The Parent Trap: Poll Finds Majority Believe Parenting is Harder Now Than A Generation Ago

A new YouGov poll has found 7 in 10 parents think it's harder to be a parent now than it was a generation ago. The survey, commissioned by UNICEF, found that the rising cost of living is the most common reason given, with over 80% agreeing, while 68% feel it's harder due to the lack of childcare. Three in five respondents cited concerns about their mental health, suggesting those on lower incomes are most likely to be affected. So what does this mean for the next generation and their future life chances? Joining me now is Sarah Ockwell-Smith, who is a mum of four and the author of 14 books about parenting, including her new one, Because I Said So, Why Society Is Childist, and How Breaking the Cycle of Discrimination Towards Children Can Change the World. Sarah, welcome. Good evening to you. Let's just start with the title of your book, Childist. Not childish, Childist. What does that mean? What's going on here? It's basically like sexism, ageism, racism, but for children. And I know you're probably thinking, gosh, what is she going on about? Children aren't discriminated against. But I guess everything we're about to talk about is proof that they are. In society today, that we may feel that they are spoiled, but they aren't treated very fairly. And although they should have the same rights as us, the same human rights as they don't, one example there would be the fact that if I came into the studio and hit you, I would be arrested for common assault, yet I'm allowed to hit my child and it's perfectly legal. But there is a hierarchy, right? I've got two kids. One is five, one is ten. I absolutely love them to bits. I miss them even sitting here now. But I mean, let's just face it, they're idiots as well, because they're kids. I mean, that's what kids are, right? They're a bit stupid. They're a bit daft. They're a bit silly. They've got no real rationale. They have no responsibilities. It's a bit of a good gig being a kid, really, isn't it? But, you know, idiocy is part of it, right? That's what being a kid is. Yeah, you know, I know a lot of adults are idiots as well, but, yeah... Oh, I know shedloads of them as well. But I mean, the idea that, you know, we don't in any way have a distinction between an adult and a kid, that's not right, is it? I don't know. I mean, it was illegal for me to hit a dog, so why can I not hit a child? You know, why is there that distinction that it's OK to hurt them because I'm an adult and I have power and control? It doesn't mean that we don't have discipline. It doesn't mean that I don't have boundaries and I don't say no. It just means, basically, treating a child with the same respect as an adult. Lots of us don't hit our kids, of course, and choose other forms. And most of it is about chastisement, I guess. Just in terms of this idea that it's harder today, is it? Yes. I mean, we live in an online digital world, almost. This is how I'm kind of seeing it slightly, Sarah. We're all members of 1,000 WhatsApp groups and parent groups and you're reading opinions on Twitter. And, you know, my mum's generation, they didn't have any of that. So they just got on with it. I'm sure they were like the cogwheels in the background, were, you know, giving them a hard time once in a while. But we live in a world where we question everything. We wonder about stuff more than we ever did. Whereas back in the day, in fact, not even that long ago, people just carried on and kept calm. Yeah, I mean, there's so many differences. Obviously, the biggest one is the cost of living crisis. As you said yourself, 78% of parents in this UNICEF poll said things are much harder today. We've just gone through a global pandemic. We didn't know how to do that in homeschool. We missed the support that we would have had in the first crucial three years. We now, you know, our NHS is crumbling, our schools are crumbling literally and figuratively. And then we have the fact that we are the very first generation tackling social media. We are the very first generation who are trying to work out how much time should I let my child have on their tablet that's educational versus too bad for them? How do I get my teenager to sleep when they're constantly pinging on Snapchat? We don't know how to do that because nobody has ever lived through that before. And as parents, the internet is a blessing and a curse. It can really help us. And it's good in a way that it connects us, which is really important because we are increasingly disconnected as parents, as families. We don't have that virtual tribe or village around us anymore. But on the flip side, what we know from certain social media sites with research in parenting is it makes parents incredibly anxious, incredibly worried. They feel like they need to be perfect because they're constantly comparing themselves to others. So it's very much a double edged sword. It's good and it's bad. But the key is we haven't got a clue because we have no generation to look to and say this was good, this was bad. Even things like vaping, you know, it's brand new. That's something else we've got to cope with on top of pandemics, global warming, NHS crisis, school crisis, cost of living crisis. It's really hard. My children are now young adults. My oldest is 21. So I'm kind of in the generation just gone. But the current generation, it's so very hard for them in so many ways. And yes, they have it maybe better than previous generations. You know, we've got antibiotics. We've got washing machines. We've got dishwashers. We don't have to go out in the garden and wash our clothes with a mangle. We're not trying to parent during the World War. Of course. So many ways. And economically, it is so difficult. And what we know when children work in poverty is that it literally changes the way that their brain wires. And we will be seeing repercussions from this for decades. Listen, Sarah. Terrifying. No, no, I get it. And a nice introduction of the word mangle as well. I think we should bring that thing back. Much, much missed, I'm sure. Sarah, thank you for your time. Let's bring Jack and Claire back in with us now. Both parents. And I just think there's a bombardment of info. And I think we're almost the we've almost designed our own downfall in this stress in some respects. Well, I think we have. And I think I disagree wholeheartedly with most of what Sarah actually said. I'm also a mother of four. And I felt that Sarah went. She skipped generations, back to generations. Instead of looking at the fact as a parent of a child or she's got four, I've got four, I know you've got two and you've also got two. It doesn't matter how many children you've got. It doesn't matter what time of life in this earth you're living on. The truth is that these children are completely and utterly dependent on you for a moral compass, for the natural law, for moral law and for legal law as well and telling them what's right and what's wrong. And they are mad as well, as I said. Yes, they are. And that goes with the territory of being a kid. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But in order to build the future, we need to build characters. And you can't be doing. And the easy way, I don't understand why Sarah, any mother would say, well, I don't know what to do with the Internet. I don't know how to police it. Take the iPad, take the phone off it. Because sure as eggs are eggs, as a parent, before they turn 18, you're paying for the phone. You're paying for the iPad. Therefore, it's your property. That is the. Take it away from them. I have to say, I mean, this is a more generalised, general point, I guess, Jack, about. And yours aren't up that stage yet. How are yours? Only four and two. Four and two, but not yet addicted to iPads. But the four year old will soon know how to work a screen. Oh, so you can already do that? Exactly. Nobody teaches you that stuff. Scroll, swipe. I didn't teach you that. She could unlock my phone and nobody showed her how to do it. Has she ordered anything on the Internet? She's probably doing it right now. Yeah. She should be sleeping, Jack. I think we hope so. I think it's just more complicated. I think there are, you know, there are things that come with all this new technology which make life a lot easier for people than they were in previous generations. I mean, you don't need to go back to a mangle to see that. You know, the fact that your kids can watch TV for half an hour can be an absolute blessing if you've got lots of children and you can't deal with all the other things you've got to do at the same time. And that's not something every generation has had. There's lots and lots of other things that help us. You can go on the Internet to search for information when you need it. Other generations didn't have that. I don't think anyone's saying the Internet's a bad thing. Well, some people definitely are. But I think, equally, there are obviously, that as my kids get older, it's going to be this whole new challenge for me to dealing with how they interact with that. And I can see how that is something that obviously... Do you know the other thing as well that I think is... I mentioned it to Sarah there, the whole WhatsApp group thing. Yeah. The parental ones. The parent... Right, yeah. So there's all of that going on. But there was never... At the school gates, there's now a whole social scene around classrooms. It was never there before. It never existed. Now, I mean, I live in Flipping Sevenoaks, for goodness' sake. You know, the WhatsApp groups are about how to boil a kumquat. You know, it's that kind of, you know, how do I... Or what's the best way to sieve couscous? Wait, where is your avocados sold out from? You can get them here. It is... But the point is, is that everybody's comparing each other. Oh, you know, is your kid doing this? Are they doing that? Are they part of this group? Are they joining this club? Like, is Miranda doing horse riding this afternoon? I don't care whether she's doing horse riding. So everybody's got this clotted mind of nonsense, this competitiveness, whether they admit to it or not, which I also think compounds this idea that we're more stressed about it all. Well, I left most of the WhatsApp groups that were started for my kids... Good for you as well. ..because I just couldn't stand it. I just could not stand it. And when it got to the point where they were talking out of an orifice that could only have been used in something, like it should have been mangled, I thought, well, no, I'm not happy about this. If that is a reflection of what your child is like, then I'm sorry they ain't coming to my house either. But going back to the use of mangles and stuff like that, my gran's generation in Glasgow, she was born and brought up in Clydebank, and my grandpa worked for the shipyards and also Singer Sewing Machines. Remember them? So they went to the steaming... Well, my gran used to go to a place called The Steamy to wash all the clothes, and that was almost like a form of therapy. They knew every single character that was there. They knew what, as Billy Connolly said, we had about 50 mums growing up in Partick and Govan, because every mother took the responsibility of the child. That's what a WhatsApp group should look like. Yeah, well, yeah, it should be robust. It should be real people, and it should be people there to help support and underpin. Because parenting's tough, regardless of the generation. I don't think it's tougher now than it was in the past. Whatever conclusions we draw, there's a Dragon's Den appearance for the mangle that's got to happen. Oh, you do it, Ian. You do it. Peter Jones would throw good money at that, I can see it. I quite like washing machines, honestly. Oh, Jack, you would. The therapy in the mangle, Jack. Come on. It's kind of really useful. All right. Pop it in there.