Woman questions if millennial parents are more sensitive than previous generations

Being a mom is anything but easy. This universal truth has never been denied. Parenting challenges vary from person to person, and in the era of social media, one Reddit user has sparked a discussion about how today's generation of mothers is openly sharing and discussing their struggles. They are also wondering if the problems have increased or if the discussions around them have.

u/Pandemicbabe took to Reddit and asked, "Are millennial parents overly sensitive? Every time I talk to other toddler moms, a lot of the conversations are about how hard things are, how our kids annoy us, how we need our space, how we feel overstimulated, etc. And we each have only one to two kids. I keep wondering how moms in previous generations didn’t go crazy with 4, 5, or 6 kids."

It is true that the conversations around the difficulties of being a mother have increased now but it is because people have more outlets to share their experiences. However, the mother also wondered, "Did they talk about how hard it was, did they know they were annoyed or struggling or were they just ok with their life and sucked it up. Are we millennial moms just complaining more because we had kids later in life? Is having a more involved partner letting us be aware of our needs? I spent one-weekend solo parenting my 3.5-year-old and I couldn’t stand him by Sunday."

It is possible that the generations before us struggled too but they did not have a safe space to express their troubles. With more and more people coming up and speaking about their struggles, overall awareness about the everyday struggles of mothers is also increasing. The post resonated with people and they were quick to comment on it.

u/ladyborg commented, "My mum hid away in books when she was not tending to me. She was a great mum but she struggled hard. She was isolated living in the Aus outback and depressed. Not much changed when we moved to a city. Parents in the past didn't have the avenues we have to express and share their experiences. Social media wasn't a thing back then, it's different now and we have the ability to talk about it. My mother parented and suffered in silence, I love how we don't do that as much anymore."

u/tomsprigs wrote, "Us millennials will talk about our feelings and struggles and emotional needs. We are very mental health focused which was not really the case in our parent's generation." u/kkaavbb commented, "Also, lack of the 'village' which some think is dumb but our families/parents/grandparents had the village. I know folks in their 50s who had an uncle and aunt a block over, memaw was down the block, another aunt was 2 doors down."

u/maketinkerbaker shared, "I'm going to add here that a generation or two ago, a lot of parents didn't really help their kids emotionally. Tantrum? Spanking. Whining? Spanking. Bored? 'Git out of the house!' The kind of parent that gets mad that their kid figures out how to open a bottle, right? Because then they can unscrew bottles, instead of being happy they figured it out." People in the comments section have raised important points about having a support system back in the days in the form of a joint family and today's generation feels less shame about expressing their feelings.