When ‘No’ Becomes a Bad Word: The Rise and Fall of Gentle Parenting
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In June 2023, the online humor website McSweeney’s ran a piece on gentle parenting in classic literature. Taking nine works of literature, the author summarizes them in the wheedling tone of a gentle parent. For example, here’s Homer’s Iliad: “I see two armies who are sad and mad. The Trojan army and the Greek army both want to play with Helen. Right now, I think we need to take a break to let our bodies and our vengeful Olympian gods calm down. I think we should put Helen back in the closet for today, and we can get her out again tomorrow.” And here’s Orwell’s 1984: “Being a Big Brother is hard. I bet it makes you angry when Winston doesn’t submit to your will. Sometimes when people don’t submit to our will, we want to torture them with rats. I’m going to sit with you until you feel calmer, and then we can figure out a way to get Winston to submit without using rats.”
This mockery of gentle parenting (GP) is just one of many recent critiques of this relatively new parenting style. Alternative styles have been around since at least the mid-1900s, with Diana Baumrind’s classification of three main approaches: authoritarian, permissive, and authoritative. But GP — at least as a specific cultural term — arose about a decade ago. (See Sarah Ockwell-Smith’s The Gentle Parenting Book or L. R. Knost’s book on gentle Christian parenting.) In fact, it wasn’t until the pandemic’s isolation that the GP movement really took off on social media, with the hashtag #gentleparenting eventually reaching hundreds of millions of posts and billions of views on TikTok.
GP is a method that focuses on understanding children’s feelings and motivations, encourages calm cooperation from parents, and elevates redirection over correction. Parents often descend to the same level as their children and avoid words such as no and don’t. According to some narratives, the reason for this pendulum swing from more punitive or authoritarian parenting toward a gentler approach is due to the desire among millennial and Gen Z parents to be more calm, supportive, and affectionate than their parents were. At its best, or most idealistic, GP eliminates harsh responses and punishments, leads to respectful relationships between parents and children, and results in socially and emotionally mature children who can confidently articulate and control their feelings.
At its worst, however, GP lurches toward permissive and indulgent parenting, despite protests to the contrary. By giving deference to children’s moods, parents become facilitators of their children’s autonomy, often resorting to endless choices and even manipulation to achieve some semblance of order. Many parents — initially supportive and adoptive of GP practices — report frustration and burnout, ironically increasing not only their anxiety but also the overall tension within the home, as everyone struggles with a lack of hierarchy, structure, and clear boundaries.
These cracks became apparent after several years, and since 2022, GP has been taken to the woodshed by numerous outlets, from academic to satiric. In March 2022, The New Yorker published an article titled “The Harsh Realities of Gentle Parenting,” criticizing the approach’s “overvalidation and undercorrection.” Almost exactly a year later, New York Magazine published an article titled “Gentle Parenting Is Too Gentle,” claiming, “In theory, [GP is] lovely; in practice, most of us are exhausted, confused, and looking for an approach that isn’t quite so hard on us parents.” Online writers raised concerns at Oprah Daily, Parents, Cleveland Clinic, and what to expect. Also, a 2024 Surgeon General report described parental burnout as “a significant public health issue.”
In academia, journals are starting to publish GP studies that echo the burnout concerns. Within just the past few months, Psychology Today has published numerous articles on GP, suggesting it doesn’t work, it’s too close to permissive parenting, and its cons include insufficient parental control. Major television networks such as NBC and CBS have also supplied thorough critiques, noting that too much gentleness ironically ends up being rough on the family, and many parents are ditching the approach. Even on social media, the tide has turned, with TikTok and Instagram influencers disclosing their frustrations with 45-minute tantrums and children who expect the parenting style seen on Bluey. This past fall, Seth Myers commiserated with Today hosts that GP yields “no results” because kids these days have no healthy fear.
Around Thanksgiving 2023, Saturday Night Live showed a skit teasing the ineffectiveness of a parent trying to gently correct a young child. First, two TSA agents at Newark airport introduce noteworthy travelers at a fictional parade: a fighting couple on their last Thanksgiving trip together, a woman with three service dogs she clearly doesn’t need (one for her rosacea, one for her eczema, and one for her anxiety), a TSA agent shouting the same thing twelve different ways, and a woman who took her Ambien a little too early. In that mix of characters is “a gentle-parenting father and his out-of-control, evil child.” The father tells his daughter, who looks about six years old, “Sweetie, your feelings are valid, but Daddy wonders if there’s a more productive way to express yourself, because we want to have a good Thanksgiving, right?” I won’t repeat the daughter’s disrespectful reply, but a black female TSA agent comments, “Sometimes, you just gotta whoop ‘em. Whoop ‘em!” Needless to say, it’s uncommon to hear jokes encouraging spanking on mainstream TV, but the audience laughs in clear recognition of the situation — everybody has seen that kid.
In June 2024, McSweeney’s ran another article on GP that was republished in the February 2025 issue of Reader’s Digest. The satirical piece takes dad jokes and ruins them with jargon from the GP world. One joke reads, “What do you call it when a snowman throws a tantrum? A meltdown! . . . Wow, that snowman has some big feelings. I wonder why he acted that way. I bet he feels sad that spring is coming and he will soon cease to exist. I sure would be. I think the snowman would feel a lot better if he paused and did a mindfulness exercise.” Another joke asks, “Why was six afraid of seven? Because seven ate nine! . . . And sweetie, it is a perfectly normal reaction to be scared when your friends cannibalize each other. Six doesn’t have to talk to seven anymore if it doesn’t want to. It’s also acceptable for six to be sad about nine, and it shouldn’t be afraid to cry. I bet seven would really benefit from therapy too.”
What is remarkable is that this cultural backlash against GP has not come primarily from Christian sources, although Christian responses exist too. On her Relatable podcast in March 2024, conservative commentator Allie Beth Stuckey interviewed Abigail Shrier, the author of a popular book titled Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up. Stuckey and Shrier agree that children who are taught to obsess about their own feelings will tyrannize others into acting according to those feelings. In February of this year, Stuckey conducted an interview on a similar topic with Abbie Halberstadt, observing that GP turns parents into unqualified therapists. Likewise, Alisa Childers has interviewed Halberstadt about GP, raising the theological concerns that original sin seems to have been erased, and Christ’s action of taking our punishment on the cross loses its meaning for children who have never been punished.
Also in February 2025, the Christian magazine WORLD published an article criticizing GP and discussing what it means to be truly loving. The article’s author, Candice Watters, who has a master’s in public policy from Regent University, argues that GP simply increases anxiety for parents. A Christian author at the Institute for Family Studies attacks GP in a similar way: “Couched in appealing language, most of what passes as ‘expert tips’ is some of the worst advice and gaslighting I have ever seen.” So-called GP experts “gaslight parents into feeling almost abusive if they do flex their authority by using firm and traditional methods, and suggest these parents are feeding a vicious cycle of misbehaviour.”
As narrow a subject as GP may seem, parallels exist in all kinds of areas, from politics to education. Even comedian Tina Fey has described re-watchable comfort shows as “gentle programming.” We have seen in recent years the consequences of being soft on rioters and illegal immigration, and it is not much of a stretch to see connections between the loose governing styles of parents and politicians. Minneapolis still hasn’t recovered since 2020, and Stuckey and Shrier (mentioned above) discuss the plausibility of the theory that the rise in political radicalism may be rooted in the absence of fathers’ firm guidance in the home—people will look for order somewhere. Another political consequence of too much gentle parenting is that if parents do not correct their children, then the state eventually will.
Additionally, teachers and administrators would benefit from considering parallels, including the burnout that’s plaguing elementary and secondary school teachers. In higher education, it is common for professors to undergo student evaluations of teaching (SETs). Administrators often rely on SETs during reviews of faculty performance, yet SET scores are widely questioned as an accurate method of assessing teaching quality. Scores often reflect how happy students are with their grades, or worse, reflect students’ biases regarding gender, age, and even “sexiness.” In my experience, many professors practice a kind of gentle teaching in their attendance and late policies, often because of concern about SET scores.
But what kind of people are we training? Since education is a holistic enterprise, I consider punctuality, attire, and other seemingly non-academic matters to be part of the educational and formational process, and a gentle approach does not always serve students well. Mercy has always been a part of my teaching, but as coaches know, constant leniency with little rigor does not lead to athletic success.
Similarly, many Learning Support Plans (LSPs) seem to be no more than an educational form of GP and are actually destructive to the students who have learned to game the system. Real learning needs do exist, and administrators must consider government compliance. So, I’m not arguing we can make radical changes immediately. Nevertheless, as the damaging effects of too much gentleness and special treatment continue to emerge, parents, educators, and people in all areas of society should consider ways to increase accountability and decrease burnout.
As creatures in submission to our Creator, who in certain contexts is gentle and lowly (Matt. 11:29), Christians know authority is natural. And our practices — whether in parenting or education — should acknowledge the goodness of God’s created order, including the hierarchies inherent in our many relationships.
