When Did Parents Become Pansies?

I don’t know what made me think of this but all day I was wondering “when did parents become pansies?”.  By this I mean, when did parenting become what it is today? Parents now worry about things unthinkable when we (parents born in the 70’s or before) were babies, toddlers and little kids. This is not to say that many of things we do as parents today are not beneficial to our kids health both mentally and physically but are we going over-board?

While raising us (I have 2 brothers) my parents:

• Had only 2 types of bottle nipples – beige for formula and blue for water
• Used a safety pin to poke holes into the blue water nipple to make it a formula nipple
• Maybe sterilized the bottles and nipples before they used them (for the 1st time only) with my older brother but most certainly did not with me and my younger brother
• Used a cold cloth to wipe our asses
• Smoked around us at all times
• Gave us regular baby food
• Did not play Beethoven to us while we were in the womb
• Did not surround us with black, red and white objects
• Did not have infant flash cards with funny shapes and designs
• Did not HAVE CAR SEATS (glad we have them now but it wasn’t a concern 25+ years ago)
• Let us roam around the back of the station wagon and hang out of the window as long as we didn’t bother them
• Whacked us (well the older brother and me… not such my younger brother) on the ass when we DESERVED it
• Put soap in our mouths when we spoke inappropriately and when I clinched my teeth shut my father used liquid dish soap
• Did not explain why they said no – NO JUST MEANT NO
• Let us play with toy guns
• Let us watch cartoons in which the cat hits the mouse on the head with a hammer or the roadrunner blows up the coyote (today’s cartoons do not hold a match to the old cartoons!)
• Instructed us to play baseball or football in the street
• Did not have a chart on the wall explaining the events of the day
• Told us to shut up when they were on the phone or talking to other adults
• Made us eat what they cooked  and if we didn’t like it, we didn’t eat
• Gave us white bread with PEANUT BUTTER on it (not knocking allergies as they are serious but these types of allergies were relatively non-existent when we were kids)
• Laughed when I got caught looking up my teacher’s skirt in the 1st grade
• Yelled at me all of the time
• Rubbed whiskey on our gums when we were teething
• Let us have a sip of beer
• Let us watch hours of television
• Told us to punch back harder if someone punched us

Now I  must admit that Carrie and I would not do some of the things listed above and we DID play Beethoven to Nicky while he was in the womb (1x only). Growing up I did not know one child with autism, a learning disability, a personality disorder or anything of the like. Again, I am not negating the seriousness of these issues, as they are real and horrible diseases/disorders to deal with (read my post “Fatherhood’s Perfect Dream and Nightmare“). Were these medical conditions just not diagnosed when we were kids or did they not exist? Are these problems created by the immunizations we let doctors give or kids, the sonograms women have while pregnant or the food we feed or children? I don’t have the answers but we all know that the amount of cases of these diseases/disorders in children is on the rise and we do not have an answer. This just made me think of the differences regarding how we parent our children and how our parents raised us. Just some food for thought!

How did I become a pansy? I don’t know!