Sometimes we criticize our parents about how they live, but we don’t really know how they lived and what was happening in their life and society.
It’s important for us to learn about history so we can also understand how what came to pass affected our families, and in the same vein, can allow us to better understand ourselves, and our children.
I felt that there aren’t many people in the world who have a deep understanding of the psychological impact of world events on the family, so I’ve created a brief breakdown of this by decade, so we can have a better understanding of our families and ourselves!
Parenting in the 1940s
With most adult men leaving the US to fight Hitler in Europe, women were given more freedom, and society began requiring them to join the workforce.
Children had more freedom as well, since usually when they got home from school, their mothers were still hard at work.
This created a generation of people who were more self-reliant and independent, but less expressive because they didn’t have parents around too often to help them with their needs.
TVs hadn’t been created yet, and there wasn’t much extra cash going around as the entire country had to come together to support the war effort overseas, so children probably played with sticks, balls, and whatever else they could find outside.
Parenting in the 1950s
The war has created a generation of lost men, who have gone through horrible, unspeakable things, and this comes across in their stoic personalities and poor parenting skills.
Some men went back to War in Korea in the 1950s, leaving some families with a father figure still not in the picture.
Fathers who were back treated their children like little soldiers, and expected them to do everything their father tells them.
Mothers were not really allowed to take an active role because “Father knows best.”
Families would spend the evenings listening to the radio until TV came out in the late 1950s, and during that time, there were only 3 channels in black and white, so there was nothing fun to watch.
Parenting in the 1960s
As the Vietnam War came to pass, the 1960s became a time of division and expression.
You were either for or against the war, and there were bitter divisions.
Protests rocked the nation, and this split families in half.
As people became conscripted in the American Army, once again we found families being torn apart.
Young people were extremely opposed to war, and so we saw the Flower Children arise.
Parents wanted their children to obey the government and the laws, but they became increasingly opposed to this, so family’s tried to continue controlling their children, and failed.
Parenting in the 1970s
During the Vietnam war, and even after it, we see young people continuing to rebel against their parents.
There was a high increase in drug use, free love, and other ways people expressed themselves that was not seen before in the USA.
Parents had essentially little to no control over their children, who were now trying to figure their lives out for themselves.
The family unit broke down, and people didn’t know how to fix it.
Parenting in the 1980s
As the hippie and free love movement came to a close, families started reconnecting with each other, and children began to adhere to their families wishes again.
The family unit was slowly becoming closer, and parenting styles were becoming more authoritative because they knew their kids didn’t want to be controlled, so they had to give them some freedom to grow within a structured environment.
Parenting in the 1990s
The 1990s were a great time for America. Bill Clinton became President, and he significantly improved the economy, which allowed families to prosper.
This allowed families to buy things like computers and video game consoles.
These brought families closer together, and they spent more time together learning how to use these things and entertain themselves with them.
Parents started talking more about their feelings with their children, and getting their children to share back.
Families started looking like what they should be.
Parenting in the 2000s
With the advent of better technology, more computers, tablets, and now smartphones, people have become more used to technology in their life.
Parents these days find that their babies are coming out of the womb with smartphones and tablets attached to them.
This increase in technology has changed the way families communicate.
Whereas before, most communication was done face to face, it’s now done through texting, Facebook, and Skype.
Families are not as physically close as before, but they are emotionally closer as families grow up together.
As society has changed over the last 100 years, the way we grow, learn, play, and interact with our families has been transformed. I’d like to consider that technology is bringing us closer, not ripping us apart.