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Why Did Parents Stop Giving Advice?
In this episode, we explore the surprising decline of parents giving life advice to their children, sparked by a conversation with Megan, Scott Alexander's wife. We examine which cultures stopped giving life advice first and why, and discuss the consequences of children growing up without receiving such guidance. We dive into personal anecdotes, cultural practices, and the societal trends that have led to this shift. We also share practical advice for parents on how to effectively pass on valuable life lessons and create a lasting positive impact on their children's lives.
Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be talking about something that was inspired to me by a conversation I was having with a friend.
Actually Megan, who is Scott Alexander's wife and I were talking about raising kids 'cause they have young kids and stuff like that. And passing on. Ideas in sort of life systems intergenerationally. And one of the things that they noted, and I started to note this as I recalled, you know, asking other people, is that people do not give their kids.
As much life advice as they used to, and in some cases gives their kids virtually no life advice. And they, they never set their kids down and are like, this is what you should structure. This is the way you should structure your life. This is what you should expect from these stages of your life. Yeah.
This is what you should want to do with your life and. I think the, the areas I want to dig into this are what [00:01:00] cultures stopped giving life advice first. Hmm. Like what cultural trends made it, because most cultures historically did give children life advice. This was a very normal thing to do historically speaking.
Two, why did this stop? When did it stop? And for people who grew up without being given life advice. What is good life advice that I would give generally to them and to my kids as well. So, opening thoughts. Simone, before we go deeper into this,
Simone Collins: I'm super excited to talk about this because I feel like it's part of that larger trend that we talk about that really.
Precipitates the, the beginning of the end for society and human mental health, which is the atomization of everything. And I think a big tailwind here is a trend whereby we stopped getting everything from within the family in the household and started getting it piecemeal from outside. And that a lot of people.
Are now getting their advice from external sources who [00:02:00] may or may not be aligned with their best interests. Instead, who are basically, you are getting this information not because it, it's going to help you because it's, it's the information that was best marketed that was more likely to go viral. That was for whatever reason.
I
Malcolm Collins: actually go so far as to see that many people structure their lives. Around aesthetics of what they saw as a good life within television shows while they were growing up. And I, there's
Simone Collins: that, but there's also the fact that. Just to give you like a, a picture of, of how things have changed, even when you look at how parents are parenting, a peer research center study found that only 27% of parents say they often ask a family member for parenting advice, which indicates a clear decline in, in the reliance on families.
They're, they're now looking to parenting books, and every time I talk with someone who's pregnant and expecting to become a parent. They talk to me about the books they're reading and the podcasts they're watching, and the videos they're watching. They do not talk about talking with their mothers [00:03:00] or their parents in general about parenting.
Yes. So they're, it's not just about like going for an aesthetic norm. It's about. Shifting to the experts. Like we, we give our kids
Published on 5 months ago