What is an archaic (and thankfully dying) belief that I grew up with? I’m so glad you asked!

That just because someone is blood related to you, you must have associations with them.

What is another archaic (and thankfully dying) belief that I grew up with?

That just because someone is older than me, I need to show them unconditional respect.

To both of these I say – NOPE. Let’s unpack them, shall we?

I am very thankful to have had a mother who is independent and took steps to protect me from people whenever she was able. But having grown up in split households with blended families, she was not always able to shield me from everything. There were other adults around me who taught that the elders in my family must always be respected, no matter how wrong they were in any given situation. As the people in the family unit that were older than me, they were automatically assumed to be wiser. It did not matter the mistakes they had made. It did not matter their behavior. It did not matter how they treated others. And it most certainly did not matter how they treated me. I was to listen, be quiet, and obey. This was the reality in so many households across the many families I grew up alongside, and the punishments if children did not listen quietly and obey were also often similar. There was the threat of spankings, or a smack with a belt, or some other equally unpleasant and physically intimating consequence. And even if they didn’t actually occur, the stress of knowing they were possible was always there.

The problem is … the adults who taught me to hold this undying allegiance had learned these rules from the adults before them (and those before them…and before them…and before them). The cycle of trauma can quite literally be tracked backward to a time that we love to pretend is so far away, but is really just a few generations behind us. We act as though we have grown from the damage that our grandparents and great-grandparents experienced, when it is really living parasitic in the back of our brains. And why?

Because this type of trauma is no longer presenting itself as spankings and belt slaps. It is much more subtle today.

Punishment even just 40 years ago was what we’d consider today as actual abuse. Threats of physical harm. Actual physical harm. Psychological pressure. Emotional abandonment. Withholding food. Withholding freedom. Withholding love. A generation later we have improved, but only in the sense that physical harm became more visible and less acceptable socially. Over the last 20 years or so, more research has been published about the dangers of corporal punishment. Spanking became less common and parents became more aware of how to discipline their children without causing the irreparable damage they experienced in their own youth. But this shift came with its own consequences. Physical harm was no longer on the table (well…as much), which made room for a new type of discipline. We moved farther away from parenting via fear, and focused more on parental obligations. The problem is … this obligation was not to the family. It was to everyone else watching. My parents likely had to say goodbye to every elder family member before leaving a party because if they didn’t, they’d risk a swift slap. But a generation later, I had to do so because a strong sense of loyalty and unconditional respect for those family members was ingrained in me, whether I agreed with it or not.

Today, with the advancements made in child psychology and a better understanding of how these antiquated disciplinary methods do more harm than good, we have transformed the way we parent our children. In the generations before this one it was widely believed that kids did not have boundaries. They did not have “space bubbles.” They did not have bodily autonomy. They did not have a right to independent thought. Because being an adult meant being all-knowing, all-respected, and all-governing while being a child meant being ignorant, undeserving, and dismissible. It did not matter if an uncle made me feel uncomfortable or if I had a distaste for a particular family member. If I didn’t say goodbye with a hug and a kiss, I was a rude kid. And being a rude kid was a reflection of my parents, which was unacceptable. The comfort level of children took a backseat to the ego of the elders. And even more unfortunate than that? While the children in a family are taught to always respect the adults around them regardless of the conditions, those adults only respect the children under very specific, often unattainable ones. But thankfully, we’re seeing another shift.

The buzz term that has emerged in popular culture to describe the newest shift in disciplining children is “gentle parenting.” While those of an older generation see it as being “soft” and criticize its methods as being ineffective, you can read between the lines to see the benefits of the gentle parenting trend. The newest generation of parents has realized that it is not our job to create obedient, subservient, well-behaved children to keep society comfortable. It is our job to guide these little humans through the journey of growing up so they can exist as their own beings, adjusting to the society we live in but also knowing how to effectively challenge it when it’s needed. Our children’s stories are not our stories. They are not our projects to mold and turn into tiny versions of ourselves. They are individuals, and it is our job to show them the way of the world but also to let them exist in it how they choose to.

At the end of the day, I will not change my child to accommodate the world. I will instead make the world – her world, her environment – safe for her to grow into who she is meant to be. It is a conscious choice every single day to parent her in a way that encourages her growth, cultivates her kindness, and teaches her independence. Going forward, we parent with intention. And while we will certainly stumble along the way and fail in ways that make us feel like we’ve taken ten steps backward, we start again because we know it is how to best take care of our girl. Do not parent from fear. Parent from experience. Use your lessons, and do it differently.