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15 millennial parenting struggles Boomer parents never had to deal with

"I'll go first ---> the cost of childcare."

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Millennial parents share how parenting has changed compared to Boomer parents.

Raising kids has changed with every generation. For Millennials raising kids, the parenting landscape has changed immensely since the experiences of their Boomer parents.

In an online parenting community, member @Eclectic7112 posed the question to fellow Millennials: "Millennials with kids, what's something you have to deal with, that your parents didn't have to deal with at the same level or at all?"

They followed it up with more details. "A lot has changed in the last 40 years. This includes raising kids. If there was something that you had to explain to your parents that's 'different' than it was when they raised us, what would it be?

parents, parenting, dad, babies, gif Come Here Season 6 GIF by This Is Us Giphy

As the first response, @Eclectic7112 shared, "I'll go first ---> the cost of childcare." And their peers did not hold back on their responses. Millennial parents opened up about 15 major changes they've faced as parents compared to the previous generation, from technology to sports to momfluencers.

1. "The expectation that work never ends and you should be reachable after work hours and weekends." - Beberuth1131

2. "My kids expect me to play with them ALL the time. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t allowed to talk to my dad while he was watching TV." - Dadbod646

kids, playing, parenting, playing with kids, playtime Work From Home Kids GIF by MOODMAN Giphy

3. "Having grandparents who don't help. My grandma helped, and I spent months with my grandparents during the year." -SandiegoJack

4. "Prices of stuff in general. My mom managed to raise three kids on one income at a gas station and we always had everything we needed. Did she struggle? Of course, but it was still do-able. It is beyond impossible now, even at my $20/hour paycheck." - Old-Capital5079

5. "Momfluencers." - Puzzleheaded-Sphinx

6. "Sports are so different now. I'm 43. My kid is 9 and plays hockey. Youth sports have gotten nuts. When I was a kid, you played hockey in the winter. You played for your town's team. You had a practice each week and a game each week. Now there are spring leagues, and summer leagues. There are 'competitive' triple A programs that cost tens of thousands of dollars a year. Practices are 2+ times a week or more. I've talked to other parents who are already talking about college scholarships or going pro... it's nuts. Like you don't HAVE to sign up for all of it but once you put your kid in a sport there is SO MUCH pressure to do more. I used hockey as an example but I have friends with kids who've had the same experiences in baseball, cheerleading, gymnastics, swimming, soccer..." - seanofkelley

cheerleading, cheerleader, kids cheer, cheer squad, cheerleading sport bring it GIF by Lifetime Giphy

7. "Play dates... apparently nobody can be trusted enough to watch your kid until they're like 8 or 9." - JP96

8. "The fact that technology is so integrated with school. I can’t keep my kids off screens because that’s how they do 90% of their schoolwork. Their schools start providing Chromebooks in kindergarten. Half of their assignments require watching Youtube videos. They have to fill out google forms for school events. And my kids’ band director pushes out music and drill on google drive. I constantly have to find new ways to try to give them access to what they need but still limit the constant unfettered access to the internet." - UnhappyDimension681

9. "How we sit in cars. We kind of just laid in the back on road trips. Now they're in boosters until their big. I understand safety obviously but big difference in Long road trips!" - Jessssiiiiccccaaaa

minivan, road trip, travel with kids, traveling, car Happy Honda GIF Giphy

10. "Social media and keeping-up-with-the-Jones. Almost every 8-year old in my daughter's class has a cell phone OR an Apple Watch. It's hard for my wife and I to explain to our daughter why we don't think it is a good idea for her yet. There was even some TikTok drama at her school that got the district's attention where some 5th graders were randomly matching up 5th graders as if they were dating." - dr_z0idberg_md

11. "Monitoring their consumption of media is far and away the hardest thing. I haven't caught them watching anything TOO out of bounds, but the other day we were talking about someone who'd only go on a trip if someone else was paying for it, and my 10 y/o daughter asked 'You mean like a sugar baby?' and I just...how? Where? She likes watching Youtube shorts and tutorials and those "oddly satisfying" videos, and sometimes looks up musicians she likes, but I can't screen everything she can get her hands on. I looked at her history and nothing pops out, and maybe it was someone from school, but I just don't know." - andmewithoutmytowel

12. "Summer camp. My ass was out from morning to 7 at night." - awiththejays

summer camp, camp, sleep away camp, overnight camp, kids camp summer camp GIF Giphy

13. "School drop off and pick up. I walked to school and home from school as an elementary school kid. Now, if your elementary school kid tries to walk to the school door without a parent, they’d be on the phone with CPS before your kid’s butt crossed the threshold. Walking to/from school is still a common practice in other countries but sadly not here anymore." - TrickyOperation6115

14. "Every birthday party needs a theme now." - Janeheroine

15. "The fact that we can never watch tv because the kids can watch exactly what they want on demand at anytime, not having to wait for the cartoons to come on." - Woefulraddish


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Parents complained about 'offensive' book, so the principal read it to the entire school

Apparently learning about the Civil Rights movement is "inappropriate."

Jess Piper/Twitter
School responded to a parent's book complaint by reading it aloud to the entire student body

Schools often have to walk a fine line when it comes to parental complaints. Diverse backgrounds, beliefs, and preferences for what kids see and hear will always mean that schools can't please everyone all the time, so teachers and educators have to discern what's best for the whole, broad spectrum of kids in their care.

Sometimes, what's best is hard to discern. Sometimes it's absolutely not.

Such was the case when a parent at a St. Louis elementary school complained in a Facebook group about a book that was read to her 7-year-old. The parent wrote:

"Anyone else check out the read a loud book on Canvas for 2nd grade today? Ron's Big Mission was the book that was read out loud to my 7 year old. I caught this after she watched it bc I was working with my 3rd grader. I have called my daughters school. Parents, we have to preview what we are letting the kids see on there."

Fittingly, the Facebook group was titled "Concerned Parents of the Rockwood School District."

book bans, books, reading, elementary school, schools, education, racism, kids books, childrens books, parents, teachers Parents have always been concerned with what their kids are reading; but lately it's getting out of hand. Photo by Jonathan Borba on Unsplash

The book in question, Ron's Big Mission, highlights a true story from the childhood of Challenger astronaut Ron McNair, who had experienced discrimination as a child in South Carolina because he was Black. In 1959, when he was nine years old, McNair wanted to check out books at the library, but the librarian told him the library didn't loan books to "coloreds." McNair refused to leave the library until he was allowed to check out books. Rather than give him a library card, the librarian called the police, who ultimately convinced her to just let him check out books.

Seriously, what issue could this parent possibly take with such an inspiring story of a kid standing up to injustice and fighting for the right to educate himself?

This was a child who single-handedly changed a library's racial segregation policy and grew up to be an astronaut—a genuine, real-life hero. What is there to take issue with? The parent didn't specify, so we're left to conjecture, but bad reviews for the book on Goodreads and Amazon might give us a clue: Some readers have taken offense at the way the book portrays white people.

"I understand racial diversity is important but this is just awful. I don't think it's appropriate for kids because they don't live in a world where black kids can't rent books or do the same things white kids can do. It's a pretty level playing field now," one reviewer wrote on Goodreads.

"Children are supposed to learn how to love all cultures not hate all cultures," added another 1-star reviewer.

Cue up the tiny violins.

book bans, books, reading, elementary school, schools, education, racism, kids books, childrens books, parents, teachers The old "reverse racism" trope! Giphy

Rockwood Education Equity and Diversity Director Brittany Hogan told KMOX News Radio that after hearing of the complaint, other parents responded immediately in the book's defense.

"They were saying this is amazing that they were buying copies of the book," Hogan said. "One of our parents came out and said she was going to purchase a copy for every second-grader at the elementary school that her children attends."

Hogan called McNair a hero and said, "He deserves to be celebrated. His story deserves to be told to our children. It's important that we continue to move in a space that embeds diverse curriculum."

And the school responded in the best possible way—by announcing the book was going to be read aloud to the whole student body via Zoom. That's how you shut down a bigot. Boom.

Here's Pond Elementary Principal Carlos Diaz-Granados reading "Ron's Big Mission" to students via Zoom and sharing why he thinks it's an important book for kids:

- YouTube www.youtube.com

In the years since this incident, book bans have sadly become even more of an issue in many parts of America. During the 2023-2024 school year, over 10,000 books were banned in public schools; a rapidly accelerating number. It's too easy for special interest groups and politicians to hide behind the idea of "protecting kids" from inappropriate content, when in reality, any books written by or about people of color or the LQBTQ+ community are being overwhelmingly targeted just for existing.

Schools have a responsibility in this battle. While it's not their place to adopt a formal religious, racial, or political position, they are supposed to be environments where all are welcome. And it's their job to fight for their students' right to learn and access information. Kudos to the Pond Elementary Team for doing the right thing here.

This article originally appeared two years ago. It has been updated.

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A jaw-dropping 5th grade assignment asked kids to 'set their price for a slave'

Somehow this is still happening.

Canva Photos

A 5th grade class erupted in controversy after an insensitive assignment about slavery.

The slave trade is an extremely dark and horrific part of American history. It's impossible to talk about the history of our country without it, but it's also difficult to talk about with the right level of sensitivity, respect, nuance, and context. Millions of people died directly because of the Atlantic slave trade, which is to say nothing of the inhumane cruelty that the survivors of enslavement suffered.

How do you explain something so unimaginably awful to children? No one would ever say it's easy, but outdated curriculums and even insensitive teachers have been bungling it for decades. Poorly thought-out slavery lessons have been a problem in American schools for a long time now.

In an effort to help kids make sense of something so truly senseless, assignments often try to put kids in the shoes of slave owners and ask that they understand the reasons and logic behind the practice. This is the wrong lesson, and stories like this one show exactly why.

In 2019, 5th grade students at Blades Elementary School were given an assignment on the trading market of early Colonial settlers. One of the questions was completely outrageous.

According to a photo posted on Facebook by Lee Hart, the assignment read:

"You own a plantation or farm and therefore need more workers. You begin to get involved in the slave trade industry and have slaves work on your farm. Your product to trade is slaves.

"Set your price for a slave," it continued, offering a blank space for children to write in their answer. "These could be worth a lot. You may trade for any items you'd like."

The post went viral in local Facebook groups at the time, quickly attracting media attention and outrage among fellow parents.

"Unimaginable that a teacher would think this way okay," one commenter wrote.

"How stupid, insensitive, racial, unbelievable in today’s world. The teacher needs to be penalized for this," someone said.

"Any teacher, as we approach 2020, should be educated and sensitive enough to know that there are better examples that could be used to teach this lesson, which would not make anyone uncomfortable," another user added.

See the assignment here. It's hard to believe without seeing it with your own eyes.

slavery, assignment, american history, slave trade, plantation owners Lee Hart www.facebook.com

You can see immediately where the assignment went wrong. Instead of teaching about the horrors of enslaving another human being, we're building empathy for the poor slave owners who just need someone to work their land so they can get by. While the context of how the early trade-based economy worked is important for children to learn, how we talk about it is even more important.

Can you imagine an assignment that prompted children to put themselves in the Nazi's shoes during the Holocaust? Exactly.

Assignments like this one have been going home with students for years. This is just one of the latest examples and, somehow, incidents like this one are still happening.

slavery, early america, united states of america, education, schools, classroom, parents, controversy, colonial america, civil war Parents of the 5th grade students were outraged.Canva Photos

In another school, children were asked to share the pros and cons of slavery, including giving at least three "good" reasons for it. In another incident, kids were asked to write fake Tweets from the perspective of slave owners, and the Tweets were printed and posted in the school's hallway with jaw-dropping hashtags like #slaveryforlife. In yet another assignment, middle school students were asked to brainstorm punishments for slaves in ancient Mesopotamia.

Some powerful parties in America don't want schools teaching the real, ugly truth of how our country was founded, and that's undeniably making this problem worse. The 1776 Commission was launched in 2020 by then-President Donald Trump and was re-commissioned again in January of 2025. It pushes for what it calls "patriotic education." You can guess what that means.

The official report is full of hemming and hawing and explaining away of the atrocities of slavery, harping on why the practice was a necessary evil.

"Many Americans labor under the illusion that slavery was somehow a uniquely American evil," the report says.

It argues that, because other countries did slavery first, that it wasn't so bad that America partook in the cruel practice. It also bends over backwards to applaud the founding fathers for half-measures and minor compromises, like George Washington freeing his own slaves shortly before his death in 1799.

The federal government doesn't control the minutiae of state curriculums, but can withhold public school funding when it's not happy about what's being taught or how the money is being used. PBS writes that over 20 states have passed laws that "restrict how history can be taught in public schools" in the last 10 years or so.

slavery, early america, united states of america, education, schools, classroom, parents, controversy, colonial america, civil war The classroom is supposed to be a safe space for all students. Photo by Ivan Aleksic on Unsplash

For the school's part, the principal of Blades Elementary at the time apologized for the incident and the teacher was placed on administrative leave after expressing their remorse.

"Asking a student to participate in a simulated activity that puts a price on a person is not acceptable," Superintendent Chris Gaines said according to ABC News. "Racism of any kind, even inadvertently stemming from cultural bias, is wrong and is not who we aspire to be as a school district."

Being a teacher is hard, especially with immense pressure coming from the very top to speak of American history in only pre-approved, white-washed ways. But we've definitely got to do better than this.

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Neuropsychologist argues why parents are 'shepherds' not 'engineers' in viral 2 minute speech

“This hit harder than any parenting advice I’ve ever heard.”

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Are you an engineer parent or a shepherd parent?

The intention of almost any parent is to do everything in their power to eventually bring a well-rounded, healthy, happy adult into this world. And yet, parents today are uniquely challenged with the anxiety that comes from this false narrative that if you somehow do everything “right,” your child will have all the success in the world.

And if you didn’t do the thing—have the perfect amount of omega-3s during pregnancy, adhere to the most astringent no-screen rules when they’re toddlers, etc.—you take the blame for any shortcomings your child develops.

However, according to one expert, it might be time for parents to reassess how much power they actually do have in the childrearing process.

In 2022, Dr. Russell Barkley, a psychologist who’s done a lot of pioneering work focused on ADHD, had a very tough love speech (one that seems to be going viral yet again) that began with the words, “The problem with parents these days…”


While that might be a little off-putting at first, trust that the overall message is pretty sound. There's nothing overgeneralized or finger-wagging about it, actually. In fact, it’s more of a permission slip for parents to breathe a bit and enjoy the process.

You do not get to design your children.

Nature would never have permitted that to happen. Evolution would not have allowed a generation of a species to be so influenced by the previous generation. It hasn't happened and it doesn't happen and it especially doesn't happen in children.

You do not design your children.

Barkley then gives the example of playing Mozart while pregnant will spawn a “genius,” or that “enough crib toys” will “fire enough synapses” to make a child grow up a “brilliant mathematician." Sure, stimulations matters, but more likely than not, the necessary stimulation is already being provided and no amount of extra effort will take away this truth:

You just don't have that kind of power…it’s out of your hands.

ussell barkley, nature vs nurture, raising kids, kid psychology, psychology, neuroscience Pregnant woman enjoys music (Mozart, perhaps) smiling gently with headphones.Photo credit: Canva

That can be a tough pill to swallow, but Barkley doubled down on his findings from “twenty years of research in neuroimaging, behavior genetics, developmental psychology, neuropsychology, all of which could apparently be boiled down to:

Your child is born with more than 400 psychological traits that will emerge as they mature, and they have nothing to do with you. So the idea that you are going to engineer personalities and IQs and academic achievement skills and all these other things just isn't true."

Still, there is also a beautiful gift in surrendering to this fact, Barkley said, wherein parents get to view their child as less of a “blank slate on which they get to write” and more of a “a genetic mosaic of their extended family.”

And this is where his famous “Shepherd vs. Engineer” analogy comes in.

I like the shepherd view. You are a shepherd. You don't design the sheep. The engineering view makes you responsible for everything--everything that goes right and everything that goes wrong. This is why parents come to us with such guilt. More guilt than we've ever seen in prior generations. Because parents today believe that it's all about them, and what they do, and if they don't get it right, or if their child has a disability, they've done something wrong when in fact the opposite is true. This has nothing to do with your particular brand of parenting.

So I would rather you would stop thinking of yourself as an engineer, and step back and say "I am a shepherd to a unique individual." Shepherds are powerful people. They pick the pastures in which the sheep will graze and develop and grow. They determine whether they're appropriately nourished. They determine whether they're protected from harm. The environment is important but it doesn't design the sheep. No shepherd is going to turn a sheep into a dog. Ain't gonna happen. And yet that is what we see parents trying to do, all the time.

In this speech, Barkley made sure to note the unique, vital role for parents of children with special needs, suggesting that they often feel the pressure to coax them into people that they are not, as a way of protecting them. But, as he said, “No shepherd is gonna turn a sheep into a dog.”

He then brought it all home with what’s to be gained by loosening the grip:

Recognizing that this is a unique individual before you allows you to enjoy the show. So open a bottle of chardonnay, kick off your slippers, sit back, and watch what takes place. Because you don't get to determine this. Enjoy the show. It doesn't last that long--they are gone before you know it.

Let them grow, let them prosper, please design appropriate environments around them, but you don't get to design them.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Obviously, there’s plenty of arguments to be made on either side of the whole nature vs. nurture debate, but the major takeaway seems to be that a parent’s role is equally active—providing structure, stimulation, nurturing, nourishing, etc—as well as passively observing (and accepting) what organically emerges. That latter responsibility might be even harder to fulfill than the former, but it beats stressing out over “engineering” the perfect child.

At its core, Barkley’s shepherd approach seems to be a way for parents to not only offer their kids a bit more grace, but themselves as well. That way everyone can feel safe to be their most authentic selves.

By the way, here is a link to The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, which Barkley references.

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