"Shut up and take your Youtube Kids" approach is very popular nowadays. BTW parents in all times did something stupid instead of considering their 0-3 y.o. baby as learn-able person who can do some successes in music, reading, arithmetic, physical culture and anything not stupid.

So, thinking that in previous times parenting was awesome and now it is lame is wrong.

While this is true on many levels, one might also forget why it does happen:

- parents living away from grandparents, so the family hasn't support (babysitting isn't affordable by everyone, plus everyone can't be trusted nowadays)

- absorbing jobs, no real work-life balance

- the need of parents to dedicate time to themselves and lack of it because of the preceding points

This says more about parents anxieties about the world than anything about raising babies. And what’s going to mess up kids more than any electronic gizmo? Parental anxiety.

back in my day it was prevalence of TV. Before that it was cinema. Before that... and it goes all the way to Plato who lamented the tempores and mores.

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