{"id":444659,"date":"2026-01-29T07:35:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T07:35:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/444659\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T07:35:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T07:35:12","slug":"the-rise-of-fafo-parenting-is-this-the-end-of-gentle-child-rearing-parents-and-parenting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/444659\/","title":{"rendered":"The rise of Fafo parenting: is this the end of gentle child rearing? | Parents and parenting"},"content":{"rendered":"

A couple of weeks ago, a video posted on TikTok by Paige Carter, a mother in Florida, went viral. Carter explained that she had thrown her daughter\u2019s iPad out of the window when she had been misbehaving on the way to school, and she films herself retrieving the tablet, now with a cracked screen. The video has been watched 4.9m times, and Carter was congratulated in the comments, with one person writing \u201cLearning Fafo at an early age: top tier parenting.\u201d Welcome to the parenting trend that doesn\u2019t seem to be disappearing: \u201cFuck around and find out.\u201d<\/p>\n

In another video<\/a>, when a small child announces he is going to leave home, his mother says \u201csee ya\u201d, shuts the front door behind him, and turns off the outside light \u2013 then opens the door to him screaming and pounding to be let back in (it has been liked 1.5m times). He had learned, said his mother, \u201cthe meaning of Fafo\u201d.<\/p>\n

Last summer, a piece in the Wall Street Journal heralded the rise of Fafo parenting and the end of \u201cgentle parenting\u201d \u2013 a trend that began about 10 years ago as a response to the more authoritarian \u201cnaughty step\u201d parenting of the early 2000s, which has been blamed for everything from entitled young adults destined for disappointment by the cruel realities of life to societal collapse itself. Gentle parents reported being exhausted from taking the lead from their child, carefully explaining every decision, watching their every move and naming each emotion their child might be feeling, in a calm and tender way.<\/p>\n

Illustration: Holly Szczypka\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

A backlash against gentle parenting had been brewing for some time. \u201cYou could watch Instagram all day with people taking the mickey out of it,\u201d says Prof Ellie Lee, director of the Centre for Parenting Culture Studies at the University of Kent. She says that \u201cparenting has become very intensive\u201d.<\/p>\n

Advocates of Fafo say it teaches their child independence and the consequences of their actions, even if those consequences are uncomfortable or, at the extreme end, harsh. Critics say it relies too heavily on fear and humiliation, and that while children might comply as a result, it damages trust. Done properly, however, there isn\u2019t much to separate the styles: true gentle parenting embraces boundaries and consequences, and Fafo doesn\u2019t have to be punishing. But this is online-influenced child rearing, where extremes are pushed, nuance is out and polarisation is in.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a fan of children experiencing natural consequences, at the level of \u2018I\u2019m not going to keep battling with my child about them wearing a coat,\u2019\u201d says Dr Maryhan Munt, a psychologist and host of the How Not to Screw Up Your Kids podcast. \u201cIf they don\u2019t tidy away their toys, and someone treads on one, something gets broken. That, I think, can be good learning. What I have more of an issue with is: \u2018OK, see what it\u2019s like to try that fizzy drink you keep going on and on about.\u2019 As parents, our role is to provide the boundaries and scaffolding for our children. Where it\u2019s relevant, there can be natural consequences. But when we tip over the edge to almost like, \u2018I can\u2019t be bothered, if that\u2019s what you want to do, just do it,\u2019 then I think that\u2019s where it sends the wrong message.\u201d<\/p>\n

Children don\u2019t just learn from consequences, they learn from how adults stay present with them through those consequences<\/p>\n

Gentle parenting methods, or at least what people often think that involves, can leave parents feeling burned out, says Dr Emma Svanberg, a psychologist and author of Parenting for Humans<\/a>. \u201cFor me, that\u2019s about parents feeling they\u2019ve been told they must validate, empathise, explain and absorb dysregulation without ever having experienced this themselves in their own childhood, and with very little structural support. I think Fafo might be a reaction to that \u2013 a pendulum swing from something that can be interpreted as permissive to something that can seem more authoritarian.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fafo is appealing, Svanberg says, because \u201con an immediate, explicit level it gives permission for parents to relax, to bring in natural consequences rather than endless negotiation with an unwilling, \u2018non-compliant\u2019 child\u201d. For those parents who grew up in the 90s, they know where they are with a tough love style. The emergence of Fafo, she says, \u201chappened at the same time as nostalgia for 1990s parenting, and we tend to find it easier to repeat patterns which are familiar to us. After a lot of pressure on parents to parent in specific, child-focused ways in the context of intensive parenting, it is almost inevitable that there would be some shift on a societal level.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also, adds Munt, new parents observing older childen who have been raised \u201cgently\u201d may feel the method was not all that good for them: \u201cThe evidence seems to be that we\u2019re just getting more and more anxious children.\u201d<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s a danger in taking Fafo too far. Svanberg says: \u201cChildren don\u2019t just learn from consequences; they learn from how adults stay present with them through those consequences. If Fafo becomes emotionally hands-off \u2013 \u2018you\u2019ll learn the hard way, I\u2019m not getting involved\u2019 \u2013 children may internalise shame, feel unsupported or struggle to make sense of experiences developmentally beyond their capacity. The risk isn\u2019t independence, it\u2019s emotional isolation and shame.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Gaby Gonzalez became a mother and joined toddler groups, she noticed different styles among other mothers. \u201cYou have the helicopter parents, you have the one who intervenes every two minutes.\u201d Fafo parenting appealed to her. \u201cThe acronym sounds harsh, but you are allowing a safe, age-appropriate consequence instead of constant intervention.\u201d Given her children\u2019s young ages, these are small-scale. If her three-year-old wants to jump in a puddle in the park, Gonzalez will let him, even if it means taking off his wet clothes in the car on the way home. \u201cWe do a simple talk-through. I\u2019ll ask him, \u2018Oh, what happened? You\u2019re cold. Why are you cold?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Gonzalez, 41, is from Los Angeles, raised by Mexican parents \u201cin a Fafo style, now I think of it\u201d. At 12, she was expected to contribute to the family business, and at 13, living in Mexico for a while, she learned to drive, sitting on cushions to be able to see. \u201cI had my dad there to support me, because I had a clear and safe dynamic with them, [but] I never experienced \u2018gentle parenting\u2019 with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photograph: Natalia Lebedinskaia\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Gonzalez now lives in the UK, and is building an online community of mothers<\/a>. She thinks Fafo is slow to take off in the UK. \u201cPeople are more cautious,\u201d she says. \u201cWhereas in America and other places in Europe, I see people embracing it.\u201d It\u2019s a style, she hopes, that will shape the \u201cchildren I want to raise, and I don\u2019t want to raise asshole kids. I need to make sure [my son is] going to be a great, productive citizen of the world, who is inclusive and worldly and open to experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n

You could argue that that is a fairly universal parenting goal, equally important in gentle parenting \u2013 it\u2019s just that it has been misinterpreted. \u201cWhat many people have practised under the guise of \u2018gentle parenting\u2019 is actually high-intensity, child-centred, permissive parenting with very little attention to adult limits, power or context,\u201d says Svanberg. \u201cMany parents have found this incredibly overwhelming because when children don\u2019t have clear boundaries or expectations placed on them, and parents are stressed to the max because of lack of support, children tend to escalate. Fafo pushes back against the idea that parents must prevent all discomfort or distress. The risk is that it swings the pendulum from overinvolvement to under-responsiveness, and even punitive withdrawal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Is the permissive end of gentle parenting in danger of raising \u201casshole\u201d kids? \u201cAbsolutely,\u201d says Gonzalez with a laugh. She saw it in her career as an early years specialist. \u201cIf you don\u2019t have all the right tools and knowledge, it can bite you in the ass. Children thrive within clear rules, guidance and boundaries. That\u2019s where I\u2019m coming from.\u201d The Fafo style, she says, is not \u201cparenting running loose. You have to make sure that you know what it is and be safe.\u201d This is not parenting for the lazy, either \u2013 the way Gonzalez describes her approach sounds as much work as gentle parenting, whether it\u2019s helping your child understand the results of their actions or picking up the pieces when things go wrong for them.<\/p>\n

Children thrive within clear rules, guidance and boundaries. That\u2019s where I\u2019m coming from<\/p>\n

Typical Fafo examples that have emerged online include forgoing the battle to get a child to wear their coat and letting them get cold instead, or letting them go to bed hungry if they refuse to eat their dinner. Scenarios such as these won\u2019t seem all that remarkable to anyone who grew up in the last century, but it is the sort of faultline that has opened up, especially on social media, between parents at each extreme. Discussions about parenting styles, says Lee, \u201chave now become so tied to identity expression\u201d.<\/p>\n

The idea of \u201cparenting styles\u201d emerged in the 1960s, with the American psychologist and researcher Diana Baumrind\u2019s three types: authoritarian, permissive and, taking the best aspects of both, authoritative. \u201cIt was [Baumrind] trying to find a way through the conflicts that were emerging between a traditionalist view of relationships between generations, and all the things that were starting to become characteristic of the 60s,\u201d says Lee. Authoritative parenting \u2013 which many gentle and Fafo parents would both say they\u2019re doing \u2013 \u201chas, at its centre, a combination of what she calls warmth and demandingness\u201d.<\/p>\n

It requires a sense of adult, or parental, authority, which in turn requires a clear distinction between adults and children. \u201cWhat\u2019s happened over time is that whole borderline between adulthood and childhood has become very fragmented,\u201d says Lee. In broad terms, childhoods are no longer what they were \u2013 children\u2019s time is regimented and filled by their parents; they lack physical spaces to play; they\u2019re exposed to adult media and academically tested relentlessly at school \u2013 but neither are adulthoods. Grown-up children are remaining at home for longer, housing is unaffordable and jobs are unstable. Then add in the general online noise and conflicting messages, as well as the polarisation of everything, including parenting.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are, in quite an individuated type of way, trying to work through it,\u201d says Lee. \u201cThey flip-flop between messages that tell them you\u2019ve got to pay intense, continual attention to every single feeling your child has about anything, to telling your child to Fafo. I think both are horrible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Is there a political dimension to each? As the Wall Street Journal article put it: \u201cThe paradigm of gentle parents versus Fafo parents isn\u2019t quite Snowflake Kids versus Maga Kids, but there\u2019s a whiff of that.\u201d Lee says: \u201cThere may be some of that going on.\u201d The term Fafo has a rightwing flavour: on social media, it is more likely to be used not in a parenting context, but in approving posts about the actions of ICE in the US. There is a general \u201canti-woke\u201d dimension to \u201csome of the reaction to gentle parenting,\u201d says Lee. \u201cIt would be unsurprising if it\u2019s become bound up with a culture war.\u201d (For the record, Gonzalez would definitely not describe herself as rightwing.)<\/p>\n

But Lee adds it is hard to make broad claims about parenting and political leaning. Look at the discussion about vaccination in the US, she points out. The US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, a vaccine critic, has slashed routine childhood vaccinations. \u201cYou might think about that as part of Trumpism and Maga, but it\u2019s got a big appeal among so-called crunchy mums [who favour a natural lifestyle], attachment mothers and that alternative medicine world. It\u2019s quite difficult to map politics on to some of these phenomena.\u201d<\/p>\n

If there is a backlash against gentle parenting, it\u2019s hardly new. It has been nearly 30 years since sociologist Sharon Hays wrote The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood on the intensification of child rearing, shouldered predominantly by mothers. \u201cThere\u2019s been a ramping-up of demands which say to mothers, in particular, that you\u2019ve got to spend more time with your children, otherwise you\u2019re going to screw them up and society is going to fail,\u201d says Lee.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the popularity of Fafo tells us less about parents becoming harsher or more relaxed, and more about how unsupported families are,\u201d says Svanberg. \u201cWhen parenting advice swings between extremes, it often reflects structural failure \u2013 too little community, too little rest, too much pressure on individual parents to get it \u2018right\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fafo parenting is just the latest to grab attention online. \u201cThen it will be something else, but it\u2019ll be another form of the same thing,\u201d says Lee. There are already signs of this, of course. Scrolling through TikTok, I spotted a parenting style that isn\u2019t child-led and where consequences for actions play out, but without the humiliation or the \u201cI told you so\u201d stance that some parents online seem to revel in. Its name? Gentle Fafo.<\/p>\n