How to Ruin a Child

Behind every generation of Australian mothers and fathers has stood an army of advisors - magazine columnists, expert authors, nurses, priests and government agencies. Most of those experts were very certain about their own rules. Any deviation would produce a dire result: you'd ruin a child.

Yet, over time, the advice kept changing. Each generation was told that the last generation had it all wrong. How peculiar that most of the experts did not have children of their own.

And, for the current generation of parents, history offers a consolation. When relatives, and other critics, tell young parents that they are 'doing it all wrong', and that different (usually stricter) methods would make everything go smoothly, the experience of Australian parents over time is wonderfully reassuring.

Parenting is tough, however you do it, and the outcome, however you get there, is usually a perfectly fine human.