In reply to, "What Was Your Parenting Style"
My parenting "style" has been/was (my kids are grown now) not to think in terms of "parenting" at all. From the time they were infants, I thought in terms of building and treasuring my relationship with these separate little individuals who so trusted me (and as they grew beyond infancy, so loved and admired me). I just loved being with them, aimed to keep them feeling happy and secure in that first couple of years, and by the time they were three (the year when little kids seem most "in love with" the special adults in their life), there was a great, great, relationship. Because they were happy and secure (and three), they were interested in learning how things are done in this world; so I capitalized on that interest and made sure I shared with them everything I could about how things are done (from how "we" behave in restaurants to how "we" set the table to how "we" need not to be jumping when we go to visit Grandma in her second-floor apartment).
By the time they were four (an age when they start to want to expand their world beyond home and family), they were happy, good, little kids who pretty much knew how to behave and had little reason to do things to get attention from us or else to act out because they had unmet emotional needs.
From four on, I just had a few basic, reasonable, and not-to-broken rules; and they knew what they were. Once they were "real" school age, if they messed up I often let natural consequences be the result; or I'd let them know that even if there would be consequences of some kind (it was never hitting or yelling - ever), I understood (and wanted them to understand, too) that all kids mess up (and even if what they did wasn't OK, it was something they did because they were kids; and even though they weren't to do it again, we were all going to move on).
If you meet all their emotional and physical needs when they're in their first three years, they turn into preschoolers/grammar-school kids who are pretty well behaved and pretty reasonable. When they do something wrong then, it can be dealt with in reasoned/reasonable/civil ways.
Basically, I found that since I aimed to make them feel secure and happy in those first two years, they turned out secure and happy by three; after that, we could get into teaching them about their own "end of the bargain" when it came to their relationship with me, or their learning how to "be a good friend" to playmates. By school age, you send into school a "finished person" (although not a mature one, by any means), and you take it from there and deal with things as they come along. smile
I think, too often, people start introducing "parenting concepts" too soon, and long before their child, or relationship with him, has reached a stage when those "concepts" are appropriate. As a result, they muddy up the natural bonding (and maybe even development) process that's supposed to to take place in the first few years.
Common sense, love, and respect for the baby are all parents need in that first two years. Once they're two (or close to it) parents need the same things, but they need to also add patience and understanding that two is a difficult time for a child.
In reply to "When to Start Having Children"
Obstetrically, 24 is said to be a good age. Generally speaking, I'd say mid-20's to early 30's. People aren't really finished maturing until then (the skeleton and brain are just finishing up maturing), but waiting until 35 can mean running into increased risk of fertility problems or other problems.
Speaking only from personal preference, I think late twenties to very early thirties is ideal. Besides believing the more mature someone is before starting a family, the better; I think it's nice for women (and men) to be able to spend most of their twenties as young adults who don't yet have the responsibilities and worries of being a parent. It gives time for a little extra education and career building (or just for living as a young, childless, adult).
On the other end of things, I have found that I think having my children in my late twenties, with the youngest (third) at born when I was 32; I've gotten to feel younger that much longer. I'm just going through the emptying of the nest now, and I still have lots of time to "just be me" before becoming a grandmother (if I'm going to be one).
To address the myth that mothers who have their children just that much later don't have energy: I have far more energy now than I did either before I had kids. I really think some people who feel tired past 40 are tired because of their lifestyle (or something else). OR, maybe when someone is 44 and has a 24-year-old they just feel older and more tired than someone who is 50 and still has a son or daughter still in college - I don't know....
In reply to a question that just invited people to remark on parenting in general:
As the mom of three (now grown) kids, with one adopted from infancy and two that I had myself, I'd disagree that the baby is a "an internal part of" his mother. Babies and children are very much separate little human beings. I joke that nothing made that clearer than when I was expecting my daughter and would try to sleep, while she apparently "decided" to start her day of kicking and moving around. smile Besides, knowing the bond I have with my son (the adopted one) and the very same bond I have with his brother and sister, it's very clear to me that babies aren't part of the mother who carried them. They have their own set of genetics, minds, blood type, etc. etc.
Having said all that, though, there's no doubt that the bond that should form between mothers and their children is unique and amazingly powerful.
If fathers have "labor pains" or morning sickness - I'm sorry - they need to either get a grip or else get a counselor. There's something "off" about that! lol Seriously.. Guys may may do that, but I think there's something "off" about one who does.
As far as the OP's question, goes - I don't necessarily think parents always doing a worse job of being parents than previous generations were. I think things we see that aren't all that great in children and teens is more a matter of the pendulum swinging to far, and maybe a lot of today's parents don't have the sureness or the back-up from society to keep that pendulum from swinging too far (so things have gotten out of hand in a lot of ways). Still, there were a lot, a lot, of ignorant parents in previous generations.
One reason that pendulum swung so far is that a lot of people of my generation and the next one came along and said, "I'm not going to do the stuff my parents did." So, they went a little too far in the other direction. Not all parents of earlier generations were completely ignorant, though. Some have some good methods/ideas. Some weren't ignorant at all. I think, though, that those who had really capable parents were in the minority, and the majority had so many kids of those parents had so many axes to grind with their own parents they didn't notice the ways in which their parents were right. So, people of my generation seemed to throw the baby out with the bathwater when they had their own kids.
Some people of my generation (I'm one) had parents who were really, really, capable of raising children who were decent people, well behaved (for the most part), good students, etc. etc. without hitting, yelling, or using the word, "punish". They were kind, loving, understanding, parents who knew how to (as my mother put it) "just tell kids right from wrong". When we did do something wrong they'd talk about why they saw it as wrong, what they expected, etc. etc. They'd also talk about the natural consequences of what happens when someone does something like not do homework, lie, or whatever other things kids mess up on.
So, I saw how parents can be the kind of parents I had and pretty much was the same kind of parent with them. Because we had more money, and because I was more aware that I needed to supplement my kids' public school education; I did put in more effort in those areas than my mother did. Even when my kids were little, though, I did need to go against what a lot of other people in my generation were doing (because they had the "tough" kind of parents who resorted to physical violence because they didn't know any better, and because they had decided they wouldn't treat their kids with that kind of lack of respect or have a house where there was violence). So, it took the same kind of strength and independent thinking to stand up to peer pressure for me, as the mother of little kids in my early thirties; as it would take a teen who faces similar peer pressure. No problem, though: I had kind, loving, non-physically-violent, non-yelling, respectful, parents who had raised a kid who was strong-thinking and not one to go along with peer pressure. I had respected my parents, gotten respect back from them, grown up to be a parent who respected each child as a little individual with his own mind and feelings, and gotten respect back from each of those children.
Anyway, the point (after all these words) is that I don't necessarily think today's parents are all that bad or all that wrong. They just either haven't seen good enough examples of how to tell kids right from wrong, how to set some limits, etc. without being oppressive. Also, they don't have the support from society and schools that my parents and their peers had.
Parents need to be ready to be parents, have a lot of common sense, know how to make children feel safe, secure, and treasured; and they need a solid understanding of human nature and children's emotional development. In general, I think the world and history has been full of parents who aren't quite up the to job, and the problems that happen with kids as a result have simply changed in nature.
All over the Internet there are parents (a lot younger than I am) who say, "People don't punish and hit their kids these days! You have to hit them!" and even (I love this one), "My baby is seven months old. How do I discipline him. I don't want him to grow up and think he doesn't have to sleep at night." (that kind of thing) Ignorance about child development and human nature is not generation-specific.
In reply to a question on when parents get to sleep once the baby arrives:
I stopped sleeping when I was 5 months along with my son, because he was off to the side, which made me uncomfortable. I would have slept sooner, but I had his baby sister when he was three; which meant my son was 7 before I got six hours of sleep one Friday night. So, the way I see it, it's about three years per baby. (My son was a premie, so he needed an extra year of watching. ) (Sorry to tell you that. lol ) (On the other hand, his father got the standard amount of sleep the whole time - so it may depend on whether you're the father or the mother in some cases. hmm ) Of course, it was my own fault; because my babies slept through the night at - like - a month old. My thing was, though, once I'd put them in after the last feeding I wanted a couple of hours to myself. (Then, of course, there were those times when I felt the need to watch them while they were asleep.) Anyway, living on three or four hours sleep is good practice for those who who are under the illusion that eight hours of sleep is necessary. lol
