Nobody Knows What Gentle Parenting Is

The topic of "gentle parenting" makes some parents feel attacked, probably because there is no clear definition.

This week, writer Olga Khazan published a story in The Atlantic about gentle parenting, specifically covering parenting influencer Chelsey Hauge-Zavaleta and her version of gentle parenting, which included, as many on Twitter noticed, banning the term “good job” because children don’t have jobs. Another bizarre thing Chelsea mentioned was that she would never force a child to wear a coat, no matter how cold it was, and that the firmest a parent should get about the coat issue was “whispering” and “packing the coat in the child’s backpack.”

The Twitter reaction was exactly as I expected. Some people thought these rules were weird and funny, while others felt a bit attacked, because they say “good job” and force coat-wearing when it’s cold outside. If those things are so horrible, then are they bad parents? Meanwhile, advocates of gentle parenting came at the defensive parents with a sort of willfully obtuse response: “Why is everyone so defensive over the idea that children are whole people who deserve dignity?” Yeah, that’s exactly it, good job. Wait, no, not good job.

Gentle parenting always seems to stir up these reactions. It’s important to note that parents who spank their kids, or even parents who see no problem with verbally unloading into their kids when they misbehave, are usually not the parents who are deeply engaged in discussions about gentle parenting, or parenting at all. There’s already a filter when it comes to gentle parenting discussions, which is that everyone involved agrees with some degree of it—for example, the idea that spanking and name-calling is bad. It’s a bit unfortunate that the parents who could really stand to adjust their strategy the most—the parents who are genuinely doing bad things—are the least likely to read this content or care about it. Instead, it’s the parents who are fairly neurotic, care a lot about their kids, and are very concerned with being “good parents” who feel the most attacked.

As one of those parents prone to neuroticism, I’ve felt attacked by this type of content in the past too. When I was pretty new to motherhood, I came across a TikTok account that later went viral for her radical stance on bedtime: it was abuse. She didn’t believe it was acceptable for a baby to have a crib because “if you put your spouse in a cage and forced them to sleep there it would be abuse.”

Now, as a mom of two, I can look at this content and identify it as either engagement bait or lunacy. I wouldn’t be wrong, especially because this particular creator has gone on to create lots of other questionable videos, including one where she accused older labor and delivery nurses of being envious of teen moms while they’re giving birth, because they get all the attention from the attractive male doctors.

But I didn’t see this content in 2024, when I could laugh it off. I saw it when I was in the depth of postpartum anxiety, and genuinely thought that I had screwed up my child by *checks notes* having a crib. This content, and content like it, got me into this mindset that my goal as a parent was to make sure my child experienced as little unpleasantness as possible, even if it meant letting him completely run the show. The fear was that anything else would be “traumatic” and would result in “damaged attachment.” Gentle parenting was something I practiced, but also something I resented, because I felt like every interaction with my child was fraught with anxiety about whether I was displeasing him. If he didn’t want to brush his teeth, I agonized over the least traumatic way to make it happen, while also feeling guilty about providing any form of reward (I eventually caved and played that ridiculously catchy Elmo tooth brushing song for him.) At the time, I wished that parenting just felt intuitive and normal—good days, bad days, celebrations, occasional tears—but instead I felt like I was basing my self-worth on whether or not my two-year-old was upset. For those of you who have never met a two-year-old before: bad idea!

Like I said before, it’s no surprise that this type of content, which I can only refer to as “masochistic parent guilt-porn,” would hook me. If I were the type of person who believed in screaming at my child, or spanking my child, I don’t think I would have cared about gentle parenting at all. It’s the parents who are already more or less “doing” gentle parenting who feel the most attacked by its orthodoxy, mostly because it’s completely unclear.