But I Smile Anyway…

The other night, as I was making the chapatti’s at my Mother-in-law’s house, her friend came to visit. They had their usual chats, then the talk turned to their grandchildren.

I could hear the comments about her children constantly on the go, taking their children here and there, and the kids demanding things, and having phones, iPads, TV at their disposal… it began to sound like one of those conversations where they were going to criticise the parents of today, because obviously it was better in their day…

Rolling out the chapattis, I was glad I wasn’t in there, as I may have said something!

But it got me thinking…

Is it harder being a parent now, in this day and age, than it was when we were children, and it was the turns of our parents?

Time Management

There is no sweeping statement we can make on this.

Back in the day, there were more Stay at Home Mums. You were more likely to find mum at home, caring for the family in a more child-centred way and Dad was at work, then came home to pat the children goodnight,  but equally there were many parents (my in-law’s included), who had moved over to a new country, and wanted to make a good life for their families, so they worked hard too, working all the hours God sent, to provide for their families and try and instil a good set of morals into their children. But still, you would have someone at home, making dinner, assisting with homework, ensuring the children had everything they needed.

Nowadays, you still have working parents and Stay at Home Mums, but it feels like there is not enough time in the day to deal with all that needs to be done. The rush in the morning to get everything ready for children, and yourself. Lunches made, bags packed, equipment kept ready for all these after school commitments. Then the day begins, school and work. Home time consists of rushing around to feed kids, so they can be shipped off the various clubs. While they are gone, you tend to jobs that need to be done. Getting them to bed is another story! Trying to grab phones and tablets off them, making sure homework and reading has been done, before lights out! Sometimes you could easily go to sleep before them!

Presence or Presents

Growing up, I remember my mum always being there. Pops was at work, but when he was home, he was with us, taking my brother to matches or training, or going out as a family, but we were together a lot. Being there with us counted for a lot.

Now, I feel that I have snatched moments with my children. Everything is a rush. Desperate to fit everything in, I often get short tempered then regret it immediately after. I am not too bad at this but it an be easy to compensate for not being there by promising treats and gifts. Chocolate, a trip to the park, watching a special programme on the TV. The requests are small as a young child, but once the expectations are there then the demands get bigger, and more expensive, Consoles, games for them, iPhones, iPads, the latest trainers. Which leads me on to…

Financial Pressures

I’m not saying everyone was rolling in it a generation back.

Far from it. But life was simpler and cheaper. There were fewer clubs and ‘things’ that were requested. And you could occupy your child relatively cheaply, because they were more likely to be happy with whatever you provided. I never wanted for anything, but then, I never really demanded anything from my parents either I got so much love from them, material possessions meant little to me. As long as I had a book, I was happy!

Life now has created financial pressures for most of us nowadays. Both parents working, if they can find jobs, because there is a need to work, not because they want to. Cost of living had increased immensely. It’s hard to keep up mortgage payments and house bills, and feed the family decent food. On top of that, you have to clothe your family. When they are young, you can get away with whatever you want. As they grow older they want certain things, and though you don’t want to spoil them, you want to give them what they crave at least some times. Extra Curricular activities can be free, but some, you have to pay for, and in today’s day and age, you feel terrible if you aren’t sending your child to at least one activity.

Too Many Choices

“Sit down and eat your dinner!”

And we would.

Not in any bad way, but as a parent you rarely requested your child to do anything, you told them, and the respect was there, that you listened.

Now, we I fear we have made a rod for our own backs. There are so many choices out there and often we will say to a child “Would you like this or that?” Allowing them to take certain decisions is not a bad thing, but when you end up making three different dinners because one child won’t eat that, and the other detests this... are we giving them too much choice?

When you are still waiting for your 7 year old daughter to get ready because she can’t decide what she wants to wear..? My mum put my clothes out for me… there was no choice.. and at that stage, I didn’t know what fashion was!

Social Media and the Internet

Way back when, there was the daily papers, and three channels for us to watch. News was something that was national, or affected us locally. Worldwide news would be in the papers the next day or a few days later, or if important you’d get a bulletin on the TV. Children went out to play with friends at the park, or you’d have play dates at your mates house. Sleepovers were fun.

Nowadays children still have friends, but if allowed, they are mostly communicating via social media. Snap Chat and Instagram, Twitter,WhatsApp and Facebook are the means for communication. Even the young ones have accounts on Roblox or MSP where they can message friends, real or otherwise. We as parents have access to these things too, as well as the internet, and instant access to news, and things happening everywhere.

When you put all this together it can make for scary thoughts. Why are we more hesitant to allow our kids to play out with their mates in the evenings, or to get on their bikes in the morning and not see them until dinner time? It was okay for us growing up, but now we’d prefer then to be somewhere we can see them…

Blame that on Social Media and the internet. Using the World Wide Web, we find out so much about awful things happening across the world. Stories about abductions, bullying, abuse, and so much connected to social media too. Isn’t it easier to keep our children inside a bubble?

I wonder whether we have made life harder for ourselves though. Lets be honest, a lot of this was happening before too, but our parents weren’t aware of it as all these horror stories weren’t reported in such a frequent and easy to access manner. Now all it takes is to log on to your Facebook account, and stories are shared of horrible things that happen. We want to protect our children, but give ourselves extra stress because we worry about what could happen, rather than live in the now.

Growing Up Too Soon

The innocence of childhood… that phrase rings so true when I think of when I was growing up. We played with toys, listened to our parents, had innocent fun until into our teen years.

It’s a different story now. Watching things on TV or the internet means that children are exposed to so much. Their language has matured from a much younger age. They are aware of a lot that is happening out in the world, which makes some cautious from a young age. They dress more grown up, want items with ‘names’ on them. Watching music videos, they don’t realise it, but they dance around in a sexualised way. And the attitude these children show too! The lip we have to endure from Tweens… see even a new name for those pre teen stroppy mares!

As a parent, you can control a lot of what your kids do, if you have a choice, but their is access to so much, from many different avenues, it can be hard to keep an eye on them the whole time.

Thirty years ago, the big worry may have been finding a naughty magazine under your son’s bed, or a hidden lipstick, or the discovery that your child has a boyfriend or girlfriend.

Now these are small worries in comparison to what we face. Do we censor everything? When my son started secondary school, he was quite innocent, and he still is. However sometimes we would hear him speak of certain things, that we would never mention, or condone him watching, and he said that his friends at school showed him on their phones.  He is growing up. Too fast in my eyes, but I know every parent thinks that. We have had to grant him trust, hoping that he knows right from wrong and that he doesn’t take a wrong path.

Going back too the beginning of the post, I went and joined my mother in law and her friend. I was fully expecting a conversation stating how rubbish we were as parents compared to them.

But I was wrong.

Instead, this aunty-ji said she felt for us parents of today.

Watching us run ourselves ragged, depositing children here, there and everywhere, working long hours, she felt for us.

Both her and my mother in law were so happy that they were here and able to be some support to us with regards to childcare, while they are still able. After all if we didn’t have their support, we wouldn’t be able to work properly, or if we did, the childcare costs would go up for us, having to pay someone to keep our kids until we were able to come home…

There was no criticism, only concern.

In their eyes, being a parent in their days, to young children was a doddle, compared to now!

What do you think? Is parenting harder now, or was it tougher back in the day?

Images from Pixabay.