The greatest misconception in modern parenting is that influence happens during the big moments. Influence is far less theatrical than that. It happens on an ordinary Tuesday when dinner is late, someone spills the juice, the Wi-Fi stops working, and the adults decide what kind of people they will be for the next ten minutes, says the writer.
EVERY generation of parents seems convinced that they are raising children in the most difficult era imaginable.
We worry about social media algorithms, cyberbullying, artificial intelligence, stranger danger, processed food, unrealistic beauty standards, and the psychological impact of screens. Parenting has become an Olympic sport of anticipation. We spend so much time trying to protect our children from the world that we rarely stop to ask a more uncomfortable question: What are they learning from us?
It is one of parenting’s quieter ironies. We agonise over who our children follow online while forgetting they have been studying us long before they could read.
Children are exceptional anthropologists. They observe first and conclude later. They notice which phone calls make us smile and which ones make us sigh. They notice whether kindness extends only to people who can return the favour. They notice whether success is celebrated with gratitude or entitlement. They notice every eye roll, every interruption, every excuse, every broken promise we assumed had gone unnoticed.
