Today I am taking you on my thought process journey around the foundations of parenting. Because let me tell you, I am learning, just like you. Okay, so in starting with the beginning of anything, we must start with the groundwork of it all.
So I started asking myself, what is the foundation of parenting? And I guess when I started this I wanted to find concrete answers, concrete studies to pop up in a Google search, but that isn’t the case. The first thing I saw were mainly bloggers and then some faith-based articles. It took me a while to really find parenting accounts that come with research and share the same values I have. Before I get to my foundations of parenting, I want to share some of the philosophies I found during this research time. I will also do a small breakdown of some of the polls I put out on instagram.
I even got to ask my mom a few questions about her parenting style choices. Before she shared with me, my own ideas were that it was definitely faith-based, because we heard it everyday at home and our parents sent us to Catholic school our whole life. But if I get into that now, we could be here for the whole day.
So anyways, when most new moms get pregnant I feel that we deep dive about “What to Expect” or how to take care of a baby. It seems like we go straight into how we physically provide for our kids right away. I saw my daughter’s first year coming to an end, and up to that point I was focused on pumping, her schedule, and which foods to introduce to her. I found it fun to research and read about her physical development and how to support that growth. So now that these milestones were coming to a transition, I needed something new to look up. I kinda asked myself a series of questions, really like how I put out the polls, those are real questions I am asking myself. And I think, if I am asking myself this, there must be other moms or parents asking themselves these questions as well. Let me see what they think.
So, especially as a new parent, I look to people who are other experts in dentistry, family therapy, or car seat safety to get the info I need to keep my daughter safe and healthy. Anyhow, so I put out the polls because if there are parents that have been out there in the game longer than me, then they can help get these questions answered.
And the cool thing was to see that people were thinking about the foundation of their parenting. And it was also great to see parents be honest with themselves and say that they haven’t thought about their parenting foundation – but you know what, I bet they have. Because our surroundings influence us, our parents influence us, our values influence us. Therefore, they can decide to pass it all down with or without consciousness because it’s just what we know, ya know?
I hope that if you are reading this today, you understand that there is no binary in this thought process – no set boundary of what is right or wrong. I, too, am in constant reflection because I constantly fuck up.
Findings
Alright, so what did I learn from this? There actually is a theory on four different parenting styles. These parenting styles were developed by Diana Baumrind, a developmental psychologist from UC Berkeley during the 1960s. She developed 3 styles of parenting, and then these two other psychologists, Maccoby & Martin built on her theory by splitting the three into four.
Real quick Diana Baumrind conducted a series of studies that looked at people’s approach to parenting based on the expectations they set on their child. It also takes into account how they respond to their child’s needs. So here are the four styles of parenting with a small explanation of which each of them mean.
- Authoritarian Parenting Style: Authoritarian parenting is a strict style in which parents set rigid rules and high expectations for their children but don’t allow them to make decisions for themselves. When rules are broken, punishments are swift and severe. This can feel like the parent doesn’t trust their student to make the right choice.
- Authoritative Parenting Style: Authoritative parents provide their children with boundaries and guidance, but give their children more freedom to make decisions and learn from their mistakes. Alright so out of the 4 styles, this is supposed to be the ideal way of parenting. Parents who use this style give their children safe boundaries and are super responsive to their needs.
- Permissive Parenting Style: Permissive parents give their kids very few limits and have more of a peer relationship than a traditional parent-child dynamic. They’re usually super-responsive to their kids’ needs (think helicopter parent) and give in to their children’s wants. So this style of parenting meets all the kids needs with little to no boundaries. Parents who use this method of parenting they see themselves as the child’s friend not their parent.
- Neglectful Parenting Style: A style added later by researchers Eleanor Maccoby and John Martin, neglectful parents don’t interact much with their kids, placing no limits on their behavior but also failing to meet their children’s needs. So this is the last one and the one that was added by Eleanor Maccoby and John Martin in the 1980s. In this style of parenting, the parents do not respond to their child’s needs or set any boundaries. This is also important to note that this style of parenting can become extremely dangerous to the well-being of the children involved.
Like I said earlier, these are considered the four main foundational parenting styles: authoritarian, authoritative, permissive, and neglectful. The study goes further as to say how each style of parenting can affect the child’s life. Here is an article that also has infographics if you are a visual learner like me. The Bump.
So, after I read about the 4 parenting methods, I decided to poll instagram. When I polled instagram I asked things like Have you thought about the foundations of parenting? I also polled authoritative vs. authoritarian, and I polled permissive, as indulgent vs. uninvolved for neglect. It was super cool to see that 100% of you, RadParents, definitely strive to parent in an authoritative way. The common goal is that we all want to practice the best parenting style and how we then move it forward and make it unique to our experiences is the beauty of this process.
Alright, so then I looked at those poll results and started thinking about some of the other philosophies on parenting I have seen mainly on instagram. It took me a minute to find these super amazing parenting latinx accounts because I was quite frankly a little lazy and my algorithm was more focused on visual arts. I digress.
Some of these theories I had seen previously in my professional development in youth work. We support youth by building their Social Emotional Intelligence, nonviolent communication and for us as adults to be trauma-informed when supporting our young ones. These are practices I 100% believe in. So it is definitely something we will be establishing in our home.
Alright so going back to the polls. I started thinking, how do we put these VERY general styles into practice?
When I became pregnant, I knew that I was going to take a feminist approach, DONE. Boy or girl my motherhood was going to be rooted in feminism. To me that was easy because how I was raised, who I surround myself with and the professional work I do. But when the resurgence of Black Lives Matter came to the forefront of our national society, driven by the murder of George Floyd, I had to reflect if my feminism was truly anti-racist. This term anti-racism doesn’t hurt or anger me, rather it makes me more reflective of how I am living and how I hold people accountable around us. Like, if someone is saying a slur that has been practiced in our culture, supposedly it’s okay because that race isn’t around or they have been saying it for years and no one has said anything to them.
Alright, so I asked on instagram if any of the parents’ foundations were rooted in anti-racism, feminism, SEL, if they are faith-based, if politics are important to bring up in your home, or if they feel that they still need to learn. So 24% of parents who took the polls shared that they still need to learn how to grow in their anti-racism, feminism and social-emotional encouragement. With that I really hope this space cab be a resource to you all and bring tips to build into your parenting style. I will touch on those topics in episodes to come. My passion is to learn and share my findings with others. And the really awesome part was that politics was 100% important to all the parents that participated. I loved to see that. I firmly believe we need to talk about politics in the home. Home is a safe space to learn new ideas and to express values together. This builds confidence in their ability to have challenging conversations as they grow up. And that goes with all things of interest.
Okay, so all that said, although I appreciate the work of Diana Baumrind, it is still very general. In her studies she goes further talking about how different socio-economic status can shift the paradigm of how parents will react. She goes on to say that upper class parents are less likely to be authoritarian, and lower class parents lean more into that style of parenting. It’s too general. These vague concepts are so open to interpretation because it does not take into account the varying cultures that have different values, so that scale of neglect and indulgence will very well look different.
I believe it is very important to expand it.
Final Collection
In my final collection of thoughts, if I had to self-assess, then I might say that my parenting style is authoritative in regards to Baumrind. But I prefer to say that my foundation is in feminism, anti-racism, social-emotional development and nonviolent communication. What does that look like?
It is making sure that I am not restricting experiences or interests to my child based on their gender identity or sexual orientation. And that their being is not a limitation, they live in a safe environment to express themselves, and teach them to have healthy relationships with kids of different cultures and ethnicities. When they see a peer being bullied for the way they look, that they can come to their defense and stand up for them.
I think the hardest right now to practice is the social emotional development for a 1 year old. Like I have to remind myself that I am learning HOW to understand vs. listen because through observations I can really understand her needs/wants.. If you have been seeing my posts lately about Ro’s emotional outbursts, I have shared moments where I am stepping back to let her work it out. This all really started from her starting to hit us in the face in November. I first tried to tell her to no or stop, but that didn’t work. She would either hit again or tell us to stop. My sister advised us to pretend to cry as suggested by her daughter’s doctor when she was little. Ro just laughed in our faces and I felt very defeated. Like straight up insulted. For a while we were practicing to grab her hand and again tell her to stop. And honestly I just felt like I was getting aggressive, mainly because I was frustrated and not in control. It came to a point where I almost wanted to hit her. I was embarrassed.
My whole vibe was wrong.
Much to my surprise when I was watching her walk up to my plants, and I reminded her to be gentle with the plants and to pet/caress them by saying nice-nice. So we did it with our faces and it worked. But these last few days it didn’t work and I had to lay her on the floor so she understood we can’t be in arms if we are not being gentle. She understands the consequence and throws herself back or bangs her head on the floor. This sunday I laid her down on her back and turned off our music. She cried for a bit and I told my alexa device to play calming piano music for 5 minutes. I turned off the light and stepped into the doorway to give her space and comfort by being close enough. There was no yelling that day, and I feel proud. So I hope this continues to work.
bell hooks writes in All About Love, “Since the vast majority of us were raised in households where punishment was deemed the primary, if not the only, way to teach discipline, the fact that discipline can be taught without punishment surprises many people.”
With that, I want to thank you all for tuning in and wanting to take this journey with me of mothering into action. Every Monday I drop a rad momma to celebrate on instagram, so please go nominate your favorite badass momma on my insta @radical_momma or on twitter @radical_momma_.
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