Who Does Parenting Advice Actually Serve?

Hint: It's often not kids, and it's definitely not moms.

Last year, I dedicated the month of December to parental burnout recovery and ran a series of posts highlighting simple strategies I’d uncovered to alleviate burnout and help everyone (me included!!!) lean into the idea of doing less. I decided that we could all benefit from this again this December. So every Friday this month, I’ll be sharing ideas and strategies that have resonated with me and serve to help us ease up on ourselves during this always stressful, busy month (and, hopefully, well into the future). Enjoy!

Also, a quick reminder that my book How to Raise Kids Who Aren’t Assholes — and this newsletter! — would make wonderful holiday gifts for friends and loved ones. If someone you know is a caregiver or is expecting, you can order a personalized and signed copy of my book from my local bookstore, Split Rock Books. You can even specify exactly what you want me to write, and they’ll gift wrap and ship the book anywhere in the U.S. and Canada. You can also buy a gift subscription to this newsletter and schedule it to be delivered whenever you’d like.

Carry your baby all the time. Feed your kid only organic, unprocessed foods. Don’t yell, because yelling is just as bad as sexual abuse. Never leave an upset child alone. Enroll your children in all the extracurriculars. Don’t let your child walk to school alone. Avoid consequences and punishments.

It’s interesting, isn’t it, that so much parenting advice implores us to cater to and invest ever more in our children, depleting our most precious limited resources — time, money, and, of course, patience.

We’re told that these efforts and sacrifices are necessary because they benefit our kids. And surely, we would do anything for them, right?

Yet attachment parenting — the parenting approach that tells us to carry and hold our babies all the time — is totally unrelated to the scientific concept of secure attachment. Organic food isn’t essential. Yelling isn’t as dangerous as we’ve been told. As it turns out, it’s very much OK to give upset kids some space. Over-scheduling kids can actually be unhealthy. The benefits of giving kids age-appropriate independence can outweigh the risks. Consequences can be effective and harmless.

The research tells us that much of today’s trendy parenting advice does not actually benefit our kids.

Nor does it benefit mothers.