What Is a Good Parent?

Polls show that a majority of parents now equate being a good parent with intensive parenting practices. A researcher from Cornell studying these data found that the high standards and expectations that come with intensive parenting cross social class and gender lines.

I hear from some parents how they want to eschew intensive parenting practices (e.g., allow their child to walk around the neighborhood without adults, limit activity sign-ups, stay out of social conflicts), but they feel judged by parents in their communities. In my speaking events, I have heard, “But how do we do it differently than everyone else?”

It feels like a tsunami of impossible parenting standards drowning us whether we choose to swim during the storm or not.

A recent study showed that maternal mental health is worse due to features of intensive parenting culture—even when the mother does not ascribe to intensive parenting. Since I relate to that study finding, I asked myself where I have felt the tension between my autonomy-supportive philosophy and cultural expectations of being a “good mom.”

Here are some examples of my “rogue” parenting practices. I call them confessions because that’s what they feel like: whispered admissions to another parent I hope won’t judge me.

Confession 1: My kids don’t have screen-time limits.

Are you recoiling in horror? I worry that you are. We had screen-time limits for years. Television was relegated to one hour daily during the week with longer morning and evening time on the weekends; we heavily monitored iPad games because of meltdowns after too much, and when my oldest got her first cell phone, she had a phone contract including a two-hour limit.

Fast forward to our kids ages 14, 12, and 9, and we have adopted a more fluid approach—partially because the micromanaging of screen time took so much time and energy but, just as importantly, because we started to question the assumption of inherent danger. Research studies examine thousands of children at a time, but what was happening with the three children under our roof (after growing out of the post-iPad meltdowns)?

So, we stepped back to play the long game by clarifying our parenting values: We want our children to develop an internal sense of “too much” screen time instead of relying so heavily on external limits. The one nonnegotiable rule is that phones are charged overnight outside of bedrooms. This removes any temptation to miss relaxation and sleep to be part of a group text. The youngest has limits on his Fortnite time because we have observed negative effects of not having limits, but we do not examine screen time on his iPad (we do check Google searches and website visits).

In line with most expert recommendations, we consistently engage in dialogue with our children about their activities online and on social media. We often discuss the importance of balancing physical activity, in-person friend time, and other nonscreen enrichment with time on their devices. There is no perfect solution, but for now, we argue significantly less about devices, and my children have shown the ability to moderate and regulate. They live full lives—even if TikTok takes more of their attention than I wish it did.

Confession 2: I don’t know my kids’ grades most of the time.

Every few weeks, I think, “Maybe I should open Power School” to look at my middle schoolers’ grades. And I do, because we expect them to complete schoolwork to maintain their friend and device freedoms. So, when I do look every so often, I’m scanning for missing assignments and to make sure there’s no big grade drop.

I recognize having the luxury of children who are generally good fits for the school environment: conscientious, skilled, and organized (enough). If I had a child struggling academically, I would pay more attention. In our context, though, I’m not examining every assignment every day. Or even every week. My largely hands-off approach in middle school has paid off as my oldest has not only improved her performance between sixth and eighth grades, but, more importantly, her motivation and interest in learning have also observably increased.

For my elementary-school child, I would only care about grades if they indicated learning problems that needed addressing. Otherwise, if the teacher isn’t emailing me with concerns and we see him staying on track with foundational reading, writing, and math skills, I pay close to zero attention to his actual grades.

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I admittedly haven’t always been this easy breezy; it helps that he’s the third child. I used to hope for at least a few “E’s” for "excellent" (no letter grades in our school district) on the report cards, but I’ve even been able to let that go as I realize it doesn’t matter. What matters is that our children develop as positive a relationship with school and education as possible, which will increase the likelihood they perform well when grades matter more in high school.

Confession 3: I don’t always know where my kids are.

I have three kids with busy social lives and activity schedules. My daughters, ages 12 and 14, no longer involve me in scheduling plans with their friends. We have parameters of course: We need to know who they will be with, where they are going, and how they will get there and back. But once all that is decided, if I’m not needed as a driver, I whisk it away from my mental load. I don’t track their phone locations to make sure they are where they say they are. They travel between locations in our town, but I don’t monitor that. They do know we don’t generally want them at kids’ houses without parents unless we know the friend well. Within our general policies, however, I have been known to be surprised when one of my kids walks through the door because I forgot about them.

Life jackets for all

These three confessions illustrate two trends. First, my husband and I have shifted approaches over the years. This speaks to both the critical role of flexibility in parenting and the capacity to make change even if “we’ve always done it this way.” Second, we have landed on allowing our children a fair amount of freedom and agency within the bounds of clear expectations. The basic expectations are that screen time will not be all-consuming, they need to put effort into their schoolwork, and we expect communication about social plans before they leave the house.

The parenting changes in my family also demonstrate the power of operating from a framework like autonomy-supportive parenting to bolster our resolve to go against the intensive parenting norms. Grounded in the “why” of parenting, opposite of what has become culturally sanctioned as “good parenting”, helps us stay the course. With supporting autonomy as the big picture (my children’s autonomy and mine), I am confident I am being a good parent.

I wrote the book on autonomy-supportive parenting to give a model and permission for a healthier way of parenting. If I can do my part to hand out as many life jackets as possible to the parents drowning in intensive parenting, we can unite in our strength of numbers until we can all turn the tides of intensive parenting around and redefine “good parent” with more expansiveness and grace.