Mothers on social media are advocating a tough, no-nonsense approach to parenting. Does this teach children important lessons – or just make them feel isolated and ashamed?
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couple of weeks ago, a video posted on TikTok by Paige Carter, a mother in Florida, went viral. Carter explained that she had thrown her daughter’s iPad out of the window when she had been misbehaving on the way to school, and she films herself retrieving the tablet, now with a cracked screen. The video has been watched 4.9m times, and Carter was congratulated in the comments, with one person writing “Learning Fafo at an early age: top tier parenting.” Welcome to the parenting trend that doesn’t seem to be disappearing: “Fuck around and find out.”
In another video, when a small child announces he is going to leave home, his mother says “see ya”, shuts the front door behind him, and turns off the outside light – then opens the door to him screaming and pounding to be let back in (it has been liked 1.5m times). He had learned, said his mother, “the meaning of Fafo”.
Last summer, a piece in the Wall Street Journal heralded the rise of Fafo parenting and the end of “gentle parenting” – a trend that began about 10 years ago as a response to the more authoritarian “naughty step” parenting of the early 2000s, which has been blamed for everything from entitled young adults destined for disappointment by the cruel realities of life to societal collapse itself. Gentle parents reported being exhausted from taking the lead from their child, carefully explaining every decision, watching their every move and naming each emotion their child might be feeling, in a calm and tender way.
