Mothers vs. Grandmothers
I was chatting with a grandmother who had five children. I asked her how she managed with five, and she said that it was easy raising them. “What’s your secret?” I asked. “Oh, I sent them all outside to play during the day, then they came home for their dinner.”
And if you talk to your grandmother, or great-grandmother, it’s likely she did something very similar with her kids. That was just what you did back then.
Can you imagine a modern mom doing that? Haven’t times changed? And Grandmothers don’t think it’s changed for the better.
Grandmothers are watching in horror as their children turn into over-ambitious, competitive parents with pampered, demanding offspring, according to a new report into how women’s experience of motherhood has changed over the generations.
Grandmothers are worried about their daughters trying to balance motherhood and work and their own lives, the pressure on their grandchildren to attend music classes and gym classes and yoga for babies, prepare a gourmet menu of homemade baby food every day, do exactly the right amount of tummy-time and encourage their babies to meet all their milestones on time – no, make that just a bit earlier than the other babies in their playgroup.
Professor Rachel Thomson, co-director of The Making Of Modern Motherhood report, a study of moms, grandmothers and great-grandmothers, found that
Grandmothers believed the range of choices available to their daughters not only turned mothering into a competition, but also undermined their daughters’ confidence in their ability to care for their children. ‘The gains offered by this story of progress were dwarfed by the losses in the grandmothers’ eyes,’ she said, ‘including the creation of demanding babies.’
Pick up any baby magazine and it’s full of the latest gadgets and gizmos that claim they will help your baby learn music, spelling, and make baby smarter and generally better.
And then there’s all the safety research. Bis-phenols in plastic? I have the BPA-free bottles for my baby, says one mom. Well, I use the glass bottles, say another. I have aluminum chemical free non-leaching bottles! says the third.
Local parenting magazines have adverts for all kinds of baby classes for even the youngest babies. When my son was a couple of months old, I called up about one class. The teacher told me that they “have a wonderful learning environment to teach the babies to roll over”.
What, we need classes to teach our babies how to roll over? (My son did manage to learn perfectly well without the class.) There seems to be a new product or service every day to teach your baby to do something that their mom, or older brothers and sisters would have traditionally taught them.
I think I like being a mom in 2008. I like all the options of classes, products and entertainment available to me and my son, I try not to fret when I see a younger child do something my son can’t do yet, and I think I’m well-educated enough about safety issues to make informed choices about how to parent my son. Even though it does make me worry when there’s a new recall or a new danger seemingly every day.
Would you rather have been a mother in simpler times, a generation or two ago?
Or it is better for moms and babies in today’s world with all the new benefits, but all the new stresses?
laura says...
While I’m glad to have more information than my mother did in the 1970s, I do long for things to be a bit simpler and for more emphasis to be placed on just trusting my instincts. I plan to be a stay at home mom for as long as my husband and I can afford it and hope that this will allow my children’s lives to be less scheduled with more time for “free play.” I’m also lucky to live in a safe neighborhood with a big backyard and hope that I’ll be able to send my kids outside to play as often as possible. That said, I also fall victim to competition among my peers and will have to watch myself that I don’t get too caught up in it.
Science-mom says...
I`m know things that my mom didn`t, especially regarding health issues. But that grandma`s tip of “sending kids out to play” is a time-tested strategy that no technology or scientific breakthrough should replace. Kids need space to move and run and enjoy being kids – and they can only have these – outdoors.
MrsH says...
I prefer being able to send my kids out to play too. How many urbanites can do that now? Even in the suburbs, many parents set playdates”" for their kids, which means more effort at scheduling and seeking out parents than just a “go and play with the neighborhood kids”. So sad.
In my neighborhood, I love that so many kids play in the streets with each other. Until, that it, they ring our doorbells only to run away when we get to it…kids!