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Too Much Advice Is Making Us Worse at Parenting

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12.04.2026

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Too much expert advice can increase parental anxiety.

Parenting has shifted from a relationship to a “child-focussed project.”

Less information can help parents function more effectively.

“Can you see the ways that external advice can exacerbate parental anxiety by creating unrealistic standards and fueling a sense of inadequacy? It isn’t that it causes parental anxiety, per se, as parenting is naturally full of protective urges, but it certainly has played a significant part in amplifying parental overwhelm.”

“Can you see the ways that external advice can exacerbate parental anxiety by creating unrealistic standards and fueling a sense of inadequacy? It isn’t that it causes parental anxiety, per se, as parenting is naturally full of protective urges, but it certainly has played a significant part in amplifying parental overwhelm.”

This is a theme I explore in my upcoming book, The Parenting Paradox, in which I reflect on the correlation between expert parenting advice and uncertain parenting.

I recently participated in a podcast interview about over-professionalizing parenting. It’s a topic that resonates with me so it’s been good to have opportunities to name what so many parents are quietly experiencing as a norm—that raising children has shifted from a lived relationship into something that feels more like a complex,........

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