Parenting has changed across the generations. This, in turn, impacts how we show up in life and at work. Grateful to have been able to share some insights in this article.

“I want them to have a sense that self care is self love,” 37-year-old model Karolína Kurková said of her three children, LunaGrace, Noah and Tobin. “That’s important.” During the coronavirus pandemic, while home in Miami, she and husband Archie Drury made sure to include their kids while practicing their everyday wellness routine. “We were spending 24/7 together,” she continued. “We would make fresh juices. That’s something my little one, my five-year-old Noah, would really love to do. That was his thing. He would be the juice man.” And her older son, Tobin, who’s turning 12 this year, was “the smoothie man,” she added with a laugh. “We put protein powder — obviously he likes more sweeter things, but then I will tell him, ‘OK, let’s maybe add a little bit of maca or let’s add chia seeds or flax seeds or let’s add a little MCT oil.’” Kurková (she’s a 1984 baby) is one of countless Millennial moms — the generation born between 1981 and 1996 — embracing wellness and incorporating it into parenting.

Millennials (roughly 71.2 million Americans, making up nearly 22 percent of the U.S. population, via the 2019 U.S. Census Current Population Survey) are “the most potent driving force behind the wellness trend,” a trillion-dollar industry, according to nonprofit the Global Wellness Institute. Poised to be the nation’s biggest spenders, Millennials have surpassed Baby Boomers as the largest adult demographic in the country.

“Millennials really value self care, and they know that it’s important,” said generational expert Dr. Katherine Jeffery, whose doctoral research focused on the Millennial generation. “And so, when it comes to parenting, they want to balance that.”

It’s different from the approach of past generations, added Jeffery.

Baby Boomers — born between 1946 and 1964 — grew up as one of three or four siblings generally, with parents who weren’t always able to be there for them emotionally or make it to significant life events, for example, she explained. In turn, they were hyper aware of the way they brought up their own kids, often considering their opinions when making major family decisions.

“For example, when a Boomer was growing up, if their dad came home and said, ‘We’re going to move to Atlanta, I just got a new job,’ they would say, ‘Pack your stuff. Get in the car,’” Jeffery said. “Now for a Millennial, if their parent, say their mom, got a new job in Atlanta, and mom came home to the Millennial kids and said, ‘I’ve got this new job. Do we want to move to Atlanta? Would that mess up your college career, your sports career? If the kids said, ‘No, we don’t want to move to Atlanta’ then there’s a good chance the family didn’t move. Millennials are used to their feelings and their opinions not only being heard, but they also bear weight on the decisions that are made. It impacts how the family moves forward, and that’s incredibly different than the world the Boomers grew up in.”

Millennials are the first generation to call their parents their friends, she added. “And they’re getting married much later in life than generations before them. So, they’ve had a lot more time to themselves, and they’ve had time to really pursue the things that they love and to spend their time as they want to. Then, when they become parents, it’s like, ‘Oh my goodness, there’s someone that really needs me, and I can’t do everything the way I used to do it.’ And so, reaching out — obviously social media is a huge thing — they’re reaching out to their peers to learn from one another. They’re very integrated. They really look to others for help. They’re the collaboration generation.”

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https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/inside-minds-millennial-parents-including-130019175.html