3 Big Ways Millennial Parents Are Raising Their Children Differently

No one goes into parenting planning to mess up their kid. We all love our children and have the best of intentions when it comes to raising them. But the criteria used for determining whether someone is parenting well shifts from one generation to the next, as well as between cultures.

Millennial parents, generally considered those who are currently 28-43 years old, tend toward a parenting style that draws on the past but is uniquely their own. Their ideas about what good parenting looks like, their attitudes about mental health and their access to information are all very different from those of generations past.

A poll of 1,000 millennial parents conducted by Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago found that 88% feel that their parenting style is different from the way they were raised, and 73% believe they are doing a better job than their own parents did.

Part of this can be attributed to our human tendency to think that newer is better, and the ideas that are currently popular are superior to those of the past. Another factor to consider is that it’s only relatively recently — and in limited parts of the world — that parents have the luxury of weighing their parenting styles and the impact these may have on their children. In previous generations, and in other parts of the world (as well as in the lower economic strata of our own society), the focus was on survival. You don’t have time to consider how to help your kids thrive when their access to food or shelter is uncertain.

“For my grandparents, who were Depression babies, their focus was strongly on earning enough money to literally keep everyone fed and clothed and housed,” Kristene Geering, a parenting coach in California, told HuffPost. She continued, “For