• Is there a right or wrong parenting style for your child?

Being a parent comes with a lot of pressure and with many ‘schools’ of parenting. Do you limit screen time or let them go wild? Count calories or ‘let kids be kids’? There are so many ‘right ways’ to be a parent. The latest internet parlance making its rounds is the oddly named categorisation of types of parenting styles titled ‘almond,’ ‘silky,’ ‘crunchy,’ and ‘scrunchy’ mums.

Each term refers to the lifestyles chosen by parents for their children. Almond describes parents who push their kids into following restrictive eating habits; not a beloved category of moms, but recognised for their tough love in the best interests of their child.  

The other two categories are based more on overall lifestyle, with silky mothers generally preferring a medicated hospital birth, disposable nappies, bottle feeding or breastfeeding, cot sleeping, using training techniques such as the cry-it-out method, using strollers, and being pro-vaccination.

Crunchy mums are those who choose the natural option instead of the mass produced or medicated one, opting for natural (drug-free) home births, placenta encapsulation, breastfeeding (not just for the six-month World Health Organization-recommended minimum, but until the child weans themselves), anti-vaccination, co-sleeping, bed sharing, cloth nappies for Elimination Communication (EC), attachment parenting, natural medicine, organic eating, and (sometimes) home schooling.

If you are a bit crunchy and silky, then apparently you are a scrunchy mum – a combination of the two words. 

So do you identify as an almond mom, a crunchy mom, or a silky mom? Or are you perhaps a hybrid ‘scrunchy’ mom or do you perhaps employ gentle parenting or mindful parenting or any variant of modern parenting that demands parents conform to a certain ‘right’ way of parenting their children? 

Which mom are you?

To be a parent is a thankless task and often parents must endure the scrutiny from the outside world on how they chose to raise their own children and then answer to their children’s behaviour and choices, sometimes well into their adult lives. 

In exploring the ‘types of moms’ as per the internet, Brunch reached out to a number of mothers to share with us their chosen parenting styles and how these classifications and ‘right or wrong’ ways to parent has impacted their individual approach to parenting. 

The wide consensus across the board was that moms felt a lot of peer pressure from their fellow moms to uphold certain standards when parenting their child. However, in South Asia, there is of course the added pressure from your in-laws who tend to be lovingly yet overly involved in your children’s upbringing.

Chethani Gunawardhana shared that when she was an expecting mom, she had decided for herself what type of mom she would try to be, noting that she wanted to bridge the gap between parent and child that existed in the previous generations of parenting. 

“When we were growing up, parents were parents, children were children, parents were right, and you did as you were told. I wanted to make sure that I always gave my son a choice and autonomy to make his own decisions. Even when it comes to what he is going to wear, I show him two options and if it’s food I will show him two things and allow him to choose for himself,” she said. 

Many parents shared similar sentiments of mindful parenting, where parents made an effort to bring awareness, attention, and curiosity to their interactions with their children. This involves listening, reflecting, and choosing to respond in a way that uplifts both parent and child. 

However, Chethani also noted that despite her own convictions, there was of course pressure to do certain things and to adopt certain practices: “There will be judgement and pressure, whether it is from your own side, or from additional elements if you are co-parenting. But really, I don’t think there is any right or wrong way to parent, because each child is different. You have to discipline your child as you see fit and you have to learn as you go,” she said, adding: “When I get him to make choices, I always explain the repercussions to him. I cannot restrict him without teaching him why.” 

A majority of the moms shared that while they definitely wished to be a healthy mix of all of these types of moms, they did tend to overdo certain areas depending on their own influences. 

There’s no right or wrong way 

Speaking to Brunch, Ashini Ratnaweera shared that she truly believed that parenting styles must be tailor-made for each individual situation, noting that everything was a variable. “Your income, your family background, culture, religion, education, occupation; all of these factor in on how a child is raised. While ultimately the final say is definitely with you as a parent, you cannot shelter yourself from outside influences. It is an inevitability and you will eventually end up with a hybrid style, a Frankenstein model that is your own,” she said. 

Prasadi Wijesinghe shared that outside influence was a significant concern when it came to developing your parenting style: “I am really steadfast in my way of parenting. I do not let a lot of outside influence have any effect on the way I choose to bring up my child. However, it is sometimes unavoidable.”

She shared: “Your in-laws and everyone else will all have a million pieces of advice to give you – ‘you can’t do it that way’ or ‘you have to give this food’. When it comes to the elders in the family, they expect you to adopt the same style they used to raise you. Unfortunately, that is not possible because I have my own schedule. I cannot use the same methods they would have used to raise me.”

Prasadi also highlighted the fact that parents nowadays were well read in the ways of parenting and that these methods did make their way into their daily lives: “We read a lot these days, there are so many standards and best practices. You must only give organic food, it must all be homemade, etc. I can’t and I don’t think everyone can uphold these impossible standards at all times. I have seen new moms, my friends, who are an inch close to losing their minds, trying to do everything that is recommended,” she said, adding: “If a bunch of moms talk and share their methods, then there is always going to be one mom who seems better than the rest, but we have to come to terms with the fact that we cannot do it all.”

“When I can, I give my child organic food as much as I can and when I can’t, I will give her something else. I think being intuitive in what she needs and wants is the best guide for a mother; I think that is enough,” she said. 

Restrictive parenting 

It would seem that most parents generally agree that they will not always get it right, but having recognised their responsibility to their child, they all bear a certain amount of pressure to get everything right – after all, there is an entire life that depends on you. 

Many parents noted the importance of creating core memories and avoiding instances of early childhood trauma that could lend itself to various issues as the children grow into adulthood. 

One mother shared an example where they had encountered a five-year-old at a party who had been made to eat the food that his mother had brought from home instead of eating what had been laid out for the kids at the party. The child had also gone to sleep at 8 p.m. when all the other kids had been playing. She used this anecdote to point out that while discipline was important, sometimes children growing up without any autonomy could be problematic. However, she also recognised that it was the parents who would ideally know best and about which parenting style was most suited to their child. 

While being an almond mom, a silky mom, or a crunchy mom is really up to each individual mother, perhaps society as a whole could attempt to be kind to mothers and parents as they navigate these difficult and sensitive times, since all mothers do their best to give their child the best possible childhood they can.