Mom and grandmom approach parenting differently?
As if there weren’t enough “wars” going on in the media what with the whole “working mother v. stay at home mother” thing, now there’s a whole phenomenon of “parent wars” where the Boomer mothers and the Generation X daughters differ on parenting ideas.
According to the story, mothers and daughters differ on parenting issues such as food and discipline,and, it concludes that both parties should try to understand the other, and, grandmothers should remember that the child in question isn’t their child.
Now, I’m pretty sure that these dilemmas aren’t unique to Baby Boomers and X-ers, after all, mothers and daughters have differed since the beginning of time, but, the comments in response to the article are interesting with many of them supporting the wisdom and experience of the older generation.
Oh my goodness. My mom and I always had disagreements about how to raise my daugter. She didn’t breast feed (her own mother told her that her milk was “bad,” and she believed her and didn’t even try, though she claims she wanted to). We are extended breast feeders.
My mother believed in sticking a kid in a crib and letting him cry it out — even as a small infant! Our daughter has slept with us constantly until the last few months. Now, she goes to her own bed, but if she wakes up in the middle of the night, we let her sleep with us.
And potty training? My mother used to call it “breaking” the child, and we were very far behind the eight ball. I think she kind of meant “breaking” to mean something similar to house breaking a puppy, but it always sounded awful to me. She claims my brother and I were potty trained at around 18 months; my daughter is over 3 and we are still working on it.
Of course, my mom would always say it was our business how we raised our child. But she would always give me her opinion, over and over. And, at her funeral, her friends asked me if we were still cosleeping and breast feeding! Obviously, this was a big topic of conversation for her.
Honestly, though, it wasn’t ever offensive. I thought it was kind of funny that she would say the same things over and over, and then add that we should raise my daughter as we see fit.