I respond here to questions about the definition of intensive parenting, why it is harmful, the difference between care for little kids and older ones, and more.
One question I would like to ask (please read it with the sincere meaning that I intend.) What does neglect actually look like in non-intensive parenting?
To reference again here:
"How To Be A Mom in 2017: Make sure your children's academic, emotional, psychological, mental, spiritual, physical, nutritional, and social needs are met while being careful not to overstimulate, understimulate, improperly medicate, helicopter, or neglect them in a screen-free, processed foods-free, GMO-free, negative energy-free, plastic-free, body positive, socially conscious, egalitarian but also authoritative, nurturing but fostering of independence, gentle but not overly permissive, pesticide-free two-story, multilingual home preferably in a cul-de-sac with a backyard and 1.5 siblings spaced at least two year apart for proper development also don't forget the coconut oil.
How To Be a Mom In Literally Every Generation Before Ours: Feed them sometimes."
As a thought experiment, the later description (thinking only to feed children sometimes and nothing else) is clearly social/psychological/physical/emotional/educational neglect. (Obviously, this is tongue-in-cheek, and the joke isn't lost on me, but please humor me anyway--in all seriousness, we all know that this situation does sadly happen in real life, and these children are hopefully taken into foster care situations, so it's not just hyperbole.)
So if we agree that parents should do more than occasionally feed their kids, what WOULD social/psychological/physical/emotional/educational neglect actually look like in the context of non-intensive parenting? How is non-intensive parenting different to just neglecting them, to greater or lesser degrees? (I am asking this question genuinely.)
Put another way, the focus of this article is on "over-parenting," but how do you make sure you're not also "under-parenting?"
I'd love to read more from you about this. I think this is important, because I think the fear of neglect is the main reason for people to move away from this way of thinking.
Reading your comment and question had me asking a WHOLE NEW SET OF QUESTIONS (c)
First, how do you define neglect?
How do you define over parenting?
And, what was your childhood like? How were you parented?
Since conversation I believe works better, I am happy to continue this as I was what I think is considered a hybrid moving into non-intensive parenting way ahead of the curve.
My lay-definition is something like: If "abuse" is intentionally doing something to a child that causes them harm, then "neglect" is intentionally failing to do something for a child that would bring them benefit, or to fail to intervene if you knew your child was in a harmful situation. The later point seems like a very fine line.
So to make sure I am understanding, do you feel to intervene prevents them from learning necessary skills for life? (Making an educated guess while still asking for clarity).
Do you have children now or are they adults already?
Mine is an adult raising his own now.
I’ve been exploring these questions after losing both my parent just two years ago (am an only child) and examining my own experience as a parent at the same time.
My writing and thinking might not be entirely clear here, but I wondering what differentiates non-intensive parenting from simply neglecting your kid's needs. (I realize that this could be read as confrontational and I don't intend that--I'm genuinely curious how people decide where the line is between being non-intensive but not neglectful.)
If over-parenting is one end of the spectrum, what is under-parenting?
If I may I'll share my expereince and I chose to be more gardening like referred to above versus over-parenting because I was teaching my son consent.
Watching so many parents now days over-parent because they think and feel by keeping their kids busy they will stay out of trouble and themselves will be seen as good parents has a lot of flaws in it.
It is why i described my style as hybrid. I had two really different parents, like night and day. My dad was mostly harsh and strict (with enough disarming charm + love to f-up my understanding of men). I used to see my Mom as quiet and it wasn't until the later years I could genuinely see her rebelliousness.
Now taking into consideration generational differences, my parents could have been seen as under-parenting to some as they did not actively interfere in a lot of my choices.
For example, I was able to read any book I wanted from the library. I was not prohibited from adult topics. Would we call that under-parenting or them giving me choice?
What I did very differently from my parents was pay attention to where my son;s interest lie and I would actively asking him questions growing up so that I could understand what mattered to him. That allowed me to bring up and to the front things that could support him in developing his talents and skills differently than my parent did (which was leave it all up to chance).
That is what I refer to as gardening. What is the soil needed, what kind of plants-seeds are showing a propencity for growing, how am I lovingly not harshly pruning (Harsh is criticism instead of praise)
It's taken me decades to unravel the harm cause by my parents. some was from bad behavior, other was plain ole conditioning that was passed down to them and each generation cultivated a unique level of awareness.
Does this open any question for you we can discuss directly?
I'm a bit late to the conversation here, but I thought I'd pop in and share some of my thoughts as someone who was neglected growing up.
For context: I grew up in the late 90s/early 2000s with my two older brothers. By and large we were raised by my father, a single dad who worked full-time as a grocery store clerk. In retrospect he is very clearly neurodivergent in some way, although he grew up before such diagnoses were commonplace. He's a very sweet man, but never had a natural instinct for how to take care of kids, especially in terms of our emotional needs. As a result, my brothers and I were "under-parented" by 2000s standards. At least a couple of times throughout my childhood some concerned adults called CPS, but the wellness checks never led to anything.
**Some of the things I appreciate about how we were raised:
- My dad never expressed any expectations of who we should be. We could dress how we wanted, do what we wanted with our hair, etc., and he still regarded us the same.
- My dad had a desktop computer which each of us was free to use whenever he wasn't using it. We were trusted to figure out how to limit our usage and share with each other.
- We were never pressured to get high grades in school. College was not presented to us as a mandatory next step. (I'm from a town where only 1/3rd of the population has a 4-year degree or higher, so it's just not as much a part of the culture here.)
- We each got a small weekly allowance that we could spend or save as we wished.
- We went camping once a year in the summer, and us kids always got to go off and explore a bit on our own (as a group).
- We all learned to do our own laundry and cook basic meals at an early age (~6).
- We had the freedom to play in the yard or on our street without direct supervision, we could walk to the nearby convenience store by ourselves to buy snacks, and we could walk to our friends' house about 1/2 mile away. We could go sleep over at friends' houses on the weekend pretty much whenever we wanted, as long as it worked with both families' schedules.
- We were left home alone when I was 9 and my brothers were 12 and 14.
- When I was 9 and got a bike, I could ride it unsupervised in our neighborhood. When I was 12 and upgraded to a better bike, I started going on longer rides (sometimes with my brother or a friend, but usually solo) that often lasted a few hours.
- By freshman year of high school I was very unhappy and failing all my classes, and my dad supported me when I chose an alternative education route. (Same with my older brother.)
**Some things I would consider neglect/under-parenting:
- We never went to the doctor. We got our necessary immunizations for school, and I think my mom took us to the doctor when we were very young. But once she was no longer in our lives, my dad just never took us.
- We didn't have first aid supplies in the house other than basic band-aids.
- We didn't have adequate cleaning supplies in the house, nor was any kind of cleaning/tidying expected of us.
- I had cavities, and I had to bug my dad for months and months before he finally got around to making me an appointment at the dentist.
- He never talked to me about menstruation or arranged for a female relative to talk with me about that, to make sure I would have menstrual supplies on hand when the time came.
- We never ate dinner together, even when my dad was off work in time for us to do so. We exclusively ate frozen foods for dinner and often weren't getting nutritionally balanced meals. (This is tough for single working parents, but I think there could have been more effort made in this regard.)
- My dad never asked us about ourselves or our interests, or made an effort to start any conversation with us...pretty much ever. (I think this is related to his neurodivergence; he just doesn't interact socially the way most people do. But as a kid it felt like he wasn't interested in getting to know me.)
- After an extremely destabilising incident involving our mentally ill mother during our early childhood, no adults checked in with us to ask how we were feeling or to see if we maybe would benefit from counselling or extra emotional support. In fact, the incident was never even mentioned.
- As a 14 year old, I realised that I could go out by myself whenever I wanted for as long as I wanted, without needing to tell anyone where I was going or when I would be back. In high school I started regularly staying the night at friends' houses for multiple nights in a row (including on week nights) without telling my dad where I was, and he never asked me about it. (This was before I had a cell phone.)
Hopefully these contrasting lists show the difference between examples of allowing children freedom vs neglecting them. I do not condone the neglect itself, but interestingly enough, contained within my father's neglectful approach was a freedom and independence that other kids in my generation were denied. Ultimately I am grateful for my childhood, even though it was difficult in a lot of ways that could have been avoided by appropriate adult intervention. And I am very grateful for my dad, who never expected to be a single parent and really wasn't well-equipped to be one, but who did his best, although it took me years to see that.
I believe an answer is contained in the carpenter-vs-gardener metaphor, and (to me) it's also included in the "joke", when you read "feed them sometimes" more broadly than just providing food. Both the carpenter and the gardener work/are engaged in the process. The difference is in the intention: the carpenter wants to control the outcome, and will use a feedback loop to stick to the desired outcome, but the gardener wants to provide a nurturing environment and observes the outcome. Same with the example about smoking: do you want to control the outcome, or do you want to provide information and leave the decision to the other person?
As for neglect, my lay-man's definition would be related to fundamental human and children's rights: to neglect to provide for their satisfaction.
I love this piece, especially the reminder about the difference between the gardener's and carpenter's approaches to parenting. This distinction, of course, also applies to educational approaches. I describe what I do as nurturing learning environments and communities rather than teaching.
When an infant is born, he or she occupies the center of her parent's universe. New parents often fail to recognize that their actions with the child serve either to maintain that status or to help the child join their own orbit around a new center -that of the “family.” The longer it takes to acheive the latter option, the more likely parents are to fall into "over parenting." Perhaps a good guidepost for parents is to actively work to make themselves less necessary. If done right, this benefits the child's independent growth and reduces parent stress, which arises from exhausted resources. Would it make sense to discuss specific, early developmental moments/trends or parenting windows which might enable parents to find this balance when the child is young?
Over parenting behavior seems to have also lead to the highly stressful environment of college applications and acceptance. It is now essentially expected that high schoolers achieve extraordinary heights in order to be qualified to apply to a particular college.
When I applied to college in the 2010s, my peers were already inventing medical solutions or had started a business on their own, and although these types of achievements were at the time exceptional, I feel like nowadays they are common place. Now, parents need to plan YEARS in advance all of the extracurricular things their child must, MUST do starting in their elementary years to even qualify to apply to a local university for college education. It is preposterous.
By the time I finished college, I was burned out, I had no intellectual stamina. A monotonous job was a welcome relief after 6 grueling years of engineering undergrad and grad studies. I know my parents were appalled at the time, when to get into college you had to have accomplished some novel feat. I worry about my own children and what backlash they’ll face when they’re older and ready to go to college, that their childhood was an actually childhood (we homeschool but mostly unschool) and if they’ll feel the pressure to “perform” to their college admissions’ expectations. I have a relative that, upon learning that we’re starting to homeschool my kindergartner, asked if we think she’ll be ready for college. I got sick to my stomach. “She’s 5,” was my only response.
One question I would like to ask (please read it with the sincere meaning that I intend.) What does neglect actually look like in non-intensive parenting?
To reference again here:
"How To Be A Mom in 2017: Make sure your children's academic, emotional, psychological, mental, spiritual, physical, nutritional, and social needs are met while being careful not to overstimulate, understimulate, improperly medicate, helicopter, or neglect them in a screen-free, processed foods-free, GMO-free, negative energy-free, plastic-free, body positive, socially conscious, egalitarian but also authoritative, nurturing but fostering of independence, gentle but not overly permissive, pesticide-free two-story, multilingual home preferably in a cul-de-sac with a backyard and 1.5 siblings spaced at least two year apart for proper development also don't forget the coconut oil.
How To Be a Mom In Literally Every Generation Before Ours: Feed them sometimes."
As a thought experiment, the later description (thinking only to feed children sometimes and nothing else) is clearly social/psychological/physical/emotional/educational neglect. (Obviously, this is tongue-in-cheek, and the joke isn't lost on me, but please humor me anyway--in all seriousness, we all know that this situation does sadly happen in real life, and these children are hopefully taken into foster care situations, so it's not just hyperbole.)
So if we agree that parents should do more than occasionally feed their kids, what WOULD social/psychological/physical/emotional/educational neglect actually look like in the context of non-intensive parenting? How is non-intensive parenting different to just neglecting them, to greater or lesser degrees? (I am asking this question genuinely.)
Put another way, the focus of this article is on "over-parenting," but how do you make sure you're not also "under-parenting?"
I'd love to read more from you about this. I think this is important, because I think the fear of neglect is the main reason for people to move away from this way of thinking.
Reading your comment and question had me asking a WHOLE NEW SET OF QUESTIONS (c)
First, how do you define neglect?
How do you define over parenting?
And, what was your childhood like? How were you parented?
Since conversation I believe works better, I am happy to continue this as I was what I think is considered a hybrid moving into non-intensive parenting way ahead of the curve.
My lay-definition is something like: If "abuse" is intentionally doing something to a child that causes them harm, then "neglect" is intentionally failing to do something for a child that would bring them benefit, or to fail to intervene if you knew your child was in a harmful situation. The later point seems like a very fine line.
So to make sure I am understanding, do you feel to intervene prevents them from learning necessary skills for life? (Making an educated guess while still asking for clarity).
Do you have children now or are they adults already?
Mine is an adult raising his own now.
I’ve been exploring these questions after losing both my parent just two years ago (am an only child) and examining my own experience as a parent at the same time.
My writing and thinking might not be entirely clear here, but I wondering what differentiates non-intensive parenting from simply neglecting your kid's needs. (I realize that this could be read as confrontational and I don't intend that--I'm genuinely curious how people decide where the line is between being non-intensive but not neglectful.)
If over-parenting is one end of the spectrum, what is under-parenting?
ahhhhhhh gotcha.
If I may I'll share my expereince and I chose to be more gardening like referred to above versus over-parenting because I was teaching my son consent.
Watching so many parents now days over-parent because they think and feel by keeping their kids busy they will stay out of trouble and themselves will be seen as good parents has a lot of flaws in it.
It is why i described my style as hybrid. I had two really different parents, like night and day. My dad was mostly harsh and strict (with enough disarming charm + love to f-up my understanding of men). I used to see my Mom as quiet and it wasn't until the later years I could genuinely see her rebelliousness.
Now taking into consideration generational differences, my parents could have been seen as under-parenting to some as they did not actively interfere in a lot of my choices.
For example, I was able to read any book I wanted from the library. I was not prohibited from adult topics. Would we call that under-parenting or them giving me choice?
What I did very differently from my parents was pay attention to where my son;s interest lie and I would actively asking him questions growing up so that I could understand what mattered to him. That allowed me to bring up and to the front things that could support him in developing his talents and skills differently than my parent did (which was leave it all up to chance).
That is what I refer to as gardening. What is the soil needed, what kind of plants-seeds are showing a propencity for growing, how am I lovingly not harshly pruning (Harsh is criticism instead of praise)
It's taken me decades to unravel the harm cause by my parents. some was from bad behavior, other was plain ole conditioning that was passed down to them and each generation cultivated a unique level of awareness.
Does this open any question for you we can discuss directly?
I trust that helped if not I ‘d love to learn where I can either share more or share differently or you are satisfied.
I'm a bit late to the conversation here, but I thought I'd pop in and share some of my thoughts as someone who was neglected growing up.
For context: I grew up in the late 90s/early 2000s with my two older brothers. By and large we were raised by my father, a single dad who worked full-time as a grocery store clerk. In retrospect he is very clearly neurodivergent in some way, although he grew up before such diagnoses were commonplace. He's a very sweet man, but never had a natural instinct for how to take care of kids, especially in terms of our emotional needs. As a result, my brothers and I were "under-parented" by 2000s standards. At least a couple of times throughout my childhood some concerned adults called CPS, but the wellness checks never led to anything.
**Some of the things I appreciate about how we were raised:
- My dad never expressed any expectations of who we should be. We could dress how we wanted, do what we wanted with our hair, etc., and he still regarded us the same.
- My dad had a desktop computer which each of us was free to use whenever he wasn't using it. We were trusted to figure out how to limit our usage and share with each other.
- We were never pressured to get high grades in school. College was not presented to us as a mandatory next step. (I'm from a town where only 1/3rd of the population has a 4-year degree or higher, so it's just not as much a part of the culture here.)
- We each got a small weekly allowance that we could spend or save as we wished.
- We went camping once a year in the summer, and us kids always got to go off and explore a bit on our own (as a group).
- We all learned to do our own laundry and cook basic meals at an early age (~6).
- We had the freedom to play in the yard or on our street without direct supervision, we could walk to the nearby convenience store by ourselves to buy snacks, and we could walk to our friends' house about 1/2 mile away. We could go sleep over at friends' houses on the weekend pretty much whenever we wanted, as long as it worked with both families' schedules.
- We were left home alone when I was 9 and my brothers were 12 and 14.
- When I was 9 and got a bike, I could ride it unsupervised in our neighborhood. When I was 12 and upgraded to a better bike, I started going on longer rides (sometimes with my brother or a friend, but usually solo) that often lasted a few hours.
- By freshman year of high school I was very unhappy and failing all my classes, and my dad supported me when I chose an alternative education route. (Same with my older brother.)
**Some things I would consider neglect/under-parenting:
- We never went to the doctor. We got our necessary immunizations for school, and I think my mom took us to the doctor when we were very young. But once she was no longer in our lives, my dad just never took us.
- We didn't have first aid supplies in the house other than basic band-aids.
- We didn't have adequate cleaning supplies in the house, nor was any kind of cleaning/tidying expected of us.
- I had cavities, and I had to bug my dad for months and months before he finally got around to making me an appointment at the dentist.
- He never talked to me about menstruation or arranged for a female relative to talk with me about that, to make sure I would have menstrual supplies on hand when the time came.
- We never ate dinner together, even when my dad was off work in time for us to do so. We exclusively ate frozen foods for dinner and often weren't getting nutritionally balanced meals. (This is tough for single working parents, but I think there could have been more effort made in this regard.)
- My dad never asked us about ourselves or our interests, or made an effort to start any conversation with us...pretty much ever. (I think this is related to his neurodivergence; he just doesn't interact socially the way most people do. But as a kid it felt like he wasn't interested in getting to know me.)
- After an extremely destabilising incident involving our mentally ill mother during our early childhood, no adults checked in with us to ask how we were feeling or to see if we maybe would benefit from counselling or extra emotional support. In fact, the incident was never even mentioned.
- As a 14 year old, I realised that I could go out by myself whenever I wanted for as long as I wanted, without needing to tell anyone where I was going or when I would be back. In high school I started regularly staying the night at friends' houses for multiple nights in a row (including on week nights) without telling my dad where I was, and he never asked me about it. (This was before I had a cell phone.)
Hopefully these contrasting lists show the difference between examples of allowing children freedom vs neglecting them. I do not condone the neglect itself, but interestingly enough, contained within my father's neglectful approach was a freedom and independence that other kids in my generation were denied. Ultimately I am grateful for my childhood, even though it was difficult in a lot of ways that could have been avoided by appropriate adult intervention. And I am very grateful for my dad, who never expected to be a single parent and really wasn't well-equipped to be one, but who did his best, although it took me years to see that.
I believe an answer is contained in the carpenter-vs-gardener metaphor, and (to me) it's also included in the "joke", when you read "feed them sometimes" more broadly than just providing food. Both the carpenter and the gardener work/are engaged in the process. The difference is in the intention: the carpenter wants to control the outcome, and will use a feedback loop to stick to the desired outcome, but the gardener wants to provide a nurturing environment and observes the outcome. Same with the example about smoking: do you want to control the outcome, or do you want to provide information and leave the decision to the other person?
As for neglect, my lay-man's definition would be related to fundamental human and children's rights: to neglect to provide for their satisfaction.
I love this piece, especially the reminder about the difference between the gardener's and carpenter's approaches to parenting. This distinction, of course, also applies to educational approaches. I describe what I do as nurturing learning environments and communities rather than teaching.
When an infant is born, he or she occupies the center of her parent's universe. New parents often fail to recognize that their actions with the child serve either to maintain that status or to help the child join their own orbit around a new center -that of the “family.” The longer it takes to acheive the latter option, the more likely parents are to fall into "over parenting." Perhaps a good guidepost for parents is to actively work to make themselves less necessary. If done right, this benefits the child's independent growth and reduces parent stress, which arises from exhausted resources. Would it make sense to discuss specific, early developmental moments/trends or parenting windows which might enable parents to find this balance when the child is young?
Over parenting behavior seems to have also lead to the highly stressful environment of college applications and acceptance. It is now essentially expected that high schoolers achieve extraordinary heights in order to be qualified to apply to a particular college.
When I applied to college in the 2010s, my peers were already inventing medical solutions or had started a business on their own, and although these types of achievements were at the time exceptional, I feel like nowadays they are common place. Now, parents need to plan YEARS in advance all of the extracurricular things their child must, MUST do starting in their elementary years to even qualify to apply to a local university for college education. It is preposterous.
By the time I finished college, I was burned out, I had no intellectual stamina. A monotonous job was a welcome relief after 6 grueling years of engineering undergrad and grad studies. I know my parents were appalled at the time, when to get into college you had to have accomplished some novel feat. I worry about my own children and what backlash they’ll face when they’re older and ready to go to college, that their childhood was an actually childhood (we homeschool but mostly unschool) and if they’ll feel the pressure to “perform” to their college admissions’ expectations. I have a relative that, upon learning that we’re starting to homeschool my kindergartner, asked if we think she’ll be ready for college. I got sick to my stomach. “She’s 5,” was my only response.