Raising Kids & Some Important Differences Between Three Generations
Good day friends! So I am here to talk to you today about some differences I’ve noted between my kids generation, my generation and my parents generations. I am writing this from my perspective and experience, which is in raising my own kids (who are NOT teenagers yet) and talks I’ve had with my mom and mother-in-law about raising kids.
There are about forty years difference between the generations that I am talking about. We currently live in a digital age which affects the raising of kids in a very large way. You cannot expect that kids today will be raised the same way as 40 years ago. There are also very different expectations of parenthood now than there were 40 years ago. I also currently live in a city, but when I was a child I was raised in the country. We will talk about these differences and how they affect kids today.
When I grew up, I lived on a farm and we had two channels on tv. My most exciting moment of the day was seeing a vehicle driving past our house. I played outside, every day with my Dog. My only new toy was my most prized possession, and the rest of my toys were from Good Will. We were pretty poor, and my Dad worked away from home a lot, building roads. We had horses, and livestock to tend to. You could say that back then, my imagination was my biggest asset. Obviously, computers were not a thing. The closest I came to electronics was my “Animator” that I got for Christmas one year, and our rotary telephone.
My son however, has been exposed to electronics at a very young age. When I was in my twenties, I told myself that if I ever had kids, they would never get McDonalds, nor would they have a computer until they were 18, like me. The problem with that is, I didn’t know what having kids would be like, and our times have changed. My son has been on a computer since kindergarten. At school, it is mandatory that they learn online. Now, coming out of Grade 1, he knows how to use a Chromebook better than me. (I am a Mac person myself). He plays video games, and you would be surprised at the skills and learning capabilities that video games provide. I know that people think they’re not the best, but when I show my son how to do something, he picks it up the very first time. (The same cannot be said of his chores though! ) Kids today are learning faster online than they ever did before. Yes, the learning has changed from hands on to online/simulations, but I think there are benefits to both.
Our expectations of parenthood have changed as well. This is because more women have entered the workforce but still need to take care of their children and household. Divorce rates have risen, and more men have become single dads. Single parents need to work to provide for their families, but parenting is a full time job. In the old days, divorce was less prominent. Women didn’t enter the workforce because it was less profitable and someone had to mind the household and children. Men usually made more money, so it made more sense for them to continue working.
Again, I was in a position to experience both these scenarios as a child of divorce. For the first few years of my life, my mom was my world. She stayed home, we baked and cleaned together and that was our life. When my parents got divorced, my mom became a single mother and I became a single kid. We had less money, and I didn’t see my mom as much because she had to work to provide for us.
Since I have entered the world of social media and technology with my online business, I am in a different position than my parents were. I understand the hands-on approach as well as the technological age, since I was exposed to both. Sometimes I find it hard to relate to my children, because ALL they know is the digital age. Then, I find it hard to relate to my parents or in-laws, because all THEY know is the hands-on approach. When I call to ask for advice, I always take it with a grain of salt because I know it’s coming from a good place, but they don’t know what it’s like raising kids today. They also don’t know what it’s like to work a full time job from home, with kids present. (When I quit my full time company job, I said I would NEVER put my kids back in a daycare ever again; plus, it’s very unaffordable). However, it makes for VERY long days and nights and I am ALWAYS exhausted. I never have “Me” time and I had to find ways to manage my stress. It is hard enough being a full time parent to little ones, and even harder when you work from home full time with them around. I am still expected to be a full time mom, a full time “worker”, a full time entrepreneur and a full time household manager. (That means cleaning, upkeep, groceries, stocking, etc…) It is A LOT, let me tell you! I am busy 24/7!
We also live in the city, which means it is super easy to run from here to there, anytime you want to. You think that would make things easier. But, it is sometimes a time waster and it’s easy to get distracted at the store. There are so many competitor stores, that the decision becomes a form of stress. Or, if you coupon shop, you drag your kids to every single store trying to get the best deal on everything on your list. It’s just so easy to stop somewhere after you drop your kids off at school. However, it usually means you end up spending more money.
Back when I lived in the country, we usually went to town once a week. The grocery store was tiny, and there would usually only be one choice for everything; no competition, no worries, and since that’s how we always lived, we didn’t know any better. Life was more simple, easier and we had less stress. Life was lived at a slower pace and being outdoors made for a better sleep.
I think we’re in a really beneficial position to teach our kids the best of both worlds. Yes, the world keeps evolving and changing and forever moving forward, but we can still pass on the values that we learned from doing things differently in the old days. To me, it’s a sad thing that our kids won’t have the same kind of life we knew growing up, but there are good things about this new technological world too. We just need to be open to exploring the possibilities and trying new things, and I’m sure our kids will be there to teach us when we falter.
💜 SAN
