So what’s their parenting style all about? The jury is largely out, as their kids are still little—and not able to share experiences with researchers to allow for a full picture. And there’s not much in the way of other data.
“My instinct is that there will be a lot of elements of how they were parented,” Corey Seemiller, generational researcher, leadership educator, and coauthor of Generation Z: A Century in the Making, tells Fortune about what to expect from Gen Z parents, adding that some of her research found that 69% of Gen Zers called a parent their No. 1 role model.
The end is so real
Between the few young celeb parents speaking out, Gen Zers sharing about their kids on social media, and scant amounts of research, here’s what’s starting to become clear about the newest generation of parents.
“Social media serves as a really complex place, especially for a parent,” 25-year-old TikToker Alyssa “Ice,” mom to kids 4 and 16 months, tells Fortune. “While being an amazing space to seek support from other parents, get answers to unknown questions, as well as be inspired, it is also very easy to fall into a rabbit hole of comparison and judgment.”
“I prioritize internet safety for my children by not posting their faces online,” she says, while also limiting their screen time. “We do not allow our kids to have iPads or any internet access at the moment,” says Jones. “As far as when we will allow them to have socials, that depends on how far the internet progresses when they get to that age. Right now we plan to allow them to get their own social media when they are in high school.”
Still, observes Seemiller, not all Gen Z parents will think alike when it comes to this issue.
“For some of them, they were on [social media] a lot, and it was really helpful in making connections. They may want to see their children have that same experience,” she says. “Some of them have had very negative experiences on social media where they were bullied, harassed. There’s a fear of judgment. There’s people not liking their comments and pictures.” As a result, many young parents may indeed have strict rules about keeping kids off socials.
“So, I think you’re going to run into less of a monolith than we think when it comes to that,” Seemiller says, “depending on their own personal experience in that space.”
“This is a generation that really broke the stigma of mental health,” says Seemiller. “They often will say what they need. They will assert their autonomy and want to get resources, whether that’s in schools or the workplace… I can’t possibly imagine they would not want to parent their kids by also reducing any kind of shame around that.”
For Jones, that means apologizing to her kids when she’s wrong, “even though I’m the mother,” she says, and even though it’s “something that is a bizarre concept to my parents’ generation.” She also does “daily affirmations” with her little ones, and says, “I will always make sure that they know they can talk to me about anything without getting in trouble or feeling ashamed or embarrassed.”
Alyssa, meanwhile, uses her awareness of mental health to base her entire parenting philosophy on “unlearning a lot of the traumas that I experienced in my youth,” she says, and believes that having such an awareness is a “huge advantage” as a parent. “We are better equipped to support our kids and get them the resources that they may need at any point in their life,” she says. “Not only that, but taking care of our own mental health and really valuing it allows us to be better parents.”
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