"For most of human history, people had lots of kids, and children hung out in intergenerational social groups in which they were not heavily supervised. Your average benign-neglect day care is probably closer to the historical experience of child care than that of a kid who spends the day alone with a doting parent.... A parenting style that took its cue from those hunter-gatherers would insist that one of the best things parents can do — for ourselves as well as for our children — is to go about our own lives and tote our children along. You might call it mindful underparenting.... [F]ollowing adults around gives children the tremendous gift of learning to tolerate boredom, which fosters patience, resourcefulness and creativity.... An excellent way to bore children is to take them to an older relative’s house and force them to listen to a long adult conversation about family members they don’t know. Quotidian excursions to the post office or the bank can create valuable opportunities for boredom, too...."
Writes the psychologist Darby Saxbe, in
"Parents Should Ignore Their Children More Often" (NYT).
By the way the most boring long adult conversation about family members they don’t know is the long adult conversation about the health problems of family members they don’t know. Just a child-rearing tip, in case you decide to embrace the let's-be-like-the-cavemen-and-bore-them-out-of-their-skull approach.
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Children are only "bored" by your work if they're terribly addicted to mobile devices. Or if what you do is incredibly boring, like most office jobs. Doctors, engineers, and cops never have to worry about boredom.
We practiced what we called "so-so parenting" - enough attention to prevent death and serious injury, not enough to prevent arguments, certain minor injuries, opportunities for youthful wrongdoing (notably when the oldest convinced a slightly older friend to take his mom's Corvette out around the neighborhood for the slowest joyride ever - apparently they hit 15mph before unexpectedly encountering the mom in the other family car at a stop sign). We were - I guess "lucky" is the right word, to have been living in a neighborhood where our benign neglect didn't get us hauled up on charges and was in fact pretty widely practiced.
I put "lucky" in quotes because we did choose that neighborhood, in part because when we were looking at houses we saw lots of kids wandering freely in groups. But it was still luck, because we got that house after not having gotten a couple of others on which we made offers.
Encourage children to take up useful hobbies, like diamond cutting.
Also - I've never found parenting "exhausting" past the early days of no sleep. Terrifying, sometimes. That whole "walking around with your heart outside your body" thing. But if your children's demands are exhausting you, it's my contention that you're doing it wrong, unless your child has a physical or mental disability, in which case, may the Lord bless and keep you.
I suspect that the hidden agenda here is: Mothers, get paid work outside the home.
As a kid I almost learned how to tolerate boredom sitting in church wondering why Jesus was healing leopards and how they ever got to the desert in the first place.
Our evolutionary past: from conception to individual, where mom and dad play a progressive supervisory role
It might be a little early, but it's looking like it's time for your anti-cynical tonic.
It's funny, but from an early age, whenever I'm at a concert or in church, my mind becomes completely unfettered and I do my best thinking. And when I was a kid, if it was a classical music concert, I couldn't keep my eyes open. It was the most blissful kind of nap, hearing symphonic music all around me, I would drop right off. I never thought of it as a product of my childhood and upbringing, though - it never occurred to me. I just thought it was normal. Hmm.... Whelp. Time for church.
I took my kids to the hospital with me a lot on weekends. No medical careers, though.
...is to go about our own lives and tote our children along.
Just got back from a 6 night Caribbean cruise, it's astonishing how many cruise lines now cater to families, some allow kids to cruise for free. Newer ships have giant water slides, surf simulators, bumper cars, nurseries, and paid kid wranglers. I saw a mother with 4 children under the age of 8. I don't know if I could do that even in my prime.
Child labor was the usual standard until the 20th century.
So she supports slavery? Disgusting. And how does she get away supporting vast repression of women in this day and age? Sexual violence is fine with her? Wow. And actually is arguing for more robust animal sacrifices? I'm not sure most people want to join her in her idealism of the habits of earlier humanity but she's certainly all in for her causes.
Most families in history were more geographically and vocational stable. High trust localities. Generally also very rural. Very very different situations now so parents have to actually aid with psychological and social development in low trust situations. Its a different world than our ancestors lived in and her assumptions speak of a very strong historical, psychological, and social ignorance.
The biggest problems of children and young adults seem to correlate with large amounts of time spent unsupervised with their peer group, or alone on their phone. Sorry, many parents have rationally decided that leaving kids alone is a bad idea. It's easy to mythologize the past, but the internet did not exist and it is a big reason to supervise your kids. Mine are doing fine and don't need me much anymore, which is success. I did not follow the advice in the article.
Remote work exists, my wife did it, it goes well with family life.
Mobile devices didn't exist, and I was bored at my parents' work. They were academics. I'm not.
Yeah, that's the key. You chose the place. The problem these days is phones and internet are everywhere.
I have a child with ID, and I work in the field. It's not that bad, really, it's not. I made a lot of decisions early on to keep from being exhausted by it. I moved to a state with a lot of benefits and programs for disabled people (blue states have advantages). I have a wife and family that help a lot. I have a job that allows me to be around a lot. And I set expectations high and push my son to do as much as he can. A lot of ID people are quite capable but aren't expected to be. He's graduated from HS and interviewing for jobs now. He may end up doing Rover.com and watching dogs, but that's a living.
I have two "normal" kids and they are doing very well. My job as parent was to get them to adulthood with enough preparation that their life is primarily a result of their decisions, not mine. It's nice to be able to let go.
"An excellent way to bore children is to take them to an older relative’s house and force them to listen to a long adult conversation about family members they don’t know."
I don't think that cavemen would do this.
I think that what the author is missing is the fact that if the parents don't produce something that stimulates the child's mind, the child will use their imagination to create something themselves. Constantly overseeing and regulating what your child does, stomps on their ability to use their imagination when they get bored.
It's not the boredom that is important; it's letting children be free to develop their imaginations that is important.
"Mothers, get paid work outside the home." People can be compensated in other ways than just receiving cash for work done.
The Tom Sawyer Huck Finn children will escape the adult boredom and adventure... Don't medicate them for that? Cutting school and living, running away teaches too
My DIL runs a very successful marketing business from home and has since her first child, 22 years ago. Her sister helped the first years but now has her own kids. My son is a fireman, now supervisor, and could be home a lot.
There is no best way to raise children. But keeping an eye on them and their friends seems to work. Along with- setting a good example.
That last part- setting a good example, seems to be key.
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said…
“The biggest problems of children and young adults seem to correlate with large amounts of time spent unsupervised with their peer group, or alone on their phone. Sorry…”
I agree those are problems. But the article specifically mentions intergenerational groups, not peer groups.
Roger Hobbs: We've got one consolation. In the whole history of the world, there has never been a child brought up right.
Mr. Hobbs takes a vacation
Something glaring has happened to people over the last 50 years with parenting. As a child, my friends and I would be out doing stuff all over town, and our parents rarely knew what or where, and they usually didn't ask. We would be gone dawn till dusk, no contact, no concerns, and not even any bad outcomes for us. Although I loved it and think it was a great way to grow up, even I can't imagine doing that today, and crime is actually lower than it was in the 60s and 70s, which were pretty crime ridden. Why are we so different now? Why so little confidence and trust? To many bad stories from too much media consumption I think.
I don't think people generally lived long enough in ill health for me to be subjected to as many long, boring health discussions when i was growing. But sure had enough tag-along boring driving and shopping experiences.
Momma, don't let your babies evolve dependant. Papa, don't preach your daughters do the Slut Walk.... in a Pussy [Cat] Hat on a global warming tin roof amid [catastrophic] [anthropogenic] immigration reform.
I'm NO EXPERT on child raising, but the parents I know/knew who did it well loved their children and paid attention to them. Most of those kids turned out OK (don't MOST kids turn out OK?) -- OK, some of them end up voting for the WRONG CANDIDATE or marrying the WRONG SPOUSE -- Don't you hate that?
If my children are an example, children are complicated. They are unique and different. There is not one approach that will work with all children. Some need close monitoring and others don't. One thing they all need however is love!
"As a child, my friends and I would be out doing stuff all over town, and our parents rarely knew what or where, and they usually didn't ask. We would be gone dawn till dusk, no contact, no concerns, and not even any bad outcomes for us."
Same here. One thing I think has changed the equation is that 60 years ago, there wasn't 24/7/365 news reporting that brought you every sordid event that happens in the country. Lots of what did happen a thousand miles away back then, you never even heard about.
Same here, growing up in the '60s; but it has to be said, we got up to some supremely stupid and dangerous shit on our own--no crazed predators needed.
Polishing monocles.
As the youngest of 4, I was toted around town by my mother to various women's meetings, church bazaar meetings, elderly friends houses, etc. I won't even get into being bored at catholic church every Sunday I. The 2nd row. Visiting her parents while I snuk upstairs to find the National Geographic African addition.
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