Episode 6: Lessons From “Parenting Advice” From 1880 to 2022
When we follow this common sense, parenting advice, simply because everyone's doing it or we believe it's what we’re supposed to do, we might unintentionally model white supremacist, patriarchal, capitalist, and colonial behaviors to our little ones when in fact we want to teach them the opposite values, like compassion, equity, and liberation.
Episode Summary:
In the previous episode, we talked about how expert parenting advice and parenting quote-unquote common sense is shaped by social, cultural, and political forces.
In this episode, I want to take a trip down memory lane to look at how systemic oppression affected parenting advice throughout US history. My intention for this episode is for you to detangle the knots of systemic oppression from your own parenting, by taking a look at how capitalism, patriarchy colonialism, and white supremacy have been shaping parenting common sense throughout history.
What You’ll Learn From this Episode:
How systemic oppression shapes the definition of "good parenting" throughout history from 1880 to 2022.
When we understand these influences, we can de-tangle the knots of systemic oppression from our parenting. This way we can show up intentionally and raise our children based on our values in liberation, equity, and compassion (aka parenting by our own parenting playbook).
Different ways that parenting tricks, tips, and hacks aren't serving us and our childrens' development.
The social, cultural, and political forces from 1880-1920 that disempowered mothers and femme-identifying caregivers at the time.
Different ways baby beauty pageant perpetuated white supremacist and ableist ideas in parenting.
The social, cultural, and political forces from 1950-present day that shape our upbringing then and parenting decisions now.
What really matters about using this "parenting advice" intentionally.
What one parent says about being a decolonized parent.
3 questions to explore when implementing "parenting advice"
Resources Mentioned:
References:
Harris, M. (2017). Kids these days: Human capital and the making of millennials. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company.
Holt, L. E. (1894) The Care and Feeding of Children: A Catechism for the Use of Mothers and Children's NursesNew York : D. Appleton and Company. https://archive.org/details/carefeedingof00holt/page/n5/mode/2up
Johnson, B. J., & Quinlan, M. M. (2019). You're doing it wrong! Mothering, media, and medical expertise. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Lovett, Laura L. "'Fitter Families for Future Firesides': Popular Eugenics and the Construction of a Rural Family Ideal in the United States." In Conceiving the Future: Pronatalism, reproduction, and the Family in the United States, 1890–1938, 131–162. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2007.
Petersen, A. H. (2021). Can’t even: How Millenials became the burnout generation. Boston: MA, Mariner Books.
Spock, B. (1946). The common sense book of baby and child care: With illus. by Dorothea Fox. New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce.
Starr, P. (2017). The Social Transformation of American Medicine: The Rise of a Sovereign Profession and the Making of a Vast Industry (2nd Ed.). New York, NY: Basic Books.
Watson, J. B. (1928). Psychological Care of Infant and Child. New York: W. W. Norton Company, Inc.
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