In reporting our book, Becky and I have asked dozens of women about how their childhood experiences have influenced their choices as parents. Memories span the spectrum … some women are trying to replicate poignant family rituals, while others are forging starkly different paths. Some moms have argued that we need to put the past behind us; they say life today is so different that we can’t look to the previous generation for guidance.

We thought it would be fun and thought-provoking to ask a generational expert about cycles in parenting, so we’re really excited today to introduce Professor Tracy McGaugh as our guest blogger. Tracy, a law professor and mom of two young girls, has been studying generational psychology and law for many years, and she’s now the national go-to expert on the current generation of law students.

Today, she shares her personal story and theories on how parenting is the same, and different, from a generation ago.  Thank you, Tracy — take it away! –Hollee

The greatest influence in my adult life has been psychotherapy. Lots of it. Beyond helping me untangle my own internal ball of string, it’s helped me understand how people operate and what motivates them.

Tracy and Family

Like each person, each generation is a combination of nature and nurture. Our grandparents were influenced by their parents and the times in which they lived. Those two things combined to become our grandparents’ influence on our parents. Our grandparents’ influence on our parents combined with the times in which our parents lived and became our parents’ influence on us.

And because we’re always trying to overcompensate for whatever mistakes our parents made, each generation represents a swing of the pendulum in the other direction. Over time, what you see is a predictable cycle of generational behavior.

How predictable? Predictable enough to trace the same cycle of four generational types from 1584 to the present. The tracing was done by a couple of generational historians, Neil Howe and the late William Strauss. So what does all this macro generational theory tell us about the micro work of parenting our own children? I think it says several things, all of them comforting.

1. You can change the dynamics in your family if you want to. With 400+ years in the United States, we Americans have demonstrated that we’re pretty adaptable from generation to generation.

2. Everything will be fine. Every generation thinks that the world is being shepherded to hell in a handbasket by the “young people.” It’s their loud music and their rowdy politics that are mostly to blame for, among other things, their lack of writing ability and penmanship. And yet, we never actually go to hell in a handbasket. For 400 years, the young people have been ruining Western Civilization. And yet, it refuses to collapse. I’d bet the house that we actually have another 400 years in us.

3. On some level, your parenting doesn’t matter as much as you think it does. I didn’t have the easiest childhood, but most of my friends in high school had what most of us would think of as “regular parents.” And we all turned out pretty much the same. People in my peer group didn’t need bad parents to end up disaffected and isolated. It was a generational characteristic that seemed to get many of us.

4. This point in the generational cycle is a great place to be parents. My contemporaries, like Becky and Hollee, are Xers. Xers are a recessive, reactive generation. It just sounds undesirable. Xers are characterized by their underprotected and criticized youth years, which turned them into alienated adults, who have mellowed into pragmatic midlifers (“If you can’t be perfect, be good enough.” Ringing a bell?). So generally no one thinks much of us.

And yet it’s our children that will comprise the Millennial Generation, a dominant, civic generation. This generation gets its confidence from its Xer parents, who were determined to do a better parenting job than the Boomers. And it’s a good thing, because the Boomers have made some messes that are going to require confident young people to clean up. This generation of parents has always been the underdog, and we’re finally getting the last laugh. We may have been lousy kids, but we’re great parents.

So do you agree with Tracy? Are we a better generation of parents? How are you different than your own mom and dad? Tell us!