He may not have been writing about parents butting in on their grown children's housekeeping or spending habits or the way they parent their newborns, but Bob Dylan was of the minute on the basic concept:
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize what you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’
In a rundown of new understandings of old practices--science has made some of our standby child-rearing standards irrelevant or even questionable--an article on Katie Couric Media hands out lots of advice on looking beyond "the way we did things." It also speaks to how we can be supportive grandparents who don't undermine our children's confidence in their parenting, especially during that fraught first year.
While the suggestions come with specifics (pacifiers have proven to be a lifesaver not a detriment), the author Mary Agnant , a young mother, also steps back to address us--the grandparents--directly:
Nobody knows better than you how hard being a parent is, and what we want most is to know that you think we’ll be great ones and that you’re proud of us. Having faith in us means not questioning every decision we make.
After writing that, she leans back on Bob Dylan (see above).
painting: Pierre Bonnard, Bowl of Milk
