My sister uses hippy-dippy ‘gentle parenting’ — her kids are hellions, no longer welcome in my home
By Asia Grace,
2024-07-15
Little hell-raisers? Get the hell out!
Crayon graffiti, animal brutality, garden destruction and vandalism. Those are just a few of the kiddie crimes committed by a woman’s “gently-parented” niece and nephew, whom she ultimately banned from her home.
“Am I the jerk for telling my sister gentle parenting is BS and kicking her and her family out of my house?” asked an unnamed, no-nonsense aunt in a trending Reddit tell-all .
“I’d never heard of that before she came to stay with us because I guess I’m out of the loop since my kids are grown now,” added the woman, whose younger sister’s daughter and son, ages 3 and 5, respectively, terrorized her household for two days.
“I saw gentle parenting in action,” she groaned, “and was appalled.”
A fairly novel approach to child-rearing, gentle parenting sees modern moms and dads sparing the rod and avoiding harsh punishments to, instead, support a tot’s sense of self-awareness through positive reinforcement.
Venting her frustrations in the viral Reddit post, the agitated aunt explained that her sister and brother-in-law exercised “zero discipline” as their brood ran amok for what would have been a week-long visit.
“During the first two days of their stay, her daughter drew on my walls with crayon,” said the disgruntled woman. “And her son pulled up flowers I had recently planted in my garden bed and threw a rock at my car parked in the driveway.”
“To top it all off,” she continued, “they both kept constantly pulling my golden retriever’s hair and hitting my dog in the face.”
But when she tried to stop the tykes from wrecking her home and picking on her pet, the gentle-mom merely excused their careless conduct.
“She said what her kids were doing was not worth what I would call discipline,” recalled the woman. “All she did in every instance was ask them, ‘What kind of feelings are you having that made you do that?’ And that was it.”
Before deeming her niece and nephew personae non gratae , the incensed homeowner gave her baby sis a sound scolding.
“I told her the gentle parenting is going to cause her kids to have a very hard life and rude awakening someday, probably even jail time,” the outraged older sister remembered.
“She argued back and really lost it when I told her, ‘This hippy dippy gentle parenting s–t is a scam and will ruin your kids’ life,’” she said, “which I regret now but boiled over in the moment.”
“Now she won’t speak to me,” the lady lamented, “and our mom says I’m in the wrong for kicking them out when they planned on staying longer.”
Hwever, Reddit readers were firmly on the woman’s side.
“I’m so tired of permissive parents calling their garbage parenting style gentle parenting,” griped a supporter. “Gentle parenting is about communication and realistic consequences, not being lazy and letting your kids wreck s–t.”
“Life isn’t gentle,” another another. “It will kick you upside the head and spit you out then laugh at you and tell you to get back to work.
“These kids will crumble the first time anything bad happens, and it’s a shame. They never develop coping skills,” the commenter continued.
However, advocates of the avant-garde practice insist that gentle parenting doesn’t always result in a rough and rude awakening.
“I did gentle parenting, and my kids still had appropriate discipline when it was needed,” wrote an anonymous mom. “As adults, they are well-behaved, kind [and] considerate.”
The “gentle parenting” philosophy is comprised of four main elements: empathy, respect, understanding and boundaries, per parenting hub Verywellfamily.com .
“It focuses on fostering the qualities you want in your child by being compassionate and enforcing consistent boundaries,” say experts on the site. “It’s understanding a child’s feelings at the moment and responding accordingly in a way that is beneficial to the child’s emotional well-being.”
Rather than taking disciplinary actions — such as enforcing a time out or requesting an apology — gentle parents often leave behavior correction up to the child’s discretion.
Unsurprisingly, traditionalists aren’t exactly cozying up to the controversial concept.
A separate mama of the movement took to social media claiming the passive parenting style has caused her to become “an emotional punching bag” for her toddler.
“I’m now four years into it,” whined the mentally-taxed mother to an online community. “I feel so burnt out.”
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