The difference between authoritative and gentle parenting

Many adults out there seem to think that gentle parenting is the same as authoritative parenting, and seek to undermine gentle parents by lumping them in with my abusive parents. Oh, how things have changed in the U.S. children's rights movement since the 1990s-early 2000s. A lot has changed since then.

I am a survivor of authoritative parenting, and I can tell you that the difference between my abuse and the parenting here is like night and day. Authoritative parenting focuses on the "democratic" aspects of parenting, while being anything but. My parents were lukewarm. My parents were punitive. And, they were all for the parents, especially my fathers.

I was spanked as a child, but never beaten. "Beaten" to me means injuries such as welts and bruises. I never suffered any injury due to being spanked as a child. I knew it was coming. My father would "cool down" at the bottom of the stairs, then come up and ambush me with physical punishment. Nowhere was that advocated here.

I suffered anxiety for a long time, and still jump when a child cries in public. I worry, now at a submerged level, that a child might end up punished by the end of the excursion that the parents took the children on. I AM ALSO ANGRY AT ADULTS! It is a silent anger, meaning I have put my abuser to bed, but I am still very angry at parents and adults in general for punishing me when I was a child. Only, I am the adult now, so I have to be conscious about my own choices towards children, especially given that I am a pedophile.

Gentle parenting today is a spin off from authoritative parenting, meaning authoritative parenting today has moved to the parental rights side of things, whereas gentle parenting today is pretty much the same as attachment parenting. Attachment parenting is about the secure parent-child bond, also known as a secure attachment. It is being best friends with your child, with children being in the receiving role in terms of care. 

I associate the authoritative parenting of my childhood with parental rights. I associate parental rights with the "me, me, and my rights" attitude of parental entitlement, which is at the core of our entitlement problem as a country. The worst thing my parents, and all adults around me, ever did was demand respect. Respect is earned according to my Judeo-Christian family values, and that means parents need to earn their respect from children.

Let the entitled parents and adults BURN in everlasting Hell-fire! Repent!