In this day and age, it seems that the line of when a child is supposed to stop acting like a child keeps getting lower and lower. Speaking with family members and just looking at the media across the decades, it is very apparent that society is moving away from innocence in exchange for wokeness in our kids.
Now more than ever, we see parents who claim their children where born in the wrong gender and they dress them according to their beliefs, and in previous generations, this would be recognized for the possible illness it could be, and the proper help was distributed the child and the parent.
There is nothing wrong with an adult wanting to be something it naturally isn’t. If that’s their choice, why would anyone care, but to do this to children and put all these ideas in their heads, it’s clear that something isn’t right.
There has been a recent stir only regarding Kim Kardashian and Kanye’s daughter, North, who recently started posting videos online and most scandalous, was due to a video she posted with an artist known as Ice Spice, who makes music for very mature audiences and fans are recalling a moment where Kanye said he didn’t want his daughter to be online, and Kim ignored it. A lot of parents are taking his back, because of what this means for the future generations, having so much exposure to technology and the internet. Is it all on the parents? Or do we as a society and nation who want to better overall get a say as well?
I agree that kids should encouraged to act their age, but I think that as society advances, these norms will obviously shift and look different than they did for past generations. It is difficult to navigate the sudden increased exposure to technology that will inevitably occur at a young age. For past generations, there was no technology to be exposed to as there is now, so it is more important to teach kids how to be safe on the internet rather than try to get them to stay off the internet. In terms of gender norms, the parenting mentioned in the article is on the extreme end and parents could introduce small things outside of the gender norms such as allowing boys to play with dolls and girls to play with toy cars and allow them to explore their gender on their own.
While I agree that in some aspects kids should be protected by their parents and encouraged to act their age, I think this is difficult to navigate with the obvious increased exposure to technology that will be inevitable at a young age. When past generations were young they did not even have a choice to be shielded from the internet because there was no internet. At this point it is highly improbable that parents will be able to keep their kids off the internet and should instead focus on how to keep them safe on the internet. In terms of teaching them gender norms, I think the parenting method that you have mentioned is on the extreme end but it is important that parents allow their children to be exposed to things outside of the gender norms such as letting boys wear pink or letting girls play sports.
The average age for marriage and the average age for someone to have their first child has been climbing for roughly the past 130 years. I think kids now are given a lot more time than the in the past to decide what they want to do with their lives. In terms of gender, which it seems you are really trying to get at here; I have definitely seen some parents pushing to far to make their kids break gender norms and roles. But this scenario is not as common as you make it out to be and certainly does not define the generation. When everyone says that gender is social construct, what that generally means in terms of child rearing is that they will let their girls play baseball and their boys join ballet if they want to. You are looking at very extreme examples of what may be a new type of parenting.
Personally, I share Kanye’s view on this issue. Kids these days are simply no longer given the option of being children, staying innocent and pure, because if they do that then they, along with their family, will be labeled discriminatory against something. Adults have the cognitive development to make somewhat sound decisions on what they believe and how to act, but children dont. They dont have the cognitive development nor do they have the objective resources to make these decisions and form these beliefs that adults do.