The Authentic Eclectic

I Hate To Break It To You, But We’re Not Fine

That survival bias isn’t doing anyone any good

“We used to send you to school with bare feet in the snow, and then when you got home, we’d smack you with a wooden spoon for walking funny, and you turned out fine!” (Image from Adobe Stock)

Parenting is hard. Parenting against the status quo is harder.

It pains me to put a disclaimer on a piece I feel so strongly about, but I think it’s necessary to make this clear— I do not hold judgement for the way previous generations parented their kids. They did precisely what the current generation is attempting to do, which is the very best with the information they had available at the time.

That said, I have a growing concern for justifying employing severely outdated practices on our kids on the “We did it to you, and you turned out fine” trope.

Spoiler alert— We are not fine. Or if we are, shouldn’t we want to be better than fine?

I’ll speak to my own Gen— Y, but I’m sure others can relate. Raise your hand if you tick any of the following boxes:

• Anxiety
• Depression
• PTSD
• Autism (diagnosed or undiagnosed)
• ADHD (diagnosed or undiagnosed)
• An inability to ask for help
• Feeling like you’re not allowed to have negative thoughts or feelings