On benign neglect – Darby Saxbe in NYT:

‘The modern style of parenting is not just exhausting for adults; it is also based on assumptions about what children need to thrive that are not supported by evidence from our evolutionary past. For most of human history, people had lots of kids, and children hung out in intergenerational social groups in which they were not heavily supervised. Your average benign-neglect day care is probably closer to the historical experience of child care than that of a kid who spends the day alone with a doting parent.’

(…)

‘If you want to raise empathetic, imaginative children who can figure out how to entertain themselves, don’t keep their brains too occupied.
An excellent way to bore children is to take them to an older relative’s house and force them to listen to a long adult conversation about family members they don’t know. Quotidian excursions to the post office or the bank can create valuable opportunities for boredom, too.’

(…)

‘I wrote most of my Ph.D. dissertation alongside my toddler in a coffee shop in my neighborhood that had a mini play area with stacking toys, board books and room to park a stroller. That coffee shop is gone now, replaced by a sleeker cafe where it’s hard to picture a stray plastic toy, let alone a rambunctious 2-year-old.’

(…)

‘In other words, underparenting requires structural change, and not just the obvious changes that we think of as parental stress-relievers, such as family leave and paid child care.’

Read the article here.

In other words, bore your children to death.

Underparenting as the best way of parenting might come as a relief to many parents. Or not.
Letting go isn’t easy.
Some parents need to feel constantly that without them their child is lost.