Confessions of a Permissive Parent

I was gaslit about permissive parenting--and now I'm dealing with the "natural consequences."

Just the other day on Facebook Reels, I saw the following image which really felt jarring to me. Oh, so I guess we doin’ boundaries now?

I realized I was seeing more and more of this content—stuff about how to set firm boundaries, and warning us about the dangers of demanding, misbehaving, disrespectful children. Without having changed my Googling habits—I didn’t suddenly start researching discipline methods—I began seeing more and more content about how to give an effective time out. I saw one Reel where a woman showcased her ability to “set boundaries” as a gentle parent and refuse to give her 18-month-old more bread. Another gentle parenting advocate displayed her discipline skills by showing how she threw out her toddler’s beloved disposable fork and gave him a “calm” time out on the bottom step of the staircase for one minute to “deescalate the big feelings about the fork.”

All I could think was: what? What the hell happened? Are we pretending that these women wouldn’t be maligned as overly harsh just four years ago?

I’ve written before about how gentle parenting has a muddy definition, and many people who practice it are actually doing completely different things (anything from “not beating our kids” to the controversial influencer in 2020 who asserted that cribs and bedtime were child abuse. But lately it seems like there’s been a shift toward the boundaries and discipline component, which feels really jarring for me as a parent who bought the “time outs are child abuse” line hook and sinker a few years ago.

The parenting influencers and experts told us to be permissive just a few years ago (without using the word “permissive.”) Parents took their advice, and for many parents, it didn’t go well. Then, the experts turn around and insist they never advocated for permissive parenting at all.

Unfortunately, I’m one of the parents who bought all their narratives, and I regret it.