Trying to be a 'Today-Mom'?

Raising the next generation with the mindset of your own experiences growing up might seem futile, but lately, I’ve realized it could actually be their only saving grace. Yes, your kids will roll their eyes and say you're old-fashioned. They'll insist your methods are outdated, and you'll hear the classic: “Mom, you just don’t get it! You never had my problems!” Sound familiar?

Here’s my theory: You cannot walk forward on a path if the road behind you hasn’t yet been paved. No one just appears in the middle of the road without someone before them laying the foundation. We, as parents, our parents, their parents, and generations before, all walked miles and miles to create the very road our children are born onto. It’s the same road they will now have to travel.

I’m not saying it’s a straight road. I’m not claiming every generation marches in a perfectly linear direction. There are twists, crossroads, detours, even complete turnarounds, but the road remains connected, always.

So, here’s a question: if you choose to raise your children while discarding all the tested, practiced, sometimes frustrating methods passed down by your own parents, are you not essentially a child raising a child?

Let’s unpack that.

First, consider knowledge and experience. You can’t possibly have experience in navigating this new generation’s challenges, because that generation was born the day your child was born. That means your knowledge of their world is the exact same age as your child. How can a 15-year-old teach another 15-year-old how to do life?

Now let’s add science to the mix. The prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for planning, reasoning, impulse control, and emotional regulation, only fully matures around age 25. Sounds like a great reason for a mature adult to guide their child through this messy, modern world, right? Wrong. Because while the mature brain might be present, those specific skills only come from practice. That means you had to face those challenges while your brain was developing, back when you were 15. And your challenges were not the same as your child’s today.

So, if you toss aside your generation’s “experience and knowledge” to become a ‘hip and happening’ today-mom, then you’ve essentially reduced yourself to your child’s level of inexperience. In that case, what exactly are you offering them that they don’t already have?

I see it happening all around me. Parents being bullied by their children. Moms in tears because their kids show no respect. Not for them, not for their teachers, not for their grandparents or any other figure of authority. Children dictating the rules instead of being guided by them. Laws are shifting too, actively discouraging time-tested parenting and educational approaches and replacing them with unproven alternatives. And the people who are expected to implement these new-age methods? Most often, they don’t have the life experience to apply them wisely.

Let’s put this into perspective: imagine your 15-year-old being the mother of another 15-year-old. What would their room look like? How much homework will actually get done? How vulnerable would they be to social media, screen time, peer pressure? Speaking as the mom of a 15-year-old daughter, this thought makes me cringe.

So, stop trying to be a ‘today-mom’. Go back to your roots. Adjust your methods, sure, but don’t throw away what you were taught by your parents and teachers. Some of it frustrated you. Some of it stretched you. But would you be who you are today without it? You can’t say yes, because you simply don’t know.

Wouldn’t you rather guide your child using methods with known outcomes, than turn them into guinea pigs for untested theories?

I get it, it’s easier said than done. Our country’s laws increasingly tie our hands, restricting us from using historically proven parenting and disciplinary methods, methods that, if used today, might even land you on the wrong side of the law.

Some argue these laws are meant to protect children. I believe they were created to try and stop the truly abusive, destructive parents out there, the ones who will continue their chaos regardless of law or logic. But the abuse statistics haven’t gone down. In fact, based on my research, they’ve gone up. Maybe it’s because we now have 15-year-old adults trying to raise 15-year-old children?

So what can we do?

We may not be able to parent exactly the way we were parented—but we don’t need to throw out the entire history book either. Don’t fool yourself into thinking you fully understand what your child is going through today. But do guide them, with confidence, by reflecting on your own journey.

Tell them how you had to walk kilometers in the rain and snow just to get to school. Teach them how to problem-solve without turning to YouTube. Show them how to play with clay, mud, bricks and bugs. Explain how friendships were made by simply walking up to someone and saying, “Hi”, and show them how to do it.

Good luck out there, fellow parents.

May the force be with you.