Parenting: Why Does Raising Children Feel Harder Today?

“Raising kids used to be simpler.”

It's something we hear a lot.

And maybe, in part, it's true.

Not because children today are more difficult.
Not because parents in the past were more capable.

Maybe, quite simply, we had fewer options to choose from.

For a long time, being a mother, being a father and raising a child had fairly well-defined meanings. Roles were more clearly separated and, along with the roles, it was also clearer what behavior was expected of each parent.

Today that pattern has changed profoundly.

And when the paradigm through which we look at parenthood changes, the way we find ourselves raising our children changes too.

When raising children came with more defined roles

With industrialization in the nineteenth century and, above all, over the course of the twentieth, many Western societies settled into a family model in which the tasks of men and women were sharply differentiated.

The father was mainly the one who provided for the family financially, while the mother took on most of the housework and the day-to-day care of the children.

Daily care, nurturing, school, handling emotions and running family life were mostly left to mothers.

The father more often had a different function: to represent authority, set limits, and pass on rules and values.

They were not simply two adults raising children together.
They had different, culturally defined functions.

The father and authority

In this context, it also becomes clear why, for so long, authority was associated with the father figure.

Here it's important to make a distinction.

Authoritarian doesn't simply mean “strict.”

In developmental psychology, the authoritarian style describes a parenting approach marked by high demands and lower responsiveness: the parent decides what has to be done, expects compliance and places great value on obedience, leaving less room for the child's point of view and autonomy.

That's different from being authoritative.

An authoritative parent can set limits, say no and keep rules in place, while at the same time seeing the child as a person: listening, explaining, supporting autonomy and taking the child's needs into account.

When fear was a parenting tool

For generations, part of how children were raised rested on the idea that the child had to obey the adult.

Not necessarily because the adult could always explain the reason behind a rule.

Simply because they were the adult.

And in many settings, fear of the consequences was a parenting tool:

“You'll do it because I said so.”

It was a system in which the line between authority, discipline, obedience and fear could become very thin.

But it had one feature we may be missing today:

it was a recognizable system.

What is a paradigm?

The word paradigm comes from the Greek parádeigma: “model,” “example,” “frame of reference.”

A paradigm is a kind of invisible frame that tells us what is normal, what is right, what is expected of us and how to interpret what happens.

For a long time, the dominant parenting paradigm was, to put it simply, that of the adult who leads and the child who obeys.

Today that frame is no longer so solid.

And then something changed

Over the twentieth century, and especially in its second half, the traditional division of family roles began to change profoundly.

More and more women entering the workforce, cultural and social change, and a new attention to children's psychological development all helped redefine the father's role as well.

Fathers started to be more and more present: during pregnancy, at the birth, in caregiving, at night, at school, with emotions and in parenting decisions.

And this change is still happening.

Today, much more often, mothers and fathers are both called on to raise their children.

Both have to make decisions.
Both have to ask themselves questions.

Should I say yes or no?
How much freedom can I give my child?
Where should I draw the line?
Does this rule really serve a purpose?
Am I listening to my child, or am I just trying to make them obey?

We have gained a great deal of awareness, but we have lost some of our automatic reflexes.

We no longer necessarily have a single shared model.

In the past, many of the answers were already written.

Today we have to look for them much more often.

And looking for them means facing ourselves, our own history, the way we were raised and what we want to pass on to our children.

It means realizing that we can love our child deeply and, at the same moment, be angry with them.

That we can set a limit without humiliating them.

That we can say no without using fear.

That we can be authoritative without becoming authoritarian.

The real transformation, then, can be seen in the shift from a model that told us what to do to a kind of parenting that asks us to understand why we do it.

No longer having a single paradigm means we have to build our own, day by day.

Together with our children.

A pathway for parenthood

Sometimes, to build your own way of being a parent, it can help to stop, observe what is happening in your family and find new tools for handling everyday life.

That is what parenting support is about: not finding a perfect method for raising children, but having a space where you can ask yourself questions, understand what is happening and build more mindful ways of being in the relationship.

At Mairuna you can learn more about our parenting support course in Udine, for mothers, fathers and couples who want to find new tools for their own path as parents.

Because raising children doesn't mean always having the right answer.
It also means learning to look for it.