Time Warp to Parenting 30 Years Ago?

The original title of this was supposed to be, “You Can’t Parent Today Like Our Parents Did”. After thinking on this topic for a while though, I realized I was slightly off track. My husband and I are Gen Xer’s (the last really cool generation 😉) so our life in general was completely different than our kids are experiencing. We are kind of the last “simple” generation. The internet was far less prominent when we were growing up. This fact alone made me think that parenting is just different today vs when my parents were raising me, but I think I was on the wrong track.

I didn’t get my first email address until I went to college; my first cell phone when I was about 22; Facebook and Instagram became popular in my thirties and we didn’t “stream” anything. Instead, it took effort to get the things we enjoyed and when we went home, we were largely shelter from what others were doing; there was no 24/7 information stream.

A song came on the radio the other day while we were driving: “Jet Airliner” by Steve Miller Band. As the song came through the speakers, I was suddenly transported back to elementary school sitting in my bedroom. It brought me back to making mixed tapes from what was playing on the radio.

For the people who never experienced this endeavor; it took effort and dedication! You had to listen intently to what the DJ was going to play and then try to guess when the last commercial would play so you could hear the song you were waiting for, then make sure you had a cassette tape in the player and be ready to push the record button the very second you heard the first note! It took patience, but if you could get it right, you were rewarded over and over by being able to play the mixed tape.

I specifically remembered a mixed tape I made with “Jet Airliner”. It was the last song on side A and my tape ran out of space in the middle of the song. I remember quickly flipping the tape over to finish recording the song on side B. But what was embedded in my memory as we listened to the song in the car was where side A ended: “…don’t carry me too far aw…”. That’s the way the song stuck in my head for all these years! With the abrupt ending of the lyrics in my head came all the memories of my childhood too. This is one reason why I absolutely love music; it can transport you to a specific time in your life and to a memory that is embedded into that song. I digress.

So, what does all this have to do with raising kids? Absolutely everything. When my parents were raising kids, they didn’t have to worry about the next video to pop up on YouTube or what information was going to pop up in a Google search. There was no worry about the “unseen friends” online. We were taught not to accept candy from strangers, stop drop and roll, come home before dark and make sure to take two dimes so we could call for a ride. It seems that kids were able to be kids. They weren’t inundated with 24/7 electronics. Remember when the TV would just go to fuzz at midnight? And you maybe had 20 channels?

I remember the raciest thing I saw was standing in line at the grocery store and gawking at the People Magazine, or Vogue or Seventeen. I think we got MTV sometime in the 90’s and I was exposed to a few more “controversial” things there, but none of that compares to what kids have access to now.

Honestly, I don’t think it’s fair. Today’s kids have a raw deal. Nothing, literally nothing is left to the imagination. It’s all on social media for the world to see; every moment, every thought, every idea and at every moment, everywhere you turn. They don’t have to wait for anything; it’s either instant download or two-day shipping.

Don’t misunderstand me and start calling me a Karen. I’m thankful for all the advancements in technology. Many of them make my life much easier. I do indulge in the occasional curbside pick-up for groceries and Amazon order. My overall opinion is that all of it just came too fast and too much all at one time. Seriously, we don’t even know how all of this will affect our society because we’re still living in the advancement of it. We’re all (our children included) one big science experiment.

I have seen some studies on the effects electronics have on kids and adults, but there hasn’t been anything really mainstream to cause many people to change their habits. We're all just slaves to technology. It worries me and makes me think. That’s all I’m saying. I’m a deep thinker by nature and tend to overthink A LOT, so this just happens to fall into that category: things I think about…

All of this, makes parenting infinitely harder to navigate. There’s just MORE of everything than what I had growing up; what my parents had to make decisions about. This is where I came up with the premise that parenting is just different today than for the Baby Boomers. I want to pose this question though: does it have to be different?

My 13 year-old daughter was in kindergarten when she first asked us for a phone. She wanted one because her friends had one. The answer was no. Technology is a responsibility not to be taken lightly. I felt that a phone would open doors to social media and the internet, that at her age, she didn’t need to be exposed to. So, we kept saying no until she was old enough to stay home by herself, then for safety reasons we got a cell phone that’s basically a house phone.

We’ve gone through all the conversations I’m sure every parent today goes through; social media accounts, YouTube settings, downloading apps, etc., etc.. It’s exhausting, am I right? I realize that my parenting style might shock some, and that’s okay with me. I’m not judging you, so don’t feel the need to judge me.

My kids do not have social media accounts and they can only go on YouTube with permission to look a specific thing up. My husband and I have explained to our kids that the internet and social media are like a huge city such as New York City. We travelled there a few years back and they got to experience Time Square, public transportation, really busy streets with all the smells and sounds; it was so exciting for everyone!

We explained to them that we would never just drop them off in the middle of New York City by themselves to figure it out on their own. This, is exactly what the internet and social media are to me. When you walk through The Big Apple you have no idea what’s going to be around the next corner, across the street, in the different buildings; it’s full of excitement, beauty, interesting things, but it can also be full of danger and things kids shouldn’t necessarily be exposed to.

I’m not going to give them free range on their electronic devices anymore than I would drop them off by themselves in the city that never sleeps. We started with time limits on the phone, Kids YouTube and parental controls, but we found that there was still age-inappropriate content getting through. A simple online clothing store and Amazon show women looking like hookers in their poses to model clothes. I used to be able to see these images briefly as a kid looking at a magazine. Today, it’s common place to make women look cheap, easy and sexualized for many clothes companies. And it’s all at the fingertips of our kids.

I realize kids are going to be exposed to all of this eventually, but I believe that we should let kids be kids for as long as they can be. Think about it: you are only a kid for 17 short years of your life. We get far more years as an adult than being a kid. Why would you want to rush that? This brings me to how I changed my idea that we have to parent differently today than 20 + years ago.

My parents raised me sheltered. Not sheltered because I grew up in a small town, but because adult conversations were for adults. Adult content, was for adults. Adult responsibilities were for adults. Kids did kid things like build tree forts, ride bikes, play with homemade coodie-catchers and worry about whose team they were going to be on for dodgeball at recess.

I remember that once I got into about middle school, I worried about things like fashion and fitting in. I think even this though, was largely easier than what kids go through today. I saw the fashion of the kids at school, or on the latest Cosby Show or in one of those magazines in the grocery store; I wasn’t inundated with fashion trends on Instagram or dance trends on TikTok 24/7.

All of this creates more pressure for our youth. Every time they turn around there’s a new “standard” to live up to. And this is happening 24 hours a day. For me, as an almost 45-year-old woman, the internet and social media give me anxiety when I’m on it too much. If I’m not careful, I can start to feel insecure about myself because there are just so many opportunities to compare myself to others. It’s quite literally insanity. I see it and hear it all the time; that people have negative effects from social media, yet we STILL engage in it!!

From a mental health and spiritual aspect, I have to limit my own electronic use. For children, there’s no break from it unless we, as parents put parameters on electronics and social media. The funny thing is, is that we don’t need most of the electronics that we have. We could survive on far less than what we utilize. Someone said to me recently, “It’s just life today”. Meaning, social media and the internet are just part of life, kind of like puberty.

To some extent, sure. As a society we’ve gone so far into the forest on this that our reliance is quite overwhelming. But think of the things that we actually don’t need; that’s maybe just cheap entertainment. For me, social media falls into this category; Amazon falls into this camp for me too. We don’t need these things. Perhaps we’ve been conditioned to think we need them. It’s kind of like the seat heater in my car (damn I love that thing). I often say I couldn’t live without it, but there was a time in my life that I drove around in the winter without sitting on a giant heating pad.

I believe that we can (to some extent) parent our kids like our parents did us. We can kick our kids outside more. We can set rules! Albeit probably more rules are needed today-proper cell phone usage comes to mind (it does not need to be a constant part of any kid's life). We need to encourage our kids to have face-to-face conversations, with adults and other kids. We need to have a proper family dinner without cell phones or an upload to your most recent “story”. We need to take vacations without the worry of what to post on social media. We need to engage with our children and other humans rather than sitting in a waiting room staring at our phone. We need to encourage kids to do every day things WITHOUT the use of a phone.

Last week I could have hit a grown adult walking across the street because he decided to cross while looking down at his phone. I mean, there was even a time when we could go to the bathroom without a cellphone in our hands. True story!

We can raise our kids in a simple environment (as my parents did) and still teach them the value of technology, rather than the dependence of it. When I was growing up, literally no one said things like, “my anxiety”. I realize anxiety can be a true medical issue, but in today’s world, how much of it is self-inflicted?

I may see things simpler than some, but to me it’s a huge problem with a simple fix: less electronics, internet and social media. From my standpoint, that’s the main factor that has changed society in the last 15 years. Simple (not easy) parenting choices will help our kids’ mental health, social skills, curiosity and I’m sure a bunch of other things.

Our obstacles may be different, but parenting today should not be much different than it was with the Baby Boomers and before. Our focus needs to turn once again to values, morals, a relationship with God and putting more emphasis on the things that truly matter. What would happen if we started parenting like they did 30-40 years ago?