1950s Parenting: Something to Aspire to?
Posted
November 17, 2006 at
9:25 am by
Redsy
In a recent New York Times, reporter Stacy Lu wrote a piece called “Cosmopolitan Moms” about a group of women who gather for play dates and cocktails. As you might imagine, the usual debates about drinking in front of kids ensued, as well as some keen observations about the need for some parents to loosen up.
What got my attention was this paragraph:
Some say the mother get-togethers are a throwback to the 1950s, when adults had more time to themselves and children were not always the center of attention. Martinis were in vogue; today???‚¬?„?s obsessive, hard-driving, Harvard-or-bust parenting scene was not.
It appears that our generation of parents (especially the Gen Xers) idealize the wise parents of the 1950s…those crazy folks who played mah jong and drank gin rickeys while their children wandered (free of kidnappers and pedophiles) around the safe open spaces of their small and friendly neighborhoods.?‚? A time when “Go play outside and stop bothering me!” and “children are to be seen and not heard” were sufficient to the task.
As the world would soon learn, many people were miserable. By the time the 1960s & 1970s rolled around, many of these sisters burned bras, joined consciousness raising groups, ate carob, and divorced like it was going out of style. It wan’t really ever Leave it to Beaver for most families.
And while there has definitely been a spooky shift in the center of the parenting world toward kid-worship, I’m not sure the other way of doing things was as great as we think.
Remember Dr. Spock? He revolutionized parenting by suggesting that children were complex people worthy of affection as well as discipline, and that babies couldn’t be spoiled by being picked up too much.
Hugging your children and picking up babies as a revolutionary idea? That doesn’t sound very fabulous to me
Parents don’t need to refer to the 1950s in order to justify taking time for themselves. And on the weeks when drinking (before, during, or after) a playdate is the high point of my week, I know it’s time to recalibrate my notion of fun.
Tags: Parenting |
4 Responses to “1950s Parenting: Something to Aspire to?”
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1. Amy said:
November 17, 2006 @ 9:54 am
I read that article, and actually wrote about something similar for a local paper but it was a day late and a dollar short because of the Times piece!
2. Momish said:
November 18, 2006 @ 3:25 pm
I love your assessment of the bipolarization going on in parenting. My thoughts on this would be one big whopping, “ditto”! I think the kid-worshipping is over the top, especially having grown up in the kids-are-seen-not-heard world. But, having a happy hour playdate just rings somewhat off to me. Not that I don’t “relax” around my child, but again, I agree with you, it will never be the highlight of my week. Excellent post!
3. Bizimama said:
November 18, 2006 @ 4:07 pm
Although most families of the 1950’s were not “Leave it to Beaver” families, I do believe that the women of that era were more relaxed, since many more of them had the luxury of being able to stay at home with their children. (For the most part, one salary was enough to support a family). I also believe there was less stress, anger, frustration, etc, because more mothers were home nurturing their families and homes; without having to “burn the candle at both ends” to make ends meet. It would be interesting to have listened to some of the conversations over martinis where some women might have expressed the desire to work outside of the home(not out of necessity mind you). How sad that I have heard many conversations of women that would give just about anything to do just the opposite and stay at home…Another martini anyone?
Bizimama
http://www.bizimama.com
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4. Jessica said:
November 19, 2006 @ 10:16 pm
Plus, we didn’t have the internet to cast mothers on trial for all they do wrong.
I am a nostalgic person at heart anyway. I say bring back the Channel suits and martinis and let the kids entertain themselves once in a while. What a concept!