Why Millennial parents are the unsung heroes of coronavirus
For years, millennial parents have been bashed for creating anxious kids and labelled as toxic. And yet here we are, taking homeschooling and a pandemic in our stride, writes Darren Levin.
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Before the actual pandemic, there was a silent pandemic – and you were living through it without even knowing.
There was no toilet paper shortage with this pandemic. The pubs were still open, the footy still happened, and you weren’t homeschooling your kids. Although maybe you should’ve been.
It didn’t have a snappy scientific name or run rampant because someone tucked into a yummy pangolin sandwich. But it ripped through the populous with corona-like intensity. The victims this time weren’t the old and immunocompromised. They were children. The pandemic? Toxic parenting.
“The level of anxiety is something I’ve never seen before,” said author John Marsden, who first identified TOXPARENTING-19 as a teacher in a couple private schools.
To be clear, Marsden wasn’t working for the WHO at the time, he had just been gathering anecdotal evidence for his book The Art Of Growing Up, which documents all the fun ways in which we’re transferring our anxieties onto our kids.
My reaction was visceral. Are we really that bad?
The types of awful parents outlined in his book exist, but they seemed like the extreme versions of the people I used to make awkward small talk with at school drop-offs. (When school drop-offs were still legal, that is.)
Marsden’s book followed a largely unchallenged media narrative that blamed millennial parents – ie. those old enough to remember the sound of dial up internet but too young to remember affordable housing – for a generation of anxiety-ridden, unresilient kids. We hover too much. We overparent. We wait at a metaphorical concierge to solve all their problems for them. We’re too busy on Instagram to truly engage.
Despite evidence Aussie kids were overwhelmingly happy, the rising rates of childhood anxiety was the big stick the generation above was hitting us with. But the longitudinal data doesn’t stretch back very far and the rise may just be diagnostic. In other words: are kids truly more anxious or are we just better at identifying it? And if we are to accept the “alarming” rise in anxiety, are parents truly to blame?
Because if people like John Marsden and so-called experts can make assumptions on modern parenting based on what they observe anecdotally, I’m going to do the same.
According to my non expert opinion, we’re among the greatest parents in history.
Even before COVID, our kids were thriving against a challenging backdrop. The climate crisis; housing affordability; the erosion of work-life balance; dual income households; the gradual encroachment of technology on every facet of human life; millennial burnout; Stan, Disney+ or Netflix.
Parents during The Great Depression arguably had it more difficult, but they didn’t have to respond to 87 pressing emails before 9am or figure out what TikTok is. (Hint: It’s not a delicious iced biscuit.)
Now we’re being challenged by a once-in-a-century health and economic crisis. But contrary to claims we lack grit and resilience, we’re adapting to this weird new normal and insulating our kids from a pandemic that’s up-ended our lives in unimaginable ways.
I’ve been hearing so many accounts of parents crying in their cars, pivoting their careers so they can pay rent, and staying up until 3am to finish work so they can have a clear run at teaching a five-year-old how to read the next day.
We’re homeschooling our kids while simultaneously trying to work from home (for those of us lucky to) and boomers like Sam Newman are complaining about golf?
I’m not asking for kudos or a designated round of applause. But just as we’re pushing towards the end of this virus, maybe we can eradicate this fake toxic parenting pandemic as well?
Darren Levin is a columnist for RendezView.com.au