Of all the social experiments unleashed by the baby-boom generation, the parenting revolution may hold the highest personal stakes. They rejected the strictness of their own parents for a more chummy, involved style. But what have been the consequences?
When Toronto art student Lea Acemyan, 22, was growing up, her mom was her best friend — a hip, single fashion designer. There were few rules and many privileges, such as horseback riding in Caledon. But that didn't ward off the spectre of teenage rebellion.
Ms. Acemyan says she started acting out at 14, when she moved to a new school.
“Every teenager goes through it,” she says of her one-year run of hanging out with an older crowd to skip class, drink and party. “I'd end up lying to her. There was definitely a big change in one year.”
Brian Gable/The Globe and Mail
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No wonder boomer parents — especially the ones born in the bulge years of 1957 to 1962, who have tweens and teens now — are scrambling to get a grip on their parenting style. Being laid-back is one thing, but many kids will tell you that they have enough friends their own age.
Sid, 15, is glad her parents respect those limits. “I think they're not bad,” says the gently punkish teen, with her pierced nose and tongue. “A little nerdy. They're not ‘cool' — they're interesting.”
Among adults, her dad, 56, and mom, 49, both architects, might be the coolest ones at the dinner party. But with their daughter they're content to maintain a little distance.
Her dad, Scott, admits that while he and his wife deal with Sid on a very adult plane, there's an irresistible downward pull. “The big selfish payoff in parenting is the absolute joy of returning to childhood.” But as Sid grew, Scott says, he and wife Sandy realized they had to adjust.
Sid's dad will take her to concerts of uber-hip bands like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, but he's smart enough to stand at the back and let her hang with her friends. She doesn't have a curfew, but she's pledged total honesty — even if she's itching to do something they disapprove of, like get a piercing.
“ The Gilmore Girls is fictional,” Sid says. “I wouldn't want to be friends with my parents.”
Graphic designer Chris Oliver, a boomer born in 1959, is negotiating the same territory with younger kids.
He calls himself “much more of a pal” to his kids than his parents ever were. And his kids call him a “fun dad.” Still, he has noticed the negative effects of that buddy-buddy relationship, especially with the extracurricular hyperscheduling that often accompanies it.
“We're so involved in our kids' lives, sometimes we don't let it happen organically,” he says. “Part of that is the new world in which you can't let your kid walk to the corner store. But in some ways I think we've created the monster on our own, because we were so intent on being part of their lives that they're not good at self-starting.”
In a restaurant with his 10-year-old daughter Elodie, he says she won't be able to ask the waiter for what she wants. She wants her dad to do the talking.
And his son Justin, 12, admits, “I'm not very good with choices or weighing pros and cons.”
It's not all bad news, though. According to a recent poll by The Globe and Mail and Strategic Counsel, 80 per cent of the Echo Generation (18 to 29) describes their baby-boomer folks as “great parents,” almost 10 per cent more than the previous generation. Still, many boomer parents are examining their reflex instincts.
“My concern is that we really wanted to change parenting, but we've gone too far in the opposite direction,” says Vancouver-based parenting expert and author Kathy Lynn, the mother of two thirtysomethings. “Kids are over-protected, over-parented and over-supervised.”
Ms. Lynn, who was born in 1946, has worked as both a social worker and educator, and written two bestselling parenting books, 2003's Who's In Charge Anyway? and last year's But Nobody Told Me I'd Ever Have to Leave Home.
She says, “You have to let them be their own generation.”
Toronto mom Andrea Robertson says she has made a conscious decision to add a little old-school parenting to her relationship with her kids, 14 and 18. “It's really fun to be called a cool mom, but if you're doing your job, you can only be cool until your kids are about 13,” says Ms. Robertson, who is in her early 50s. “That's when you have to start being uncool.
“I'm happy to say in the eyes of my 14-year-old and some of her friends, I'm no longer cool.”
Her daughter still may be programming her mom's iPod, but it doesn't mean that they get to share all the same behaviours. And getting tougher may be the only way to prepare children for life outside the nest.
“The world isn't necessarily fair, so we're setting them up for a world that doesn't really exist,” Ms. Robertson says. “Everybody doesn't win like in preschool.”
While Ms. Acemyan says her mom is still her best pal, the year of rebellion forced them to take on a few traditional mother-daughter roles. She was pulled out of that school, and was grounded a lot. “I had to gain her trust. I got a part-time job. As long as I told her where I was going, it was okay. I grew out of it. And she knows that she needs to be a parent.”
Ms. Robertson agrees. She says she grew up rebelling against authority, but now has to answer the question “Why?” all the time. “My mother used to say, ‘Because I said so.' We don't want to sound like what we've always resisted. But it takes a lot of time.”
As Kathy Lynn puts it, “Sometimes ‘because I said so' is the right answer.”
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