Modern parents are facing a 'weird new pressure' to be perfectionists, Ciara Kelly has warned.
The Newstalk Breakfast presenter was speaking after a new ‘Mammies and Daddies Report’ from Aldi found that two-thirds of parents spend less than 10% of their time alone with their partners.
Meanwhile, more than half find it difficult to meet society's expectations of them as parents and around two-fifths say parenthood has negatively impacted their friendships.
'Benign neglect'
Ciara said parenting has changed a lot over the years.
"I do think one difference between nowadays' parents and maybe your mother or mine is they didn't worry about whether or not we were having a perfect childhood," she said.
"Benign neglect was kind of the order of the day - 'Get out of the house and come back for your tea'.
"My parents went away the week before I did the Leaving Cert and came back after it was finished.
"Can you imagine parents now who are there hot-housing and getting the grinds and stressed up the walls literally heading off and saying, 'We'll see you when it's over' - it just wouldn't happen."
Ciara said modern parenting has become far more competitive, adding "there's a weird new pressure on parents now to be somehow perfectionists".
'Never been better'
Fellow presenter Jonathan Healy said the State provides parents with a lot more than it used to.
"It's never been better to have a child in Ireland in terms of the State supports that are available and the available infrastructure," he said.
"There are obviously pockets of children who have additional needs who are not being looked after but for the most part, for healthy children, the State provides an awful lot more than it did in my day.
"You've got free GP care for children, we've got free second-level education now and relatively cheap third-level education.
"The quality of life for most children is good - yes there is poverty for some but the food we're eating, there's better variety, we're conscious of that," he added.
Jonathan said he thinks parents are putting themselves under 'undue pressure'.
