I recently spoke with Barry Hewlett, an anthropologist who studies parenting in hunter-gatherer societies in Central Africa. He explained to me that children in these societies spend a lot of time with their parents – often accompanying them throughout the day and helping with tasks such as foraging. But they say they are rarely the main focus of parents. Sometimes bored, sometimes obsessed, these children spend a lot of time observing adults doing adult things.
In modern industrialized societies, parents often take the opposite approach. In your precious time outside of work, put your children at the center of your attention, consciously engage and entertain them. We drive our children to sports practice or music lessons, where they are observed and supervised by adults. We value quality time more than quantity. We feel guilty when we have to drag our children around for boring adult tasks.
This intensive, often frantic parenting style requires much more effort than the style described by Professor Hewlett. Last month, when I read Surgeon General Vivek Murthy’s recommendations warning that many parents are under stress to breaking point, I found myself thinking of hunter-gatherers. . There are many reasons for this alarming situation. One is that we don’t neglect our children enough.
Modern parenting styles aren’t just tiring for adults; It is also based on assumptions about what children need to grow that are not supported by evidence from our evolutionary past. For most of human history, people had large numbers of children, and the children played in intergenerational social groups without close supervision. The average benign neglect childcare experience is probably more similar to the historical childcare experience than the experience of a child spending the day alone with a doting parent.
Of course, just because a parenting style is old doesn’t mean it’s good. But humans have spent about 90 percent of our time on Earth as hunter-gatherers, and our brains and bodies have evolved and adapted to that lifestyle. Hunter-gatherer cultures teach us important things about how children are prepared to learn.
These hunter-gatherer-inspired parenting styles recognize that one of the best things parents can do is not just for themselves, but also for their children, and that one of the best things a parent can do is live their own life. , would argue that it’s about taking the kids. You might call it mindful underparenting.
Children learn not only through direct instruction, but also by observing and modeling the actions of those around them, such as foraging for berries, changing a tire, or relaxing with friends after a long day at work. Learn. From an early age, such observations begin to prepare children for adulthood.
More importantly, following adults gives children the wonderful gift of learning to tolerate boredom, which develops patience, resourcefulness, and creativity. There is evidence from neuroscience that the resting brain is not lazy. Research shows that when the mind is left alone to do its own thing, it tends to get busy, especially thinking about the minds of others. If you want to raise empathetic, imaginative children who find ways to entertain themselves, don’t overdo it.
A great way to get kids bored is to take them to an older relative’s house and force them to listen to long adult conversations about family members they don’t know. A routine trip to the post office or bank can also create a valuable boredom-busting opportunity.
Leaving your kids’ screens at home on a trip like this can lead to even more convenient boredom. Parents also need to develop their child’s tolerance for fussiness, which is an important element of underparenting. Parents often feel the need to involve their children in “fun” activities to get them away from screens. However, intensive parenting teaches children to constantly seek outside stimulation and entertainment, which can worsen screen addiction.
Yes, parents can and should jump to the rescue when children are upset, in danger, or in need of guidance. But that’s exactly the point. Often, only by ignoring our children can we save the energy we need to give them our full attention when they actually need it.
In recent years, there has been a lot of controversy surrounding so-called helicopter parents and their hopelessly spoiled children. But parents rarely talk about what to do instead. In an ideal world, children would be allowed to roam freely outdoors without supervision. As a kid in a small town in Ohio in the 1990s, my brothers and I spent hours playing in the stream behind our house, both having a lot of fun and a lot of boredom. But if that “free range” experience isn’t an option, the next best thing is compassionate underparenting.
This approach can take the form of taking your child with you not only on boring errands, but also when you work, socialize, or exercise. The other day I was at the gym and a father came in with his 4-year-old son. The two had a trainer teach them martial arts moves and took turns training. When it wasn’t his turn, his 4-year-old son would run around the gym, and when he got tired he would lie face down on the mat and watch his father practice kicks. As I watched the boy take in a lot of social information with wide eyes, I thought about the parents who are so busy caring for their children that they don’t have time to exercise.
At the same time, I thought about gyms that don’t allow small children. Even as parenting becomes more intensive, public spaces seem to be becoming more hostile to children’s presence, especially in the United States. I wrote most of my Ph.D. I was writing a paper with my toddler at a local coffee shop. There was a mini play area stacked with toys and board books, and a space to park the stroller. That coffee shop is now gone, replaced by a stylish cafe where it’s hard to imagine a mischievous two-year-old, let alone a plastic toy, falling on the floor.
It’s also easier for parents in countries like Germany and Spain, where there are beer gardens and tapas bars right next to playgrounds, and in Denmark, where it’s common for parents to socialize their toddlers in strollers outside cafes. These are places where you can relax and socialize with friends while the kids have fun running around. This is a reminder of how much easier parenting can be when we enjoy the social trust that comes from co-investing in care.
In other words, underparenting requires structural change, and not just the obvious changes we think of as ways to relieve parental stress, like family leave and paid child care. As a society, we also need to restore tolerance to children being as annoying and distracting as possible in public spaces, and create a safe environment where children can roam freely with little supervision. In a society that treats children as public goods, we will collectively monitor all children. Then you won’t have to worry about your children.
Darby Saxby (@dorbysaxbe) is a clinical psychologist and professor of psychology at the University of Southern California. She is writing a book about how fatherhood changes men.
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