Why "When I Was Your Age" Doesn't Work

It's a foolproof parenting strategy.

Shame your kids with heroic tales of how much tougher life was when you were their age.

We’re totally convinced that when we enlighten our children with how we didn't have the internet, or how much of a struggle it was when a family member picked up the phone and it disconnected us.

Or how we didn’t have parents make play dates for us.

And how we had to get up of the couch to change the TV channel, which there was only 16 of anyways, and how our first TV was actually Black and White.

They will be so utterly shocked at how easy there life is that they will immediately hug us and become thankful for all the privileges they have.

They have to right?

Turns out, they really don't care what life was like in the 70’s, 80’s, or 90’s,

Actually nobody really cares anymore because it's not 1980 and you’re not raising a child under those circumstances.

It's 2017 and the rules have changed

There is internet now, and even your coffee maker is connected.

Your kids don't have to look things up in an encyclopaedia, and trying to get them to learn the way you did actually won't help them.

It might give them perspective, but it won't help them.

And harping on how hard life was for you compared to their life doesn't make you a great parent.

Actually it makes you irrelevant (And kinda whiny actually. So much for never saying the things your parents said LOL).

The truth is that every generation has is a little easier than the generation previous. That's just the way the world goes. Every time we try to remind our kids that we didn't have some of the benefits they had reinforces their opinion that we are out of touch from their world and what the an important to them.

In fact there are a bunch of things we communicate to our kids every time we use the phrase “When I was your age…”

1. WE MINIMIZE THE REAL STRUGGLES THEY FACE TODAY.

While it may be true that comparing apples to apples, your life was harder in many ways. But that doesn't mean that their life is easy and without any challenges. The challenges have just evolved. Bring yourself back to your childhood.  You had real fears and hard days. Some things felt too big and too hard for you to ever succeed. And yet your parents probably laughed and you and how easy your life was compared to theirs. Minimizing the fears and struggles of another does nothing to help calm them, it actually accelerates them. Empathy is a powerful force in helping calm someone down. Your kids may not be facing any real danger, but there are going to be days that they feel that life is too hard, and when we tell our kids that we’re not concerned with what concerns them, we put a barrier in the way to helping them successfully navigate through their challenges in a healthy way.

2.  WE CONFIRM THEIR BELIEF THAT WE CAN’T RELATE TO THEIR WORLD.

My biggest dream as a Father is to be able to help my daughter through every stage of life.  I want to teach her the finer points of basketball. I want to help her choose a good school. I want to support her through her first date, her first break-up.  But if I regularly give her a message that I am out of touch with the challenges she is facing, then I will never get to be her SuperDad.  I'll be left out of her inner circle of support, and we’ll both miss out on the experience of tackling the bugs hills in her life together. Inevitably, we will have moments that we are out of touch with our kids realities, but we aren’t doing ourselves any favours by telling them we are.

3. WE PUT A STOP TO OUR PROCESS OF LIFE-LONG LEARNING.

Life and culture is evolving at a more rapid pace than it ever has. Validating ourselves by measuring our past against modern comforts has very little value. In fact the more distance we have from our past challenges, we will start to remember them as being bigger and more difficult than they actually were. The classic badge of honour is that we walked to and from school, everyday, uphill both ways (which sounds hard, in not completely impossible). While walking to and from school was hard, it was the same challenge everyday. Our kids don’t get to prove their worth in this challenge, because everyday they have a different place to get to. We’ve forced them to remember and master a schedule of getting on different buses, walking different routes to make sure they can get to piano practice, basketball tryouts and youth group on different nights of the week. It’s an entirely different set of skills, that will benefit them as they face a future that will not ask them to do the same job everyday of their lives. The challenges my daughter faces today are more multi-dimensional than anything I was ever required to do. In fact for me to stay relevant in society, I need to understand how younger learners are learning so I don’t fall behind the skills and abilities that the generation of my children already possess.

So we get it parents.

When you were their age, it was hard.

And it's still hard.

Own your past, learn from your past.

But parent your kids in the present, preparing them for the future.