Ugh. This really resonated with me. It’s true. I live in Chicago and run a small in-home daycare. I often feel insecure that my decades of experience and love for children are no match for jargon and certifications that I have no desire or ability to keep up with.
I have raised five children and cared for dozens more in my daycare. Since then I have been trusted to care for my numerous grandchildren - but in this current era with its intolerance of risk, and knowing how quick people are to evade responsibility and assign blame to someone if anything goes wrong, I find my own confidence to act like the wise grandmother I am has been quite diminished.
I hope my daughters and granddaughters can recreate or rediscover some of that essential and supportive womanly connectedness that used to be more common and homegrown.
Love this one, Mary Lou. It’s provoked some deep self-interrogation surrounding my own profession... Can I really tout being a “child development expert” when I simply get out of their way and let my/their instincts lead the way? As you said, these are basic human skills- to care for & support the growth of a life. Thank you for writing this ❤️
I was born in NYC in the late fifties: we were way ahead of the game when it comes to therapizing everything. Since then, much normal childhood stuff has indeed been turned into medical diagnoses needing professional evaluation and treatment. But the stuff about childhood trauma is not ALL invalid: when unsupervised kids are hanging out with each other without any supervision, mimicking porn that someone discovered in their older brother's room, or reenacting death scenes of Catholic saints--that unsupervised rough-and-tumble can have serious lifelong repercussions. And I'm talking about MY childhood here...
Rather than paying for a certified friend, the state will likely actually pay for a computer to talk to a lonely person in their home on their screen (which is already happening). It's absolutely insane. And it isn't just personal interactions that are being monetized. I used to be able to find any number of kids in the neighborhood to help with tasks in the yard for a few dollars. Now there are only slash and burn "landscapers" who will happily charge $200 to spray poison everywhere. Or when I needed to build a fence, neighbors suggested companies to do it for hundreds of dollars. I built it myself in a weekend.
Another amazing article from you. Exactly this. Making people feel weird about ‘bothering’ their friends for free. That’s how I always see it.
Making industries where industries needn’t even exist.
A big money making racket with a side order of paranoia and low confidence thrown in.
Substack reads recommended your publication to me and wow! It’s like you wrote the articles from my brain so I wouldn’t have to.
I’m seen here
Ugh. This really resonated with me. It’s true. I live in Chicago and run a small in-home daycare. I often feel insecure that my decades of experience and love for children are no match for jargon and certifications that I have no desire or ability to keep up with.
I have raised five children and cared for dozens more in my daycare. Since then I have been trusted to care for my numerous grandchildren - but in this current era with its intolerance of risk, and knowing how quick people are to evade responsibility and assign blame to someone if anything goes wrong, I find my own confidence to act like the wise grandmother I am has been quite diminished.
I hope my daughters and granddaughters can recreate or rediscover some of that essential and supportive womanly connectedness that used to be more common and homegrown.
Love this one, Mary Lou. It’s provoked some deep self-interrogation surrounding my own profession... Can I really tout being a “child development expert” when I simply get out of their way and let my/their instincts lead the way? As you said, these are basic human skills- to care for & support the growth of a life. Thank you for writing this ❤️
I was born in NYC in the late fifties: we were way ahead of the game when it comes to therapizing everything. Since then, much normal childhood stuff has indeed been turned into medical diagnoses needing professional evaluation and treatment. But the stuff about childhood trauma is not ALL invalid: when unsupervised kids are hanging out with each other without any supervision, mimicking porn that someone discovered in their older brother's room, or reenacting death scenes of Catholic saints--that unsupervised rough-and-tumble can have serious lifelong repercussions. And I'm talking about MY childhood here...
Rather than paying for a certified friend, the state will likely actually pay for a computer to talk to a lonely person in their home on their screen (which is already happening). It's absolutely insane. And it isn't just personal interactions that are being monetized. I used to be able to find any number of kids in the neighborhood to help with tasks in the yard for a few dollars. Now there are only slash and burn "landscapers" who will happily charge $200 to spray poison everywhere. Or when I needed to build a fence, neighbors suggested companies to do it for hundreds of dollars. I built it myself in a weekend.