Is It Possible to Set Boundaries On All of the Boundaries?

As a member of Generation X, I grew up during a time when boundaries were being broken down everywhere. It was the time of the feminist era and equal pay, the post-civil rights movement, the disabilities revolution leading to equal access everywhere and – drum roll -the emergence of free-range children who didn’t have much oversight or accountability.

We thrived under these conditions! And some of the hallmarks belonging to us Gen X’ers are our independence and self-reliance. It was a great time in which to grow up.

Now, what I hear with frequency and uniformity from my fellow Gen X grandparents and friends of Gen X grandparents is the present popularity of boundary setting which we find to be really arresting. Like what is the wisdom out there??

I was pleased to read, however, an assessment of this topic in a recent New York Times column, written by reporter who covers mental health. She states: “Like so much of the therapy-speak infiltrating social media and our culture at large, the meaning of ‘boundaries’ has been lost in translation. When psychologists talk about boundaries, they don’t mean controlling other people with ultimatums or insulating yourself from relationship problems. Setting a boundary means controlling your own behavior with rules that you set for yourself.”

Ah, that feels better. And so does her other point: “We want to get in the zone where there is some balance and flexibility,” adding that “overly rigid boundaries can create fractures in relationships.”

She’s my new hero! So is a young mom expecting her second child soon who shared with me some of her thoughts on this topic. Heavy rule- and boundary-setting has not been part of her approach by design, partly because it’s not in her nature, but also because it hasn’t been necessary. She also believes that information overload and social media polarization can hinder good decision making.

One boundary, however, that essentially created itself was a limit on TV time for her daughter. After a two-hour ‘Paw Patrol’ session with a grandparent, her daughter pitched a “full blown toddler tantrum” when the TV needed to be turned off. She admits that it might have been an off day, but the extended TV time also seemed to promote “some dysregulation.” After that incident, TV time became limited to two episodes of a program in a single sitting.

Overall, she says she tends to seek parenting advice from a variety of sources. But the “endless portal of information on the internet…it’s a lot.”

It can be hard to process so many conflicting opinions and so much instruction, she explains. But two online resources she considers very worthwhile are The Bump, a pregnancy and parenting website, and Taking Cara Babies, a site with actionable sleep training information.

Her guiding philosophy is to absorb diverse input, filter it and adopt what fits her family’s context, rather than following any single source completely and exclusively. Strict and highly prescriptive approaches were rejected, she says, using as an example the Moms On Call website which she believes offers “unrealistic advice for controlling infant sleep.”

She believes the best parenting advice comes from books and friends with kids. Gotcha!

Ultimately, grandparents certainly aren’t going to be the ones with all the right answers (i.e. “If your kid bites, bite them back,” I heard one grandparent say – yikes!). What’s great is that there are so many informational access points in today’s world.

And tangentially related, while I don’t think any of us Gen X’ers ever expected to be free-range grandparents, we certainly don’t want to be caged ones either.