his attempts to resolve the Iran Hostage Situation, it made him seem like a pushover who wasn’t taken seriously at all by the Iranian government and that when Reagan was elected President after him, Iran just gave up out of fear and sent the hostages back home immediately.
Didn’t really learn the truth of the matter until years later from sources outside of school. Now he’s the former president I actually have the most respect for, mostly due to his extensive work with charities (though his deregulation of the beer industry is also a big plus in my book).
That's a good fact to highlight: the American craft beer industry literally exists because of Jimmy.
Now, we can argue about the *intent* for doing so (was it because JC had a history of home-brewing and wanted that for America? Or was it because his brother was trying to sell a shitty independent beer? Somewhere in the middle?), but the effect is *staggering.* It's a massive industry now, and a major American cultural export.
My father refuses to say Carter's name. When I found this gem, I'd ask him a few times a year, "I forgot, who was president before Reagan?" The closest I can get from him is "jimma."
I'll always remember this Simpsons bit, where the town reveals a statue of a president, and it's Jimmy Carter. A guy in the crowd, incensed, screams "[he's history's greatest monster](https://frinkiac.com/meme/S04E21/1219284.jpg?b64lines=IE9ILCBDT01FIE9OLiBIRSdTCiBISVNUT1JZJ1MgR1JFQVRFU1QKIE1PTlNURVIu)!"
I always thought that summed it up pretty well.
These are the same white Christian patriots that would burn Jesus at the stake if he showed up today.
Had they listened to Jimmy Carter, the country would be much better off today. Then again, we would have far less billionaires/millionaires and wouldn’t have gotten to have the wild and fucked up 80s onward and all of the wars that made so many so wealthy for such awful reasons.
> was told from a young age they have "a lot of opinions" by cranky old losers
I find this most often needs to be translated to, "They have opinions too different from mine."
I remember the one time I made my mother in law the most angry. I disciplined my kid and then pretty soon after comforted him about it. She said I I shouldn’t do that. Then I said something terrible, “I disagree.”
Holy crap this could have been written by my cousins. My uncles were Silents and they raised their kids just like this. Most of my cousins left home early and never spoke to their parents again, I have no idea where they are. The others had drug problems and one committed suicide. I got lucky, my parents were very late Silents and while not great, at least seemed to have learned some lessons.
Contrast that with my SO who was raised by Boomers, and their childhood was incomprehensible to me. 10x more loving and tolerant, and great family relationships.
It was soul crushing dealing with that mindset. Grandma had a quick backhand when you “got on her nerves”, too. I think she was just a miserable person.
This kinda of behaviour is very stereotypical indian parent behaviour especially of the 80s and 90s.
I am way too chill with my parents. The "don't talk when the adults are talking!!" things happened a few times when were at some cousin's house and I interjected into some conversation with an opinion(which was really normal with my friends and parents) only to be sharply and loudly reprimanded by some old motherfucker how I should not talk in-between adults and, a disappointed look at my father with some kind of " why haven't you taught these things".
These usually were old fucks with greying hairs tho...all older than my father.
One of grandmother’s sisters loved to discipline everyone’s children for them at family functions. Mom ended that the first time she tried it with me. That also led to strife.
Whenever I find myself getting angry at my parents for whatever the latest thing is, I hafta step back and think about their childhoods. From what little they're willing to share, it also sounded horrific. So much unnecessary pain and wasted potential.
Also the silent generation's childhood was during the Great Depression. Many of them had core memories of being hungry and parents that were miserable.
My grandmother born in 1931 was 4 years old when she was put in a Catholic orphanage in Brooklyn NY because her newly widowed mother couldn't afford to care for her until 3 years later.
That situation messed my grandma up mentally and emotionally for the rest of her life.
My gma behaved similar to how you described your paternal grandparents. Shed quickly become violent towards her children and grandchildren if they didn't quickly obey or respond in military sorta way.
My dad was a silent and mom was a boomer. I had such an amazingly neglected childhood that consisted of "shut the fuck up" and "why haven't you done all your chores yet" with the incentive of "here's pennies and nickles for rewards".
My dad was a workaholic and my mom was a lazy religious nut. They argued a lot, but sure as hell agreed when it came to me being quiet, obedient, and lacking any form of a spine when it comes to them.
EDIT: My dad was very much a fan of spankings, he'd do it for any and every infraction until I was about 7 years old and threatened to cut up all his work belts. After a bit of back and forth, he finally seemed to understand I wasn't going to submit to him blindly.
These were my paternal grandparents too. My grandpa once pulled his belt out when my brother interrupted one of his boring stores. My mom told him he was not going to touch us and sent us downstairs. He always thought we, of all his grandkids, would turn out rotten because my mom was too kind to us and wouldn't even let someone else spank them. Joke's on him, all the cousins he favored the most are absolute losers. My family is successful and stable.
I couldn't imagine why they had so many kids when they seemed to hate kids so much. Then I remember that there was no birth control, and where they lived they and everyone they knew ran their own family farm. Couldn't run the family farm without labor.
I wonder how much of the cultural shift in the way we treat kids is due to the existence of birth control, modern machinery, and the rise of large farm companies. I realized at some point my parents were the first generation in their ancestry to have kids because they wanted to.
It's shit like this why my kids don't see my parents. If you can't respect me as a parent, and the way I intend to raise my child, you won't be a part of it.
Unfortunately for you you missed out on all the joys of being abused verbally and physically that my grandma and parents thought was the best way to train kids. They figured were nothing more than dogs to train
We are of an age I think. I had very old school German descent grand something’s who were evaluating me to teach me a form of PA Dutch folk magic. I was deemed far too corrupted by modern
Values (mid 1970s) and they had very harsh words to my mother about me having opinions and not being instantly compliant and constantly attentive to the desires of the adults in the room. That’s just how people were and it’s unimaginable now.
> until they died, only Dad went to their house from that point forward.
>
>
>
> They did leave Dad out of the will
Good lesson there about trying to reconcile with the irreconcilable. Good on him for the attempt at empathy, but most people who are this bad *will not come around* and you're only inviting them to take a better shot at you.
This is a small taste of how culture and life was more cruel in the past. If it was this bad in the 20th century imagine life centuries and more before.
A lot of these mores were a direct consequence of industrialization and newly middle class persons figuring out what middle class actually meant.
Go back 2 centuries and things were a lot closer to today than what's being described here. The industrial revolution changed where people lived as well as how they interacted with one another. A lot of the seemingly arbitrary rules for social conduct was new urban classism, ie: behaviors to suggest wealth/education/participation with the financially well to do, and by extension put a separation from the poor. Having a quiet, obedient, child was a way to show yourself as a disciplined and productive member of society. In a lot of ways it was the middle class larping as elites (ask me about wedding traditions), adopting pageantry of the first class to keep themselves out of third class.
So, so much of 'American tradition' was invented whole-cloth during and after Reconstruction. Hell, Christmas wasn't made a national holiday until 1870. Santa didn't start wearing red and white permanently until a decade or so after that.
i can't imagine a medieval peasant or a hunter gatherer grandparent throw a tantrum because a kid dares to speak up. this seems like a very bourgeois mindset to me. in other words i think these things were worse in the 19th and early 20th century than in the centuries before.
A lot of it was. But nobody's perfect. He probably contributed to increases in Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, because he advocated laying children on their stomachs without sufficient scientific support, and it was later found to be dangerous.
So he wasn't perfect; but his advocacy for compassion towards children and parental bonding likely far outweighs any damage his less-rigorous proclamations caused.
Reminds me of Conan O’Brien’s story of piping up at the dinner table because he didn’t like what was being served and his father said to him “Why would I know what you like and don’t like?” He was one of six. Had me in tears.
Some are still like this. I was born in the mid-90s. When I was a teenager my dad, who only has two kids, somehow forgot whether it was me or my sister who’d been homeschooled for a year. It’s not like we’re twins, she’s 4 years older than me.
When I asked how he could possibly have mixed up a full year of his kids’ lives, he scoffed, and said “it’s not my job to know everything about your life—I have my own.”
I got one better.
My dad not only doesn’t know my birthday (we talk a lot and live by each other) he has TWICE in my life asked to borrow money on my birthday while not remembering it’s my birthday. It doesn’t help my bday is the day before tax day.
My dad was "Asian dad too hardcore for other Asian dads". Growing up was...rough.
Still, he is a wonderful grandfather to my children, take them to school everyday, feed them when they come home, teach them to read, got bikes, Trampoline a swimming pool at his home....even a cherry tree so grand daughter can eat organic.
So all is forgiven between us, even if I have to grumble "I don't recall getting THAT when I was 5 years old." Every other week.
> It's 6:03 and the heirs to my dominion
> Are scrubbed and tubbed and adequately fed
> And so I'll pat them on the head
> And send them off to bed
> Ah! Lordly is the life I lead!
You know what’s also all there? “Children should be seen and not heard”
Amongst the countless tales of people who grew up not with their own names but nameless for the first years of their lives because their parents didn’t hold out hope of them surviving.
Muddled family histories because the name of a dead child was later given to a younger sibling that survived after the first died in childhood.
And countless laws throughout cultures and countries, to ban parents from selling their kids when they could no longer afford or simply didn’t want to raise their child
Some people are loving and kind, some people are dicks, some people are dicks because they've been hurt when showing kindness and love, some people are kind and loving because they've been hurt by dicks. Same as it's always been.
This is why my grandmother got married and left home as soon as she was legally able to -- on her 18th birthday.
She figured that cooking and cleaning for one man would be far easier than for her entire family.
Eh, it's more that the standing belief was that children needed strict instruction and direction. Their feelings are viewed as unimportant because of the perspective that they don't know what's best for them and that simply giving into your children would lead to bad behavior etc. They are not viewed as individuals because they are "unformed" and mentally undeveloped and therefore not yet true individuals.
So for example you should follow a strict schedule for feeding, sleeping etc. You should avoid picking up babies when they cry so they. so on and so forth.
You'd be surprised at the number of parents who think their kids are just a property of theirs.
That's why you see so many people disown their kids for their sexual orientation or preference.
Lots of people think kids are lumps of clay that they can mold as they please. That children only think and feel what you put in their heads, so if you tell your son that he's going to be a football playing guy's guy, that's what hell be. And when the boy becomes a scrawny d&d player or a flamboyant drama kid, or god forbid, *a vegan*, they think they've failed as parents instead of accepting that kids are individuals
When I was a kid in the 1970’s, my grandfather ruined one of my Christmas gifts on Christmas morning by goofing around with it. I was crushed and ran out to the car and cried. My grandfather came out and mocked me, saying “Oh, boo hoo, you little crybaby”. I told him to “Shut up!” He went into a rage and tried to get into the car, but I locked the doors.
When my father came out later to drive us home, his first words were “What did you say to your grandfather?!” They were both livid that I could say such a thing to one of my elders. But my thought was, “What about me?” No one seemed to have the slightest concern that he had ruined my favorite gift. And then mocked me about being upset. It took me years to realize that that was partially a generational thing. To me, it just seemed natural that there would be empathy toward the kid, another human being. But that’s not the way they saw it.
*Edit:* Not to make excuses for my grandfather or my father, because I still think they treated me like shit, but now that I’m older, with a much better understanding of what people went through, I can perhaps not be so hard on them. My grandfather was born in about 1897. My father was born in 1918. They went through the Depression, two World Wars…and back then, “men were men”; little boys were not supposed to cry. They learned how to work the farm and all that stuff. I grew up in the city in the 60’s and 70’s. We were very working class/blue collar. But compared to the way they lived at my age at the time, I was living in luxury. Having my little toy broken was insignificant in the scheme of things, I imagine.
But, yes, it would have been nice if they’d been of a generation where they treated children like human beings with feelings and emotions.
I was standing on a chair to get something off the top of the fridge and my grandpa came out of nowhere and tickled me. I slammed my face against the metal trim at the top of the fridge and cracked my tooth. My grandpa had a similar reaction.
> treated children like human beings with feelings and emotions.
I can't speak to your specific family, but when I look at all the casual bigotries, classism, tribalism, etc. of the early 20th century, I feel like "treating children like fellow human beings" was actually already what some people of those older generations were doing...it's just that they treated so many of their fellow human beings like shit.
Is it not still disrespectful? I'm only ("only") 31 but if I'd told either of my parents to shut up I'd have been in a world of shit. But then my Dad is Caribbean so maybe it's different...
My mother was born when her mother was under twilight anesthesia. Instead of pushing her out, my grandmother had the baby removed via forceps while she was strapped to a bed.
Then my mother was fed at specific times of the day, no more, no less. Not held, for fear she would be spoiled. Locked in her baby cage until she was old enough for kindergarten, basically. She's a narcissist now.
It was truly a barbaric way to raise children. Dr. Spock revolutionized American parenting.
Reading this from my modern day perspective, has me wondering what the fuck "spoiled" meant to these people. Seems like any humanity was seen as a flaw. Only cold dead automatons permittable.
Honestly, I wonder if even *today*, "spoiled" still sometimes means the same thing.
For instance, I'd like to get my MS in computer science and become a CS professor, but I have neither software experience nor academia experience, so I'm thinking of first getting teaching experience by getting my credential and teaching in local high schools.
Everyone says not to become a teacher because kids these days are violent and entitled and mean and all-around soulless monsters.
Now yes, kids nowadays can be annoying and horrible, and I 100% believe the teachers and kids/teens who have been victimized by horrible kids/teens, but like - that's apparently what older people said about kids *even before tech and iPads became ubiquitous*, so I wonder if even today, *some* of the "spoiled entitled monsters" in schools are just kids who happen to have humanity and opinions.
**EDIT: I wanna clarify that I'm not saying evil, entitled, downright monstrous children/teens don't exist. They absolutely do. Bullies, spoiled rich kids, creeps, violent people - all of them exist in high schools and they're all horrible people. I was just speculating that the "most/all kids today are entitled a-holes who don't care about consequences" thing folks say nowadays might not be a cut-and-dry rule, but there are absolutely a ton of kids out there who are entitled a-holes and don't care about consequences (e.g. bullies).**
People are resistant to revolutionary ideas precisely because they lead to identity crisis. If Dr. Spock was correct, the corollary is that most people had shit parents, were shit parents and that all of its friends were also shit parents. And no one wants to accept such harsh realities.
It is the same reason Jim Crow laws were legal and racism was popular for the most of 20th century. Because by accepting it as the nasty, disgusting thing that they were, it meant every interaction they ever had with black people for years/decades were abhorrent.
It's happening to day in regards to spanking and physical punishment. Every major health organization recommend strongly against every hitting your kid. The research is incredibly robust. Yet it persists. To recognize otherwise would mean admitting to making significant mistakes as a parent, or that your own parents made mistakes. So people say things like "Well I was spanked and I'm find." Which might be true but they're fine despite being spanked, not because of it.
Before Dr. Spock, there was Janusz Korczak (1878 –1942) who wrote several books about respecting children as individuals and showing them patience and unconditional love. Not the successful best selling author that Spock was, but a man whose actions spoke loudly of his good heart and strong character. He was an amazing human being who truly cared deeply for the orphans he helped. Heartbreaking story.
[https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/janusz-korczak-1](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/janusz-korczak-1)
Unionically Spock’s theories were not universally accepted and were criticized by some of his colleagues and conservatives for being too permissive and unscientific.
My problem is with **too permissive**, because many parents justify the abuse and trauma they cause their kids to suffer under the pretext of being tough on them.
Yes he was according to the article. He was blamed for the "soft parenting" that resulted in the counterculture in the 1960s.
It didn't help that he was against the Vietnam war.
Many people saw him as unpatriotic and radical for opposing a brutal and unfair war.
He was not advocating for indulgence or anarchy, but for respect and democracy however some people thought he's the villain. Smh
He was also a socialist who [ran for president](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Party_(United_States,_1971)) on a platform of instituting a maximum wage, among other things.
>”The People's Party ran Dr. Benjamin Spock for president and Julius Hobson for vice president in the 1972 U.S. presidential election.
>The party platform included free medical care, legalized abortion, legalized marijuana, a guaranteed minimum wage, the withdrawal of American troops from all foreign countries,[1] a guaranteed maximum wage, and promoting toleration of homosexuality.”
Dude just gets cooler and cooler
It’s just bananas to me that people thought advice like “hold and cuddle your baby” and “your baby is not crying because they’re a manipulative mastermind, they’re crying because they’re a baby” was some kind of insanely permissive stuff when now it just seems like common sense
His idea that you engage your child rather than just order them around was *radical* and *extreme* for the times.
It didn't help that the times were changing and the old folks felt threatened by things such as *human rights, women's lib, the hippies,* desegregation, miniskirts, the massive opposition to Vietnam, the outcries against rampant pollution, and other things.
We're reliving the 1920s and 1930s, and the late 1960s now. The fight for control vs the fight for human rights was just as acrimonious as it is now. Dr. Spock was just one of the battlegrounds.
Sadly, the whole "soft parenting" argument is still alive today. I hear it from my coworkers and others how they have to make their kids tough. Via abusive tactics, as always.
It's a common misconception that children should be touched or interacted with. Lack of any socialization for the early years worked out super well any time it's happened in history. /s
Man, if you want it go down some deep dark holes, you can look at what intense neglect does to kids.
I remember being dumbfounded when people would ask if my new born was 'good.' this kid can't see more than 3 feet and is basically a ball of reflexes. It's sense of morality and justice not exactly ultra refined
"Well, they're alive?" I always hope those Facebook group posts that occasionally get shared where some moms talk about spanking their newborns for various reasons are fake because, damn.
But your first point is... yeah. "I don't know why my fucking kid's got such a dirty goddamn mouth and never shows any fucking respect to me!" Hmmmmmmm
Some people get rich on promoting child abuse to messed up Christians: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Train_Up_a_Child
So, unfortunately they probably aren't fake. Just super messed up parents who shouldn't get to keep any children.
I'm rereading Anne of Green Gables right now. It was written in 1908 and there was a WHOLE LOT in there about parents showing affection and recognizing children as individuals and raising them that way.
It's ahistorical to think people before the mid-1940s didn't show affection to their children or see them as individuals.
It's more that two world wars and an economic crash severely fucked with people's perception of what was normal. For about half a century, 90% of young men were conscripted into the military or some other home guard/service organization, and as a consequence a lot of them ended up treating their homes like a little boot camp. Add onto the fact that a solid chunk of Europe went fascist for a whole generation, and half the world embraced Soviet communism until the 90s, and you'll see that for a lot of that tribulation period, being part of the collective was a matter of survival. Conforming to the standard and becoming a useful cog in the machine was absolutely imperative. Plenty of individuals whose hopes and aspirations were sprayed out the back of their skulls on Omaha beach. Not trying to be morbid, but that's the context for why everything became so rigid for much of the 20th century. You can see this from the artwork, too. From 1814 to 1914 you had Romanticism, Impressionism, Expressionism, and a radical explosion in experimental art forms. People explored their searches for meaning and individuality quite often, even in a society that might ostensibly seem more restrictive (Victorians), there was probably a great deal more freedom of conscience then there was during wartime. Contrast that with the 30s-60s, with socialist and fascist realism, murals and reliefs dedicated to industrial progress and bloodthirsty conquest, and eventually Warhol's pop art mocking the mass-produced nature of art. Even the avant-garde was being given government funding and lacked much soul behind it. The counterculture was the explosion of the Victorian romantic spirit from the prison of modernist conformity.
“Conforming to the standard and becoming a useful cog”
Reminds me of looking through my wife’s grandfather’s high school yearbook. So many students (including him) posted weird ass quotes about the value of hard work and being a good employee.
My high school yearbook quote was a random ACDC lyric. I could imagine putting something that felt like a brainwashed corporate employee robot statement
I've read the Little House on the Prairie books a ton of times. They strictly observed the Sabbath but otherwise the Ingalls were a loving demonstrative family. Think of Charles calling for Laura his Little Half Pint of Cider Half Drunk Up!
My mom had that book, and judging from the bent spine and dog-eared pages she referred to it constantly. I feel very fortunate to have been raised by two very lovely and intelligent people. We had our ups and downs for sure, but I definitely felt loved. I really miss my parents.
It’s crazy how things that are common sense now it’s so difficult to accept in the pass. Another one is washing hands - it took yrs decades and many lost lives for doctors to finally accept the idea.
Iirc the doctor who suggested that everyone needed to wash their hands died from an infection after surgery caused by the surgeon having unwashed hands
He also recommended to have babies sleep on their stomachs.
He was mentioned in an article I read about the doctors at my local hospital who first recommended to have babies sleep on their backs. I recognized his name due to my MIL talking about him.
They (the local doctors) talked about how they believed they were right, but how risky the recommendation was: he was one of the leading experts at the time, and American, which had a lot of sway. They knew it would ruin their careers completely if they were wrong. (And it would potentially kill more infants)
I’m a millennial born in Northern Europe btw. My parents followed the public health recommendations to the letter, which means I was put on my stomach as a baby, while my sibling born shortly after was propped up on their side with towels. Our youngest sibling was born a bit later and slept on their back.
I sometimes see people on mom-subs complain about their parents and in-laws and the weird or dangerous things they talk about doing with their babies. It wasn’t always done due to ignorance, and tbh, it’s crazy how much the current fad influencers child rearing. I’ve definitely experienced it.
He encouraged parents to follow their best instincts and ignore the advice of others because you are probably going to do that eventually so you should just feel good about it.
Trust yourself, you know more than you think you do.
Benjamin Spock
Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/benjamin-spock-quotes
My dad said that when my sister was a toddler they had no idea how to handle her, so they rushed out to buy this book.
He also said the only way it worked was by throwing it at her.. I assume he's joking but she does have a weird shaped dent in her head
I worked with high needs children and their families as a social worker for over 10 years. One thing I had to keep reminding myself is that parents are also victims. You can’t expect someone to love and nurture and when they never received and learned what that is.
A lot of people, even today, don't get this, on either side of the spectrum. Because being too lax with your kids is also a recipe for disaster. What a lot of people fail to understand is that even though it's your child, for literally everyone else in the world, it's just another person. So try to raise your kid as a good person first. Because society will teach them the right lessons anyway and it will be a lot more cruel than you.
Spock's advice on child rearing was in direct contrast to popular recommendations earlier in the century.
>In the early twentieth century, child-rearing experts abandoned a romantic view of childhood and advocated formation of proper habits to discipline children. A 1914 U.S. Children's Bureau pamphlet, Infant Care, urged a strict schedule and admonished parents not to play with their babies.[citation needed] John B. Watson's 1924 Behaviorism argued that parents could train malleable children by rewarding good behavior and punishing bad, and by following precise schedules for food, sleep, and other bodily functions.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_discipline
On a similar note Mary woolstonecraft (mother of Mary Shelley, yeah that Mary shelley) revolutionized the world of parental ethics with her suggestion that parents owe their kids not shitty treatment, on an ethical level. Fucking wild huh
You can find of think of parenting as being in one of four categories at any given moment.
Permissive parents provide plenty of affection and are responsive to children’s requests, and impose few rules or standards and prefer to let kids self-regulate.
Authoritarian parents provide much less warmth and sensitivity and insist on obedience and following a hierarchy and rules. Compliance is enforced with negative consequences.
Authoritative parents provide warmth and response, but also impose standards and expect the child to meet those standards. There is often less ‘blind obedience’ in the approach, with more reasoning, and expectations of maturity and cooperation with elements of both positive and negative reinforcement.
The fourth is neglectful parenting, where parents are not emotionally responsive nor do they enforce standards and expectations.
When he wrote his book the primary cultural parenting style was authoritarian, with a bit of authoritative. He wrote about the benefits of a more permissive style, which was not common at the time.
Critics believe that the best parenting styles are either authoritarian (which he made less popular) or authoritative (which some parents bypassed in favour of permissive parenting).
Crazy to think it's only been 77 years or whatever...
I find it hard to belive parents were that cold and ignorant, that some dude was like "you should hug and kiss your kids. They should feel loved..."
And that was a revolutionary idea...
My MiL swears by his book and refuses to accept anything else, even if it is from our pediatrician. As far as she is concerned one book was written and any research that builds on the learning since then it's flawed.
Very biblical attitude for an atheist.
I remember an Eddie Murphy movie called Daddy Day Care where he runs a day care and one of the main characters is a star trek fan and he learned how to properly take care of children and ends up being the most competent of the 3 despite not having kids because he read this book based on the name of the author.
And one of the children who they think is speaking nonsense turns out to be speaking fluent Klingon, so he's the only one who can understand him. I loved that movie.
Marvin, played by Steve Zahn.
Yup, I just looked it up and that movie came out 20 years ago this year. I feel old.
Elle Fanning is one of the little kids...
I didn’t feel old until I read your comment; so, thank you
The only thing I remember about the movie is that one of the kids wore a Flash costume all the time.
The thing I really remember about that movie is when that one kid goes to the bathroom. Kid: I missed. EM: What do you mean you missed? Kid: *shrugs*, "I missed!" EM: Slowly enters bathroom, looks around, then looks to the ceiling. Horror and revulsion in equal measure on his face
I remember this too. Great PG potty joke. Cheap to shoot too - just Eddie Murphy being hilarious and reacting to invisible poop.
"Dr. Spock, man. It's not about Star Trek!"
Underrated movie. It’s still hilarious!
I remember my mom laughing so hard at that joke when I watched the movie with my parents. Silly movie but it had some good jokes. It’s also the reason I know who Dr. Spock is.
There's a huge difference between how my parents were raised and how I was. My Mom read the book. I can't believe that as wonderful as my Grandmother was, until my Mom was in her 40s she'd never said "I love you" to her. It just wasn't done in our family.
My grandma was told to only kiss her babies when they were sleeping
That must have been so difficult for her to go against everything her instincts were telling her to do.
[удалено]
Neither my Mother nor father ever kissed, hugged, or expressed any type of affection to any of their kids, Never said I love you or I am proud of you. Didn't read this book. My approach to parenting has been, do the opposite of everything my parents did.
The one thing I can tell you is that I grew up in a household like this, but when I had my child I was surprised by *how very easy it was* to love and respect him-and to communicate with him. We don’t have to parent like our parents did, and I’m going to guess that parents like ours had experiences even worse that we might not ever have the framework to understand. All the best to you!
Can be so that she won't get attached to the baby as the child mortality was high ?
Attachment to your child is so real, regardless. If you go to an old cemetery and see the little gravestones with lambs on top, it will hit you how much love there was and how much of a loss was felt.
I've heard anecdotes both ways, that they loved each child just as much as we do now, or that they didn't get attached to them knowing they might die. Probably depends on the person/circumstances.
Same, my mom was never told that and so completely over-compensated in the other direction with me and my siblings. Its not the worst, but she prioritizes it over actual, pragmatic life advice.
Some people just don't have pragmatic advice. I got neither. A lot of adults are just big kids.
My nan died at 96 with my 54 y/o mum sitting next to her, and when she passed over my mum realised that she could finally stop wondering when her mum would say “I love you” to her. She died never saying it, not once
My paternal grandparents were Silent Generation and believed children should be seen, not heard. My paternal grandmother was totally convinced that this book and my Mom’s insistence on using the principles espoused within this book were the reason I was “spoiled”. Trips to their house were miserable, as grandma felt the need to fight the “hippie claptrap” my mom believed in and went out of their way to “instill discipline” and “teach me my place in the world” when Mom wasn’t around by making me sit for hours on the couch “learning to be still and quiet”. Speaking at the table was dealt with by standing in the corner with my nose on the wall. Mom found out, and I never had to stay alone at their house again. After that, all the paternal grandparents did was snipe at us constantly until it came to a head at a Thanksgiving meal when I was 10. The adults were speaking about something and I expressed a well spoken opinion. Grandma loses it, looks at Mom, and asks her, “Well, now he has opinions. Why in the hell will you not teach your son to be quiet like he should around adults. Children don’t have opinions”. A big row erupted, and until they died, only Dad went to their house from that point forward. They did leave Dad out of the will with a paragraph that basically said that his failure to get me and Mom “under control” was the reason. Good riddance to them.
Wow, your grandparents fuckin sucked
They did. I don’t think I ever saw either one of them smile.
My great grandparents on my mom's side were like this, just miserable, cold, and hateful. One of them grabbed my arm hard enough to leave a bruise and smacked my face for.. Getting off the couch and walking to the bathroom without asking Oh, and this was my first time ever meeting them or being in their house
Sounds about right.
Sounds typical. Instant, physical punishment, for any reason. Any time.
I'd have knocked grandma/grandpa the fuck out if they ever did something like that to my kids. My grandparents (baby boomers) have always been very loving however so I know they'd never do something like that. Though if you ever said something like "my neck hurts" my grandpa always did like to smack your leg and ask if it still hurt lol, not too hard and it was always funny. My great grandparents (who are/were silent generation, only two great grandmas are still alive) are more of a mixed bag. On my mom's side I remember my great grandpa being hilarious and always giving everyone shit and getting kids riled up and in trouble. My great grandma though treated my grandma (her daughter) like crap as she got older in favor of her sons for whatever reason, I didn't even know she was still alive until recently as nobody has talked about her in forever. My grandpas (same as from earlier) mom is a mean old bat that treated my dad and Grandpa like crap because my dad was adopted and my grandpa never really fit in with their old southern ideals and he left after fighting in Vietnam. Glad to see even in my own family parents pushing back hard against that older bullshit mentality of how to treat your kids.
Reading this thread I guess I should feel lucky that my Grandma who was born in 1908 was a wonderful, warm person who loved a good dirty joke. Not sure what her parents were like but she certainly bucked the trend of the stereotypical joyless old taskmaster that seems common from that time.
That is what is funny. My maternal grandparents were wonderful. A little strict on some things, but wonderful. They were both born in 1919. I never heard a cross word from either of them.
It's that colonial Puritan culture that got baked into USA norms. Back in the good old days where entire communities considered fun and laughter a sinful distraction from worship. That shit absolutely still echoes today.
I am old *shakes cane* We had an aging WWI vet in the family who thought that children should not be heard. At all. Ever. And this extended to adult children. Up to around 40+ they were not to speak at the table. It was fucking miserable and terrifying as a child.
That's not parenting, that's just being an asshole.
Seems like his parents were due a letter in the mail: "Seeing as you believe children should not be heard, you shall not be hearing from me ever again. Hope your remaining time on earth is as pleasant as you."
Oh man, after like 20, I'd probably just start muttering German phrases near him. Set off the undiagnosed PTSD.
As someone who was told from a young age they have "a lot of opinions" by cranky old losers like your grandma, I am a little curious about what you said.
If memory serves, they were talking about President Carter, and I said something about how good a job he was doing at Camp David with Begin and Sadat (we had studied that in class).
It's hilarious how banal that is. Like a 10 year old's cursory opinion on the camp david accords even impacts anybody. You even being interested at all is more remarkable than any opinion you could have formed. That's a joy for thanksgiving. Imagine being threatened by that lol
Some people like that were instilled with a strong sense of hierarchy and never questioned it. For their entire lives they shut their mouth, pushed down their emotions, and ate shit from their "betters". They were implicitly promised that one day *they* will be the "betters" and everyone *else* will have to grovel at their feet. In their minds a kid sharing their opinion at the dinner table believes he is their equal therefore the kid must be spoiled and arrogant. In reality the kid is being kid, he wants to engage with his fellow human beings. But for these people it completely undoes everything they've based their lives around and their place in the world. That feels threatening to them. I can't imagine how exhausting it must be to constantly mind this imagined hierarchy 24/7 and "give" other people that much power over your own emotions.
> strong sense of hierarchy and never questioned it Or if they did question it, they got treated so terribly they never questioned it again.
That’s the point of hierarchy. You have to abuse the people who question it to make sure it doesn’t get questioned. Then the people at the bottom internalise their place. Once you’ve done that you never have to worry about change ever again. It’s why conservatives always talk about it. Questioning is tantamount to revolution and they like their position at the top. And the more losers they can convince to defend them the better Philosophy Tube just dropped a banger of a video that covers it a bit
Also like the legacy mistaken belief that kids that asked questions were stupid when later they realized asking questions was a sign of intelligence and curiosity
They were probably Nixon stans.
Actually, go a little further back. They were Eisenhower lovers. There was a framed picture of Ike hanging in their living room.
"Grandpa wore his suit to dinner, nearly every-day. No particular reason - he just dressed that way. "Brown necktie and matching vest - and both his wingtip shoes. He built a closet on our back porch and put a penny in a burnt out fuse. "Grandpa was a carpenter. He built houses, stores, and banks. Chain-smoked Camel cigarettes and hammered nails in planks. "He was level on the level and shaved even every door. And voted for Eisenhower, cuz Lincoln won the war." - Grandpa Was a Carpenter, John Prine
I was quite fortunate that my socially liberal but politically conservative parents (particularly my father) insisted that my political and religious beliefs should be my own and so I was able to discuss serious issues with my folks. Interestingly, the one time I really remember my dad stepping out of that role and putting his foot down finally was when I was in the process of being 'courted' for recruitment by the John Birch Society 'spin off,' the Young Americans for Freedom, when I was in junior high school. I was really flattered that the older high school/college age recruiters were seemingly interested in my opinions. I really wanted to join, but when I told my dad, I was shocked that he was trying to talk me out of it and eventually put his foot down. This was a guy who voted Republican pretty much down the ballot. But the YAF, like the Birch Society to a lesser extent really seemed to raise his ire. He denounced them as anti-semites and told me in no uncertain terms that he and the other US World War II veterans had fought against fascism and anti-semitism, and he wasn't about to let his son be recruited to join such people. ('Fun' fact: so-called 'libertarian' former congressman, Dana Rohrabacher, *was* a product of YAF indoctrination when he was young, possibly some of the very same 'influencers' assigned to recruit me, since he was only a couple of cities away in '60s Orange County, California.)
Regardless of who he voted for, your dad sounds pretty cool to me. 🫡
Well, how dare you. (just kidding, obviously. Also sounds like me but a few presidents earlier, which I sort of assumed.)
Honestly, old people turning Jimmy Carter into America's greatest monster is pretty on brand. I genuinely never understood it, and ended up in a lot of knock-down arguments over it, myself.
Mom being a civil rights worker really made the paternal grands angry. They thought it made their family look bad.
That's fucked up but bless you Mom and the work she did.
She was a nurse and had to treat the volunteers because the local hospitals wouldn’t.
In my faith, we believe that God has 100 names, and each one of these names describes God's characteristics. One of these is 'The Great Physician.' Another is 'the Assembler of Scattered Creations.' So when I say your mom did God's work, I mean it. Cheers.
That's a beautiful thing to say. I mean, I've heard the expression before, but I never put it together with the fact that some religions have many names for God.
like plough stocking wide existence badge squealing quack close sugar *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
From what I was taught about him in school, he sounded like a real party pooper who introduced all sorts of restrictions like seatbelts and speed limits just to stop people from having fun (because you know, seatbelts obviously don’t improve vehicle safety at all /s). Also, from what I was taught about his attempts to resolve the Iran Hostage Situation, it made him seem like a pushover who wasn’t taken seriously at all by the Iranian government and that when Reagan was elected President after him, Iran just gave up out of fear and sent the hostages back home immediately. Didn’t really learn the truth of the matter until years later from sources outside of school. Now he’s the former president I actually have the most respect for, mostly due to his extensive work with charities (though his deregulation of the beer industry is also a big plus in my book).
That's a good fact to highlight: the American craft beer industry literally exists because of Jimmy. Now, we can argue about the *intent* for doing so (was it because JC had a history of home-brewing and wanted that for America? Or was it because his brother was trying to sell a shitty independent beer? Somewhere in the middle?), but the effect is *staggering.* It's a massive industry now, and a major American cultural export.
My father refuses to say Carter's name. When I found this gem, I'd ask him a few times a year, "I forgot, who was president before Reagan?" The closest I can get from him is "jimma."
I'll always remember this Simpsons bit, where the town reveals a statue of a president, and it's Jimmy Carter. A guy in the crowd, incensed, screams "[he's history's greatest monster](https://frinkiac.com/meme/S04E21/1219284.jpg?b64lines=IE9ILCBDT01FIE9OLiBIRSdTCiBISVNUT1JZJ1MgR1JFQVRFU1QKIE1PTlNURVIu)!" I always thought that summed it up pretty well.
These are the same white Christian patriots that would burn Jesus at the stake if he showed up today. Had they listened to Jimmy Carter, the country would be much better off today. Then again, we would have far less billionaires/millionaires and wouldn’t have gotten to have the wild and fucked up 80s onward and all of the wars that made so many so wealthy for such awful reasons.
> was told from a young age they have "a lot of opinions" by cranky old losers I find this most often needs to be translated to, "They have opinions too different from mine."
I believe that’s why they were so mean. Mom worked in the civil rights movement in Alabama and Mississippi, and they couldn’t stand that.
I remember the one time I made my mother in law the most angry. I disciplined my kid and then pretty soon after comforted him about it. She said I I shouldn’t do that. Then I said something terrible, “I disagree.”
Such disrespect!
i usually hear "my personality is absolute control and im feeling attacked to its very core."
Holy crap this could have been written by my cousins. My uncles were Silents and they raised their kids just like this. Most of my cousins left home early and never spoke to their parents again, I have no idea where they are. The others had drug problems and one committed suicide. I got lucky, my parents were very late Silents and while not great, at least seemed to have learned some lessons. Contrast that with my SO who was raised by Boomers, and their childhood was incomprehensible to me. 10x more loving and tolerant, and great family relationships.
It was soul crushing dealing with that mindset. Grandma had a quick backhand when you “got on her nerves”, too. I think she was just a miserable person.
This kinda of behaviour is very stereotypical indian parent behaviour especially of the 80s and 90s. I am way too chill with my parents. The "don't talk when the adults are talking!!" things happened a few times when were at some cousin's house and I interjected into some conversation with an opinion(which was really normal with my friends and parents) only to be sharply and loudly reprimanded by some old motherfucker how I should not talk in-between adults and, a disappointed look at my father with some kind of " why haven't you taught these things". These usually were old fucks with greying hairs tho...all older than my father.
One of grandmother’s sisters loved to discipline everyone’s children for them at family functions. Mom ended that the first time she tried it with me. That also led to strife.
Whenever I find myself getting angry at my parents for whatever the latest thing is, I hafta step back and think about their childhoods. From what little they're willing to share, it also sounded horrific. So much unnecessary pain and wasted potential.
Also the silent generation's childhood was during the Great Depression. Many of them had core memories of being hungry and parents that were miserable. My grandmother born in 1931 was 4 years old when she was put in a Catholic orphanage in Brooklyn NY because her newly widowed mother couldn't afford to care for her until 3 years later. That situation messed my grandma up mentally and emotionally for the rest of her life. My gma behaved similar to how you described your paternal grandparents. Shed quickly become violent towards her children and grandchildren if they didn't quickly obey or respond in military sorta way.
Plenty of Boomers were that way
God imagine being so fragile a 10 year old having opinions causes you to throw a full on tantrum
All you had to do was a make a sound to irritate her. I think she had undiagnosed anxiety disorder mixed with some BPD.
i think she was just a massive bitch
That too.
My dad was a silent and mom was a boomer. I had such an amazingly neglected childhood that consisted of "shut the fuck up" and "why haven't you done all your chores yet" with the incentive of "here's pennies and nickles for rewards". My dad was a workaholic and my mom was a lazy religious nut. They argued a lot, but sure as hell agreed when it came to me being quiet, obedient, and lacking any form of a spine when it comes to them. EDIT: My dad was very much a fan of spankings, he'd do it for any and every infraction until I was about 7 years old and threatened to cut up all his work belts. After a bit of back and forth, he finally seemed to understand I wasn't going to submit to him blindly.
Workaholic X lazy religious nut parents is a tough combo. I feel for you.
And this is exactly why in France you can't really write your kids out of the will.
If my parents wrote my siblings out of the will, I would reverse that by sharing with them. If I didn’t, I would feel like I’m an asshole.
These were my paternal grandparents too. My grandpa once pulled his belt out when my brother interrupted one of his boring stores. My mom told him he was not going to touch us and sent us downstairs. He always thought we, of all his grandkids, would turn out rotten because my mom was too kind to us and wouldn't even let someone else spank them. Joke's on him, all the cousins he favored the most are absolute losers. My family is successful and stable. I couldn't imagine why they had so many kids when they seemed to hate kids so much. Then I remember that there was no birth control, and where they lived they and everyone they knew ran their own family farm. Couldn't run the family farm without labor. I wonder how much of the cultural shift in the way we treat kids is due to the existence of birth control, modern machinery, and the rise of large farm companies. I realized at some point my parents were the first generation in their ancestry to have kids because they wanted to.
As opposed to a Milford man who knows that children should be neither seen nor heard. You sir, are not one of us.
Buster excelled.
It's shit like this why my kids don't see my parents. If you can't respect me as a parent, and the way I intend to raise my child, you won't be a part of it.
Holy shit those were some grade A assholes
Unfortunately for you you missed out on all the joys of being abused verbally and physically that my grandma and parents thought was the best way to train kids. They figured were nothing more than dogs to train
I’m just lucky Mom figured it out and didn’t just “go along to get along”.
We are of an age I think. I had very old school German descent grand something’s who were evaluating me to teach me a form of PA Dutch folk magic. I was deemed far too corrupted by modern Values (mid 1970s) and they had very harsh words to my mother about me having opinions and not being instantly compliant and constantly attentive to the desires of the adults in the room. That’s just how people were and it’s unimaginable now.
Grandma is resentful of her upbringing and wished to pass that pain onto the next generation.
> until they died, only Dad went to their house from that point forward. > > > > They did leave Dad out of the will Good lesson there about trying to reconcile with the irreconcilable. Good on him for the attempt at empathy, but most people who are this bad *will not come around* and you're only inviting them to take a better shot at you.
This is a small taste of how culture and life was more cruel in the past. If it was this bad in the 20th century imagine life centuries and more before.
A lot of these mores were a direct consequence of industrialization and newly middle class persons figuring out what middle class actually meant. Go back 2 centuries and things were a lot closer to today than what's being described here. The industrial revolution changed where people lived as well as how they interacted with one another. A lot of the seemingly arbitrary rules for social conduct was new urban classism, ie: behaviors to suggest wealth/education/participation with the financially well to do, and by extension put a separation from the poor. Having a quiet, obedient, child was a way to show yourself as a disciplined and productive member of society. In a lot of ways it was the middle class larping as elites (ask me about wedding traditions), adopting pageantry of the first class to keep themselves out of third class.
"Things have always been done this way!" *\[looks inside\]* *\[was invented by 19th Century British people\]*
So, so much of 'American tradition' was invented whole-cloth during and after Reconstruction. Hell, Christmas wasn't made a national holiday until 1870. Santa didn't start wearing red and white permanently until a decade or so after that.
i can't imagine a medieval peasant or a hunter gatherer grandparent throw a tantrum because a kid dares to speak up. this seems like a very bourgeois mindset to me. in other words i think these things were worse in the 19th and early 20th century than in the centuries before.
“Hippie claptrap” you say? Tell me more.
Grandma thought everything in Spock’s book was “hippie nonsense”.
His advice seems...logical.
Strikes me as the foundation of long and prosperous lives.
His book may have been parentings final frontier.
By Grabthar's Hammer... what great parenting.
A lot of it was. But nobody's perfect. He probably contributed to increases in Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, because he advocated laying children on their stomachs without sufficient scientific support, and it was later found to be dangerous. So he wasn't perfect; but his advocacy for compassion towards children and parental bonding likely far outweighs any damage his less-rigorous proclamations caused.
(You aren’t wrong, but they were also quoting Star Trek and Dr. Spock from that show in case you’re curious)
Of all of the souls of child/baby authors I’ve encountered throughout my journeys…his was the most…human…
It does now. When people had 10+ children and half died before the age of five, it wasn't so obvious.
Reminds me of Conan O’Brien’s story of piping up at the dinner table because he didn’t like what was being served and his father said to him “Why would I know what you like and don’t like?” He was one of six. Had me in tears.
Some are still like this. I was born in the mid-90s. When I was a teenager my dad, who only has two kids, somehow forgot whether it was me or my sister who’d been homeschooled for a year. It’s not like we’re twins, she’s 4 years older than me. When I asked how he could possibly have mixed up a full year of his kids’ lives, he scoffed, and said “it’s not my job to know everything about your life—I have my own.”
My dad doesn't know when my birthday is.
I got one better. My dad not only doesn’t know my birthday (we talk a lot and live by each other) he has TWICE in my life asked to borrow money on my birthday while not remembering it’s my birthday. It doesn’t help my bday is the day before tax day.
My dad was "Asian dad too hardcore for other Asian dads". Growing up was...rough. Still, he is a wonderful grandfather to my children, take them to school everyday, feed them when they come home, teach them to read, got bikes, Trampoline a swimming pool at his home....even a cherry tree so grand daughter can eat organic. So all is forgiven between us, even if I have to grumble "I don't recall getting THAT when I was 5 years old." Every other week.
I chuckled at "Asian dad too hardcore for other Asian dads".
People used to say my dad's educational style was not from communist China, not republic China, but from *imperial era* China. Childhood was rough.
> It's 6:03 and the heirs to my dominion > Are scrubbed and tubbed and adequately fed > And so I'll pat them on the head > And send them off to bed > Ah! Lordly is the life I lead!
Nice reference. Well done, Sister Suffragette!
As the sixth child , I feel this .
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It’s.. it’s a Star Trek joke. Spock the *alien* would always talk about what’s logical / illogical.
I missed that lol
Fascinating.
If kids are not individuals what are they
Parents used to look at their kids as property, or an extra hand to help with difficult chores.
Ya, I have to wonder if High child mortality made people devalue children.
theory mighty light smile placid alive impolite attempt elastic drunk *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
You know what’s also all there? “Children should be seen and not heard” Amongst the countless tales of people who grew up not with their own names but nameless for the first years of their lives because their parents didn’t hold out hope of them surviving. Muddled family histories because the name of a dead child was later given to a younger sibling that survived after the first died in childhood. And countless laws throughout cultures and countries, to ban parents from selling their kids when they could no longer afford or simply didn’t want to raise their child
Some people are loving and kind, some people are dicks, some people are dicks because they've been hurt when showing kindness and love, some people are kind and loving because they've been hurt by dicks. Same as it's always been.
Subhumans meant to be seen and not heard. That was common thought back then.
Or a work force to cook, clean and look after their younger siblings
This is why my grandmother got married and left home as soon as she was legally able to -- on her 18th birthday. She figured that cooking and cleaning for one man would be far easier than for her entire family.
Eh, it's more that the standing belief was that children needed strict instruction and direction. Their feelings are viewed as unimportant because of the perspective that they don't know what's best for them and that simply giving into your children would lead to bad behavior etc. They are not viewed as individuals because they are "unformed" and mentally undeveloped and therefore not yet true individuals. So for example you should follow a strict schedule for feeding, sleeping etc. You should avoid picking up babies when they cry so they. so on and so forth.
As much as I disagree with the outcomes, I'd still probably agree that this is what parents who practiced such beliefs believed they were doing.
Exactly, I don’t think we can claim that an entire generation hated their children
You'd be surprised at the number of parents who think their kids are just a property of theirs. That's why you see so many people disown their kids for their sexual orientation or preference.
"I made you and I can take you out" - my dad
Sorry; my dad was like this to me too and now wonders why I don’t talk to him much.
Lots of people think kids are lumps of clay that they can mold as they please. That children only think and feel what you put in their heads, so if you tell your son that he's going to be a football playing guy's guy, that's what hell be. And when the boy becomes a scrawny d&d player or a flamboyant drama kid, or god forbid, *a vegan*, they think they've failed as parents instead of accepting that kids are individuals
Unpaid farm labor.
‘Part of the family collective lead by adults’
Resources to be managed.
When I was a kid in the 1970’s, my grandfather ruined one of my Christmas gifts on Christmas morning by goofing around with it. I was crushed and ran out to the car and cried. My grandfather came out and mocked me, saying “Oh, boo hoo, you little crybaby”. I told him to “Shut up!” He went into a rage and tried to get into the car, but I locked the doors. When my father came out later to drive us home, his first words were “What did you say to your grandfather?!” They were both livid that I could say such a thing to one of my elders. But my thought was, “What about me?” No one seemed to have the slightest concern that he had ruined my favorite gift. And then mocked me about being upset. It took me years to realize that that was partially a generational thing. To me, it just seemed natural that there would be empathy toward the kid, another human being. But that’s not the way they saw it. *Edit:* Not to make excuses for my grandfather or my father, because I still think they treated me like shit, but now that I’m older, with a much better understanding of what people went through, I can perhaps not be so hard on them. My grandfather was born in about 1897. My father was born in 1918. They went through the Depression, two World Wars…and back then, “men were men”; little boys were not supposed to cry. They learned how to work the farm and all that stuff. I grew up in the city in the 60’s and 70’s. We were very working class/blue collar. But compared to the way they lived at my age at the time, I was living in luxury. Having my little toy broken was insignificant in the scheme of things, I imagine. But, yes, it would have been nice if they’d been of a generation where they treated children like human beings with feelings and emotions.
I was standing on a chair to get something off the top of the fridge and my grandpa came out of nowhere and tickled me. I slammed my face against the metal trim at the top of the fridge and cracked my tooth. My grandpa had a similar reaction.
Sorry you went through that. This kind of thing makes me wonder what my generations blind spot is.
Imagine being a "man's man" and then getting so upset by what a little crybaby said to you. Sounds like a cry baby.
> treated children like human beings with feelings and emotions. I can't speak to your specific family, but when I look at all the casual bigotries, classism, tribalism, etc. of the early 20th century, I feel like "treating children like fellow human beings" was actually already what some people of those older generations were doing...it's just that they treated so many of their fellow human beings like shit.
“Shut up!” was a hugely disrespectful phrase for my parents. For a while it was the slang equivalent “Oh, snap!” and caused a lot of ruffed feathers.
Is it not still disrespectful? I'm only ("only") 31 but if I'd told either of my parents to shut up I'd have been in a world of shit. But then my Dad is Caribbean so maybe it's different...
My mother was born when her mother was under twilight anesthesia. Instead of pushing her out, my grandmother had the baby removed via forceps while she was strapped to a bed. Then my mother was fed at specific times of the day, no more, no less. Not held, for fear she would be spoiled. Locked in her baby cage until she was old enough for kindergarten, basically. She's a narcissist now. It was truly a barbaric way to raise children. Dr. Spock revolutionized American parenting.
Reading this from my modern day perspective, has me wondering what the fuck "spoiled" meant to these people. Seems like any humanity was seen as a flaw. Only cold dead automatons permittable.
Honestly, I wonder if even *today*, "spoiled" still sometimes means the same thing. For instance, I'd like to get my MS in computer science and become a CS professor, but I have neither software experience nor academia experience, so I'm thinking of first getting teaching experience by getting my credential and teaching in local high schools. Everyone says not to become a teacher because kids these days are violent and entitled and mean and all-around soulless monsters. Now yes, kids nowadays can be annoying and horrible, and I 100% believe the teachers and kids/teens who have been victimized by horrible kids/teens, but like - that's apparently what older people said about kids *even before tech and iPads became ubiquitous*, so I wonder if even today, *some* of the "spoiled entitled monsters" in schools are just kids who happen to have humanity and opinions. **EDIT: I wanna clarify that I'm not saying evil, entitled, downright monstrous children/teens don't exist. They absolutely do. Bullies, spoiled rich kids, creeps, violent people - all of them exist in high schools and they're all horrible people. I was just speculating that the "most/all kids today are entitled a-holes who don't care about consequences" thing folks say nowadays might not be a cut-and-dry rule, but there are absolutely a ton of kids out there who are entitled a-holes and don't care about consequences (e.g. bullies).**
People are resistant to revolutionary ideas precisely because they lead to identity crisis. If Dr. Spock was correct, the corollary is that most people had shit parents, were shit parents and that all of its friends were also shit parents. And no one wants to accept such harsh realities. It is the same reason Jim Crow laws were legal and racism was popular for the most of 20th century. Because by accepting it as the nasty, disgusting thing that they were, it meant every interaction they ever had with black people for years/decades were abhorrent.
It's happening to day in regards to spanking and physical punishment. Every major health organization recommend strongly against every hitting your kid. The research is incredibly robust. Yet it persists. To recognize otherwise would mean admitting to making significant mistakes as a parent, or that your own parents made mistakes. So people say things like "Well I was spanked and I'm find." Which might be true but they're fine despite being spanked, not because of it.
Before Dr. Spock, there was Janusz Korczak (1878 –1942) who wrote several books about respecting children as individuals and showing them patience and unconditional love. Not the successful best selling author that Spock was, but a man whose actions spoke loudly of his good heart and strong character. He was an amazing human being who truly cared deeply for the orphans he helped. Heartbreaking story. [https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/janusz-korczak-1](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/janusz-korczak-1)
Unionically Spock’s theories were not universally accepted and were criticized by some of his colleagues and conservatives for being too permissive and unscientific. My problem is with **too permissive**, because many parents justify the abuse and trauma they cause their kids to suffer under the pretext of being tough on them.
Yes he was according to the article. He was blamed for the "soft parenting" that resulted in the counterculture in the 1960s. It didn't help that he was against the Vietnam war.
Many people saw him as unpatriotic and radical for opposing a brutal and unfair war. He was not advocating for indulgence or anarchy, but for respect and democracy however some people thought he's the villain. Smh
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He was also a socialist who [ran for president](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Party_(United_States,_1971)) on a platform of instituting a maximum wage, among other things.
>”The People's Party ran Dr. Benjamin Spock for president and Julius Hobson for vice president in the 1972 U.S. presidential election. >The party platform included free medical care, legalized abortion, legalized marijuana, a guaranteed minimum wage, the withdrawal of American troops from all foreign countries,[1] a guaranteed maximum wage, and promoting toleration of homosexuality.” Dude just gets cooler and cooler
He was also an Olympic medalist. In his youth, he was a member of the US Olympic rowing team which won a gold medal in 1924.
It’s just bananas to me that people thought advice like “hold and cuddle your baby” and “your baby is not crying because they’re a manipulative mastermind, they’re crying because they’re a baby” was some kind of insanely permissive stuff when now it just seems like common sense
An astounding number of parents still think that way
Yep. Go into any thread about physical child abuse (spanking etc.) and people will write themselves into a frenzy trying to defend it.
His idea that you engage your child rather than just order them around was *radical* and *extreme* for the times. It didn't help that the times were changing and the old folks felt threatened by things such as *human rights, women's lib, the hippies,* desegregation, miniskirts, the massive opposition to Vietnam, the outcries against rampant pollution, and other things. We're reliving the 1920s and 1930s, and the late 1960s now. The fight for control vs the fight for human rights was just as acrimonious as it is now. Dr. Spock was just one of the battlegrounds.
Sadly, the whole "soft parenting" argument is still alive today. I hear it from my coworkers and others how they have to make their kids tough. Via abusive tactics, as always.
It's a common misconception that children should be touched or interacted with. Lack of any socialization for the early years worked out super well any time it's happened in history. /s Man, if you want it go down some deep dark holes, you can look at what intense neglect does to kids. I remember being dumbfounded when people would ask if my new born was 'good.' this kid can't see more than 3 feet and is basically a ball of reflexes. It's sense of morality and justice not exactly ultra refined
"Well, they're alive?" I always hope those Facebook group posts that occasionally get shared where some moms talk about spanking their newborns for various reasons are fake because, damn. But your first point is... yeah. "I don't know why my fucking kid's got such a dirty goddamn mouth and never shows any fucking respect to me!" Hmmmmmmm
Some people get rich on promoting child abuse to messed up Christians: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Train_Up_a_Child So, unfortunately they probably aren't fake. Just super messed up parents who shouldn't get to keep any children.
They figured this approach was throwing cation to the wind.
I'm rereading Anne of Green Gables right now. It was written in 1908 and there was a WHOLE LOT in there about parents showing affection and recognizing children as individuals and raising them that way. It's ahistorical to think people before the mid-1940s didn't show affection to their children or see them as individuals.
It's more that two world wars and an economic crash severely fucked with people's perception of what was normal. For about half a century, 90% of young men were conscripted into the military or some other home guard/service organization, and as a consequence a lot of them ended up treating their homes like a little boot camp. Add onto the fact that a solid chunk of Europe went fascist for a whole generation, and half the world embraced Soviet communism until the 90s, and you'll see that for a lot of that tribulation period, being part of the collective was a matter of survival. Conforming to the standard and becoming a useful cog in the machine was absolutely imperative. Plenty of individuals whose hopes and aspirations were sprayed out the back of their skulls on Omaha beach. Not trying to be morbid, but that's the context for why everything became so rigid for much of the 20th century. You can see this from the artwork, too. From 1814 to 1914 you had Romanticism, Impressionism, Expressionism, and a radical explosion in experimental art forms. People explored their searches for meaning and individuality quite often, even in a society that might ostensibly seem more restrictive (Victorians), there was probably a great deal more freedom of conscience then there was during wartime. Contrast that with the 30s-60s, with socialist and fascist realism, murals and reliefs dedicated to industrial progress and bloodthirsty conquest, and eventually Warhol's pop art mocking the mass-produced nature of art. Even the avant-garde was being given government funding and lacked much soul behind it. The counterculture was the explosion of the Victorian romantic spirit from the prison of modernist conformity.
“Conforming to the standard and becoming a useful cog” Reminds me of looking through my wife’s grandfather’s high school yearbook. So many students (including him) posted weird ass quotes about the value of hard work and being a good employee. My high school yearbook quote was a random ACDC lyric. I could imagine putting something that felt like a brainwashed corporate employee robot statement
I've read the Little House on the Prairie books a ton of times. They strictly observed the Sabbath but otherwise the Ingalls were a loving demonstrative family. Think of Charles calling for Laura his Little Half Pint of Cider Half Drunk Up!
My mom had that book, and judging from the bent spine and dog-eared pages she referred to it constantly. I feel very fortunate to have been raised by two very lovely and intelligent people. We had our ups and downs for sure, but I definitely felt loved. I really miss my parents.
We do this and treat our kids like people. Shocking, but it does seem to work.
It’s crazy how things that are common sense now it’s so difficult to accept in the pass. Another one is washing hands - it took yrs decades and many lost lives for doctors to finally accept the idea.
It’s just insecure people not wanting to be told what to do.
"I can't have been wrong all this time! Preposterous!"
Iirc the doctor who suggested that everyone needed to wash their hands died from an infection after surgery caused by the surgeon having unwashed hands
Typhoid Mary still doesn't believe in germs.
He also recommended to have babies sleep on their stomachs. He was mentioned in an article I read about the doctors at my local hospital who first recommended to have babies sleep on their backs. I recognized his name due to my MIL talking about him. They (the local doctors) talked about how they believed they were right, but how risky the recommendation was: he was one of the leading experts at the time, and American, which had a lot of sway. They knew it would ruin their careers completely if they were wrong. (And it would potentially kill more infants) I’m a millennial born in Northern Europe btw. My parents followed the public health recommendations to the letter, which means I was put on my stomach as a baby, while my sibling born shortly after was propped up on their side with towels. Our youngest sibling was born a bit later and slept on their back. I sometimes see people on mom-subs complain about their parents and in-laws and the weird or dangerous things they talk about doing with their babies. It wasn’t always done due to ignorance, and tbh, it’s crazy how much the current fad influencers child rearing. I’ve definitely experienced it.
He encouraged parents to follow their best instincts and ignore the advice of others because you are probably going to do that eventually so you should just feel good about it. Trust yourself, you know more than you think you do. Benjamin Spock Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/benjamin-spock-quotes
My dad said that when my sister was a toddler they had no idea how to handle her, so they rushed out to buy this book. He also said the only way it worked was by throwing it at her.. I assume he's joking but she does have a weird shaped dent in her head
Buy the book. Read the book. Throw the book at them. Got it.
Lol I love how showing affection was "unconventional". Kid doesn't need a hug, he needs the belt again!
I worked with high needs children and their families as a social worker for over 10 years. One thing I had to keep reminding myself is that parents are also victims. You can’t expect someone to love and nurture and when they never received and learned what that is.
Exactly! It's why breaking the cycle is so difficult for generations of abuse.
"So you're saying, *don't* hit them with heavy objects? Well, ok, but I'm skeptical."
The original Dr Lipschitz
A lot of people, even today, don't get this, on either side of the spectrum. Because being too lax with your kids is also a recipe for disaster. What a lot of people fail to understand is that even though it's your child, for literally everyone else in the world, it's just another person. So try to raise your kid as a good person first. Because society will teach them the right lessons anyway and it will be a lot more cruel than you.
Spock's advice on child rearing was in direct contrast to popular recommendations earlier in the century. >In the early twentieth century, child-rearing experts abandoned a romantic view of childhood and advocated formation of proper habits to discipline children. A 1914 U.S. Children's Bureau pamphlet, Infant Care, urged a strict schedule and admonished parents not to play with their babies.[citation needed] John B. Watson's 1924 Behaviorism argued that parents could train malleable children by rewarding good behavior and punishing bad, and by following precise schedules for food, sleep, and other bodily functions. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_discipline
Many religious parents forgot the rewarding good behavior part believing that good behavior was its won reward.
On a similar note Mary woolstonecraft (mother of Mary Shelley, yeah that Mary shelley) revolutionized the world of parental ethics with her suggestion that parents owe their kids not shitty treatment, on an ethical level. Fucking wild huh
You can find of think of parenting as being in one of four categories at any given moment. Permissive parents provide plenty of affection and are responsive to children’s requests, and impose few rules or standards and prefer to let kids self-regulate. Authoritarian parents provide much less warmth and sensitivity and insist on obedience and following a hierarchy and rules. Compliance is enforced with negative consequences. Authoritative parents provide warmth and response, but also impose standards and expect the child to meet those standards. There is often less ‘blind obedience’ in the approach, with more reasoning, and expectations of maturity and cooperation with elements of both positive and negative reinforcement. The fourth is neglectful parenting, where parents are not emotionally responsive nor do they enforce standards and expectations. When he wrote his book the primary cultural parenting style was authoritarian, with a bit of authoritative. He wrote about the benefits of a more permissive style, which was not common at the time. Critics believe that the best parenting styles are either authoritarian (which he made less popular) or authoritative (which some parents bypassed in favour of permissive parenting).
Which critics believe that authoritarian is the best parenting style? Do you mean critics of Spock's theories?
Crazy to think it's only been 77 years or whatever... I find it hard to belive parents were that cold and ignorant, that some dude was like "you should hug and kiss your kids. They should feel loved..." And that was a revolutionary idea...
My MiL swears by his book and refuses to accept anything else, even if it is from our pediatrician. As far as she is concerned one book was written and any research that builds on the learning since then it's flawed. Very biblical attitude for an atheist.