Watching your child grow from a little bundle of joy to a full-grown adult is arguably the greatest adventure of them all. Going through all stages with the kid, from helping them to formulate their very first words to consoling them through the first—and likely the second, maybe even a couple after that—heartbreak, among many other things, is truly a rollercoaster of emotions.
But even with its ups and downs, the majority of moms and dads seem to enjoy the experience. Pew Research Center’s (PRC) recent study revealed that four-in-five parents find it not only enjoyable but rewarding, too.
Pew Research Center also revealed that despite finding it rewarding, quite a few people say it’s tiring or stressful most or all of the time. Understandably so; from the moment their child is born, parents typically try their best to take care of their little one, which can get draining at times.
That is because one can only listen to the happy-go-lucky songs of children's cartoons so many times; they can’t also be in the mood for hide and seek or ‘the floor is lava’ 24/7.
To make matters worse, many parents would likely agree that from the moment their baby enters this world, it’s difficult not to worry about them; and such anxiety seems to accompany every step of their child’s way through life. All of that leads to more than 40% of parents feeling tired and roughly 30% feeling stressed, PRC reports.
Respondents of the PRC’s survey agreed that parenthood is not easy. For some, it might feel like a job and likely the hardest one there is, as the vast majority of parents admitted it was more difficult than they anticipated.
That might be one of the reasons some people choose to have less children (or not to have them at all), consequently making families smaller than they were back in the day.
Statista revealed that the average number of people per family in the 1960s, for instance, was around 3.67, but it has been decreasing steadily over the years, reaching the lowest point of 3.13 in the early 2000s—more or less where it stood just a couple of years ago in 2021, too.
The size of one’s family has seemingly changed over the years, but what about the ways of parenting itself, you might wonder? Well, it’s probably not that surprising that the way people view their own upbringing differs with each family.
While some people swear to learn from their parents’ mistakes and not to repeat them themselves, others view their upbringing as an example of how to raise their own children. And the scales seem to stand nearly even, with just 1% in favor of those seeking a different route from the one their parents took; surveys reveal that 43% would raise kids similarly to how they were raised, while 44% wouldn’t.
“Our social world has changed since a generation ago. Parents who let their children walk alone to school are accused of neglect; we don’t live in neighborhoods where children are encouraged to run and play and assume that they will be okay, so parents have been trained to watch and monitor their children to a greater extent than a generation ago,” Professor of Psychology Miriam Liss told Bored Panda, expanding on some of the main differences in regards to raising children between now and then.
“Another factor is the rise of social media,” Prof. Liss added. “On social media one can constantly see other people’s high-achieving children and parenting successes—no one posts the struggles—so parents can often feel as though their children are falling behind and feel as though they need to do what they can in order to help them succeed.”
When it comes to the things parents now would approach differently, the matters of love and relationships stand out the most. Nearly 44% of the surveyed moms and dads wouldn’t want to take the same route their parents did regarding it and say they would try to show more love and affection to their children than they received themselves.
As for the things they would do the same way, adults with children nowadays would like to stick to the same values and beliefs that were instilled in them as kids.