Today Catherine Deveny’s Lunchbox/Soapbox address Pernickety Parents: Catherine Deveny embraces 70s parenting popped up in my newsfeed, via The Wheeler Centre. And yeah, I get it. It’s a humour piece, in which Deveny describes herself as practicing ‘detachment’ parenting and nostalgically recalls the often comically laid-back parenting style of yesteryear, specifically the 1970s.
But here’s the thing; Deveny doesn’t just highlight the inherent humour in politically correct language changes that have occurred in the last 40 years, or reminisce over the potentially dangerous activities that were supposedly common practice back then. She actively attacks contemporary parents as helicopter parents. You know, the kind that hover. It’s a common phrase that drives me fucking mental.
Here’s a quote, showing where Deveny crosses the line from satirising herself into attacking other parenting styles:
There has never been more time, energy and thought spent on the raising of babies, toddlers and children, and it’s detrimental, counterproductive and narcissistic. It’s suffocating our children and oppressing parents, particularly women. […] Attachment parenting is the epitome of this competitive parenting as an extreme sport. The parenting cult where you wear your baby everywhere, never let them cry and all sleep in a big bed together. It leads to dysfunctional co-dependence and is simply set up by needy parents to enable their own abandonment issues.
You know what? Fuck off. Fuck off Catherine Deveny, for writing a funny piece about the difference in generational parenting styles, and turning it into a sneak attack on those that don’t agree with you. And honestly, it’s not so much an attack on parents who do things differently than you do – as mothers are most often the primary caregivers, this is an attack on women who do things differently than you do. Because women don’t have enough shitty judgement calls heaped on them every day of their damn lives.
I’m sure your piece is supposed to be all ha-ha-ha-can’t-you-take-a-joke, but no, not this time. Because belittling women who try to balance their kids and relationships, and potentially study and working lives as well, is a cheap, easy shot. Attacking women who are doing the best they can, often under intense societal pressures to live up to certain standards of parenting behaviour, is fucking low. Your writing is funny. Your message is vicious – if I don’t like what you’re doing, I’m going to make judgement calls on you using psychological terminology like ‘co-dependence’ and ‘abandonment issues’ in a public forum. What a cool joke.
I hope you feel real good about yourself. Because this kind of article doesn’t let anybody who varies from your narrow worldview feel good about anything.
Reblogged this on Berlin Domestic and commented:
I have had a few issues with the things Catherine Deveny has said on twitter about her ‘detachment parenting’ and making HUUUUGE unhelpful and downright nasty judgments on parents – women – but this article articulates how I feel better than I could!
I hadn’t seen the original article until you blogged about this, but oh man oh man do I agree with you!! It’s no longer funny when you start making ridiculous, unfounded claims on the psychology of modern parenting. Where is the proof backing that up? Oh wait, there is none. She, just like many parents of her generation, just want to proove that they weren’t “wrong” in doing things the way they did.
And the “can’t you take a joke” line is the stupidest comeback. First, you make fun of someone by making mean jokes about them, and then you make fun of them AGAIN by saying they have no sense of humor. I can’t stand people who say that kind of thing!! Every joke has some truth in it.
That post made me so angry because of the pseudo-psychological buzzwords and um, complete lack of stats to back up Deveny’s thiiiiiiiin arguments. I mean, you can make a joke or you can have a go at a certain demographic (in Deveny’s case, anyone who does things differently). But trying to disguise one as the other is just lazy.
While my style of parenting is without doubt more towards the detachment parenting style of things I think it’s awful when any article goes as far as to tell parents they are pyscologically harming their children because of their parenting style when their parenting style doesn’t include emotionally or physically abusing them of course! Like you say, parents, and mums in particular, have enough pressure on them, that adding to the already strong questioning of oneself as a parent is just not neccessary. I have my way and it works for me and my son but I don’t expect all other parents to do the same and I won’t belittle the other parents for doing it differently either. Parenting is tough and we do what we can to ‘do the right thing’. We undoubtedly make mistakes but that is true of all of us detachment or attachment-parents et al!