Every time there is an article on the local news about a young person having done something bad, most of the comments on social media are against the parents. The parents failed... it is the parents fault... the family is to blame, and so on.
It is not only the tendency to hold parents responsible for nearly every outcome in their child's behavior but it is the immediate reaction without knowing the background, the circumstances and without having heard the story from all sides.
The examples can be endless: from more 'simple' ones: a shy kid, a picky eater, a child who cries and throws tantrums often, to the more 'complicated' ones, like a teenager who has made a bad choice – all seems to get tracked back to the parents.
They fail/failed to raise their child correctly.
The reasons why today it seems that parenting is under the microscope vary. Some include:
Social media and the expert economy: Parental advice seems to come non stop from thousands of self acclaimed experts and from those that know how to work with algorithms well.
Immediately parents feel that they may not do everything as these experts say and they feel guilt... or even become depressed...
Comparison culture: We all see on our feed the 'perfect families', the mums that do everything DIY look so simple and perfect, the well behaved and dressed kids, the geniuses that rock their academic performance, the super tidy homes...
Sometimes we also see some of the reality: the failures, the untidy rooms etc but it all comes down to comparison.
Conflicting advice: Parents often come across conflicting advice... and let's admit it, sometimes parents are lost...
Blaming and judgment nowadays goes beyond the 'I just made a comment on a Facebook post', it occasionally borders on public shaming...
Parents nowadays are overworked, stressed, dealing with the unknown (e.g. the impact of AI in our lives) and continuously criticized. What is even more sad is that they are mostly criticized by other parents who could also struggle in their daily lives.
There are other possible negative outcomes: one that can cause harm is the 'parenting for an audience'. Decisions start to be shaped by 'how this will look' rather than what 'my child really needs'.
In Luxembourg, this is very obvious when a child has to prolong a year at school: so much shame and judgement despite knowing that parents agreed to that decision and declared that it was the best one for their child... but they rarely feel comfortable to admit publicly that, one, their child prolonged and, two, that it was a good decision after all.
Parents can set boundaries especially with unsolicited advice: a simple 'we have got this figured out in our family' can close a conversation without escalating it.
Seek out supportive communities and not judgmental ones.
Normalize the bad days: struggling is not the same as failing... it's simply a part of raising another human being.
Lean on support with a proper therapist or parenting coach instead of reading unsolicited advice or comments on social media.
Protect your children from narcissists who can cause big problems in your child's/children's lives... they exist and we all need to teach our children how to recognize them.
So, do we all feel like we can improve as a human beings by being more empathetic and less judgmental, especially when we do not know the full story?
