‘80s Babies: The Beauty of ‘Retro Parenting’

It’s a most non-non-non-heinous experience, dudes!

I spent the majority of my childhood in the Star Wars-obsessed, Walkman riddled, Bill & Ted era of the ‘80s. It was a period in our history in which we played endlessly in the mud, babied our collection of Cabbage Patch Kids, and went swimming in the nearby (admittedly questionable) town creek. The neighborhood kids and I came together daily to play knee-skinning outdoor games like Grounders, Capture the Flag, and Red Rover with abandon, and our parent’s idea of curfew was whenever the street lights popped on.

We wore rainbow suspenders, watched Fraggle Rock from the depths of our couch-cushion forts, let our moms cut our hair, and were the youngest generation to experience the brand new joy that was Mario and Duck Hunt, simultaneously, in one, shiny package.

I’ll wait as that last fact settles over the Gen Z population — and yes, it was a super cool time. Or, since this article is ‘80s-centric, it was hella cool. Rad, even. Okay I’m done with the ‘80s slang, for now.

The point I’m very poorly trying to make here is that it was a wonderful, fulfilling, and truly memorable childhood; the likes of which our own kids will likely never experience, thanks to social media, helicopter parenting, and more electronic devices than even Star Trek could so eerily predict for our futures.

That isn’t to say that our kids are having heinous childhoods (I know, more slang, but it’s a force that can’t be stopped at this point.) What I am saying, however, is that from what we’ve experienced, globally, over the last decade or so, it seems like what the western population needs now, more than anything else, is a healthy dose of retro parenting.

Retro parenting isn’t a new concept…no doy. It is sometimes confused with vintage parenting, which was a particularly strange period in the parenting styles timeline, if you ask me, ranging from methods like not touching our babies in an attempt to prevent spoiling them in the ‘20s, to the window-cages designed to ‘air out’ our apparently musty babies in the ‘30s, to feeding babies bacon and eggs — sometimes even coffee — as early as 9 weeks old in the ‘50s, because, hey — it rounds out a nice breakfast.

Retro parenting, which is also known as ‘laid back parenting’ (I like it already!) refers to a more hands off, and yet loving and supportive, style of parenting that most of us who grew up in the ‘80s and ‘90s experienced at home.

I know, it’s so vague. Hear me out.

I’ll start where we all start in life — infancy. The ways we raise our babies, and in particular, our baby sleep training methods, is a common point of contention among modern day parents, and how we approach getting our babies to sleep through the night is a topic that is as diverse as it is controversial. Some, for instance, adhere to an attachment based, co-sleeping set up, which is arguably a more natural and instinctive way to help babies sleep, but can be taxing on parents. Others swear by Ferberizing their babies, also known as ‘sleep training,’ to some degree, which in theory helps babies sleep through the night earlier with some ‘quick and dirty’ methods, thereby scooching past the harder periods in infancy just a smidge faster. There are also multiple styles that fall somewhere in the middle of that very wide spectrum.

Fun fact: sleep training, while a seemingly modern practice, is actually fairly ancient, dating back to at least the 1800s, and the way human beings have engineered creative solutions to their babies’ sleep issues over the centuries speaks volumes about our historical desperation for a solid night of rest.

Fun fact #2: Babies have, over the last several centuries, still slept like garbage regardless of our perceived successes in ‘training’ them. Take from that what you will.

I wrote about these topics at length, in this article:

For my own generation’s feathered-haired parents, there were no recommendations for any sort of sleep training. When we cried out in our cribs, our parents didn’t hover, stressed to the heavens, outside our nurseries with a Ferber app on their smartphones before they went in to pat our backs, or whatever Ferber parents do. They just went in, picked up their babies, and soothed them back to sleep.

By today’s standards, that’s a big fail.

Regardless of that, although the generation of parents who raised me were advised by their pediatricians that babies are safest sleeping on their stomachs, we all turned out okay. The fact that we are now told by the very same group of experts that babies are safest on their backs, is an indication that doctors and scientists mayyyybe don’t entirely know what the heck is going on. And that’s okay; we’re all flying by the collective seats of our pants.

Another difference in how babies were cared for is the distinct lack of baby gear. For example, we weren’t gently jostled back to sleep in safe and snug Snoos, I’ll say that much — and, like, whoa! Those things are mega pricey; I think my first car cost less. But in addition to that very real issue, in our infant stages, there wasn’t nearly as much to prevent our natural progression in movement and fine motor skills, as suggested by the author of Retro Baby and Retro Toddler, by Anne H. Zachry. As an Occupational Therapist who began to take notice of several kids with weak hands and shoulders at a school she was working in, Zachry began to ask some stirring questions:

“It turns out that many of the ones that were getting referrals for OT, the ones who were having these fine motor issues, didn’t crawl [as infants] and spent a lot of time in carriers or swings or bouncer seats.” — Anne H. Zachry

To be fair, I’ve recently noticed a shift in the marketing for some of the baby gear we have available to us these days, such as bouncers, baby seats, exersaucers and swings, to encourage more free movement for babies, and to limit their time in baby gear. But I also think that if they’re available, we’re going to use them. Hands-free moments are a blessing!

Hands-free parenting wasn’t as much of an option for our own parents, however, and while there were a variety of carriers and even baby wraps on the market in the 80s, they weren’t as widely used as they are now. These days, babywearing is much more popular, especially as so many celebrities wear their babies (‘they’re just like us!’) and while there were baby walkers and the like when I was a wee babe, the modern day market is absolutely saturated with all kinds of useful places to plunk down our babies. The baby gear industry has made it all too easy to do just that.

Disclaimer: there is nothing wrong with wearing your baby, especially since it’s the next best thing to holding them. I loved babywearing! I’m just pointing out that if done in excess, like so many things, it can start to prevent your baby’s healthy development and motor skills. But by all means, wear that baby! These moments in time are fleeting!

Retro parenting, beyond anything else, is about being supportive and loving while letting kids make — and learn from — their mistakes. Helicopter parenting wasn’t really a thing in the 80s, and while I wouldn’t suggest letting your one year old wander freely on playground equipment designed for a ten year old without at least being mildly concerned for their inevitable plummet down some apparatus or other, I do think we’re a little too cautious with our kids.

I even recently witnessed a mom trying to teach her child how to ride her bike, and the poor kid was wearing a helmet (so far so good) knee, wrist and elbow pads (still okay, but you’ve already gone past me in the safety-first department) shin pads (ummm…) and what appeared to be a couch cushion tethered to her butt (okay, I fold.) Yes, the child may have been medically delicate or something, stranger things have happened, but I can only imagine how all that gear negatively impacted her ability to learn to ride the damned bike. How did she even sit down? Or hold the handlebars??

What’s more, in my own experience, the best way to learn how to ride a bike is to crash and burn a few times. This, however, is not the modern day parent mantra.

I learned how to ride my first mountain bike in the actual mountains, and it was terrifying and, yeah, I fell. A bunch. But there’s nothing quite like rocks and gravel being repeatedly embedded into your kneecaps to get the learning process moving.

Kids were just raised differently when parents didn’t literally have answers to every parenting quandary at their fingertips, like we do. Kids also were forced to learn a smidgen of patience in those days, since we had to wait for things like rewinding cassettes, ads interrupting our favourite scheduled television programs, and for Blockbuster to finally open for the day. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to explain to my kid that we didn’t have the power to magically skip ads when I was her age, as she complained for the millionth time about the three seconds you are forced to wait before skipping is an option on YouTube.

Three seconds. That’s the window of patience practiced by today’s kids.

So as easy as it is to plop your little bundle of joy into the swing, or to throw on YouTube when you’ve reached your limit, consider, for just a second, how you were raised. I know that I have been doing that a lot, lately, and with all this beautiful weather, I’ve chosen instead to take my kids out and into the world.

We play together in the park (I’m an excellent lava monster) skip rocks at the pond, and help our youngest learn how to run and hop as he navigates his new and improved walking skills. We get home with grass stains on our jeans and dirty shoes, and sure, sometimes we have scrapes on knees or bumps on heads. But it is always fun. And through this freedom to explore and learn, without my interference, my babies are sun-kissed, free-spirited, curious, and developing some amazing critical thinking and reasoning skills. They’re learning in the most natural way possible about risk management and how to weigh the pros and cons of doing things like jumping off the swing or running up the stairs two steps at a time.

Just like we did.

They’ve also started coming around to the idea of colouring, drawing, or doing puzzles rather than just turning to TV and YouTube, since I’ve been actively keeping track of their collective screen time. I’ve put my daughter’s favourite toys in a common area in our house so that when I’m making dinner or writing, she can play while enjoying our company instead of disappearing into the basement to lose herself on YouTube. And my son can play safely but freely in the play yard while I bake during the day — I’ve even moved it close to the kitchen island so he can “help.” (By “help,” I of course mean I give him measuring cups to play with while I do all the actual work.)

Sometimes,though, I still revert to those comfortable, modern day crutches, because I’m a human being who needs a break every now and then, and YouTube kids is such a good provider of some much needed sanity. It’s okay to do that. It’s also okay to not buy the Snoos (seriously, it’s mental) or the Mamaroos (see my above rant about pricey baby products) or the variety of pricey, fancy baby seats and highchairs and swings, etc, for your kiddo because I guarantee you, none of that will matter to them in the long run. Especially when compared with the time you spend with them, personally, face to face, running around the living room with them as you pretend to chase them, or when you’re stomping after them playing the big, bad, tickle monster.

Those giggles are, hands down, the best sounds you will ever hear, and they cost you nothing but your time.

Maybe our parents would have reverted to modern day comforts in raising their kids, if they’d had them. Maybe they would have sleep trained their babies, too, instead of rocking them back to sleep time and time again, if their pediatricians recommended it, as ours do. I don’t know for sure, but what I do know is that I’m extremely grateful that those things weren’t an option (sorry, Mom,) because what we got instead were parents who were present in our lives, who cheered us on, and who didn’t interfere with our adventures — and more importantly, our mistakes — in childhood.

They were there to pick us up when we fell, plop us back on our bikes, and whisper words of encouragement into our eager ears before they sent us flying, once again, into the unknown. I want nothing more than that feeling of free flying for my own kids, and I’ll follow that whispered advice for as long as I live.

Thanks, Mom and Dad. Message received.