What gentle parenting experts get wrong, and how they inadvertently shame mothers (paid subscriber bonus)

Why validating feelings isn't enough, and how parenting influencers fail to address the hardest aspects of parenting.

Kids need love, limits, and to feel safe. These are the key insights of gentle parenting—once known as authoritative parenting, and long practiced by many indigenous societies. I’ve argued before that feminist parenting must be gentle and nonviolent, and that this approach to parenting gives our daughters the best possible chance of avoiding abusive relationships.

But I’ve had it with online parenting advice that trivializes the challenges of motherhood, that treats every parenting problem as something that can easily be solved with the right script. I worry that parenting influences are actually pushing people away from gentle parenting, because when their overly simplistic recommendations inevitably fail, people think the problem is gentle parenting—not the refusal of “experts” to acknowledge the immense emotional control and patience gentle parenting requires.

And frankly, gentle parenting influencers consistently fail to address the hardest parts of parenting—the very moments when parents are most likely to lose control and spank, shame, or punish.

This morning, I checked on the BigLittleFeelings Instagram page, which is truly a worthy and helpful resource, but which like so many parenting pages, oversimplifies the hardest parts of parenting.

The page was discussing what to do when a toddler shows a preference for one parent.

The advice: “I hear you want Mommy to do bedtime. Tonight, it’s daddy’s turn to do bedtime. We switch off because we both love you so much. Tomorrow, it will be my turn again, and I can’t wait!”

This is a great script. But we all know what’s going to happen: The toddler is going to meltdown anyway, and there is going to be a fight.

Their advice? “Then, confidently and calmly hold that boundary.”

What in the flying fuck does that even mean?

It is the holding of the boundary—not the initial presentation of the boundary—that most people struggle with. But the page just glosses right over the hardest part, where the child freaks the hell out and the parents have to cope (sometimes for hours of tantrumming). I think this is because pages such as this one don’t want to acknowledge that “holding the boundary” inevitably requires a whole lot of force.