Parenting was rarely used before the 1970s
A child's performance now shapes a parent's sense of who they are.
Not Dead Yet · David Zahl | NOT DEAD YET with Ben Sasse and Chris StirewaltThe word parenting was rarely used before the 1970s. The noun dates back centuries, but it stayed rare until then.
Ben Sasse, interviewing author David Zahl, noted the shift from identity to activity. "A parent was something to be," he said, not something to do.
He then asked Zahl about the pressure parents feel to apply work measures at home, asking whether families are meeting their targets as if they were businesses.
Zahl replied that caring for children is good in itself, but it cannot carry the full weight of proving a person's worth. He said the problem comes when a child's results decide who the parent is, so children get used as props for adult self-regard, which he called a form of objectification.
Zahl said he has watched children grow up feeling responsible for their parents' self-regard, leaving relations with their parents complicated at best.
Questions people ask
Did no one say parenting before the 1970s?
The noun is old, but the verb took off with childrearing manuals, parenting classes, and parenting magazines in the 1970s. Researchers often tie that rise to smaller families, later childbearing, and expert advice telling parents that outcomes depended on technique.
Why did parenting become so intensive?
Sociologists point to rising college competition, intensive mothering and fathering norms, and parenting as identity among college educated parents. More time, money, and worry went into scheduling, coaching, tutoring, and monitoring children.
What happens when children feel they have to earn love by performing?
Studies link conditional regard, where children feel loved more when they succeed, to anxiety, perfectionism, and secrecy. Children may hide struggles, lie about grades, or split into a high achieving public self and a private struggling self.