Let's Unpack Some Intensive Parenting Trends (In a Way That Will Not Make You Feel Like Crap)

Culture Study Podcast

Anne Helen Petersen

Fashion & Beauty, Society & Culture, Arts

4.6 • 637 Ratings

🗓️ 11 June 2025

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

People often ask me why I care so much about parenting when I am not, myself, a parent. This question is always so weird to me — of course I care about parenting norms, because I’m surrounded by parents! The choices that parents make (in the voting booth, as consumers, as community members, as friends) have so many direct and indirect effects on my life and everyone’s lives. Plus I’m always interested in how people try and make sense of a ton of contradictory information and “best practices” about how to be in the world, and whew, that is contemporary parenting right now.

I’m so pleased that Melinda Wenner Moyer, author of Hello, Cruel World!, agreed to join us to unpack your questions about contemporary parenting trends — she is so good at balancing empathy (for why we gravitate towards certain strategies) with reassurance (less is almost always more). So if you want to talk about the weird ways gentle parenting rhetoric has seeped into the playground, the pressure to overschedule, and the deeply annoying professionalization of kids’ sports, whew is this the episode for you. And if you’re not a parent but affected by parenting practices: you’ll also find so much here. This week’s discussion is gonna be a good one.

Thanks to the sponsors of today’s episode!

Raw Signal Group: If you’re a manager doing good in the world, and you want a better toolkit for how you’re showing up for your community, go to worldsbestmanagementtraining.com to find out more

Make the switch to Blueland today! Get 15% off your first order by going to Blueland.com/culture

Head to Ollie.com/CULTURE, tell them all about your dog, and use code CULTURE to get 60% off your Welcome Kit when you subscribe

Article is offering our listeners $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. Visit ARTICLE.COM/culture and the discount will be automatically applied at checkout

Join the ranks of paid subscribers and get bonus content, access to the discussion threads, ad-free episodes, and the knowledge that you're supporting an indie pod trying to make its way in the world. If you're already a subscriber-- thank you! Join us in the discussion thread for this episode! Got a question or idea for a future episode? Visit culturestudypod.substack.com

To hear more, visit culturestudypod.substack.com

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	There's so much anxiety right now, so much fear. It's not our fault. Like we are being fed all these,
0:08.8	you know, fear-based messages about parenting, whether it's like, you know, social media is going to
0:13.8	cause our kids to become murderers or nobody can get into college anymore and my kid is going to, you know,
0:20.5	end up on the street.
0:22.2	It's coming at us from like every possible direction. And so, and we know that like mom anxiety is at
0:29.3	an all time high right now. So it's like even if you argue that like things aren't that bad right
0:34.4	now compared with generations past, The fact is parents are hyper anxious
0:38.5	right now. Right. And the thing that I always come across is this feeling that like there is no
0:44.1	way to do it right. There's so much messaging about like parents are too up in their kids business.
0:51.4	They're doing too much. Like stop parenting so much. But then at the same
0:55.4	time, if you take your foot off the gas, there's so many messages telling you that that is also
1:01.7	bad parenting, right? So, like, everything is bad parenting. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's like it's impossible,
1:08.5	I think, to be a parent right now because, yeah, the minute you try to sort of challenge any of the norms, then other parents are judging you.
1:16.2	You know, sometimes, like maybe the cops will be called because your kid is in the park alone.
1:20.2	Like there's all these forces that are working against you trying to push against some of the norms that you might think are not necessary or particularly
1:28.3	helpful. And so it's like we're just stuck in this cycle of like, you know, not getting,
1:35.1	not being able to get out of the sort of over parenting hamster cycle. Yeah. If we want to.
1:46.3	Hi, everyone. This is the Culture Study podcast, and I'm Anne Helen Peterson.
1:50.7	I'm Melinda Winter Moyer, and I am the author of Hello, Cruel World Science-Based Strategies
1:56.6	for Raising Terrific Kids in Terrifying Times. How did you get started thinking about parenting?
2:02.6	It's like, like you did not conceive of yourself as a parenting journalist.
2:06.6	No.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Anne Helen Petersen, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Anne Helen Petersen and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.