New generations of parents view 'gentle parenting' as an enlightened, liberal approach, focused on child autonomy. But it may not provide the freedom that it claims to. Its demands often result in burnt-out parents, and despite its gender-neutral language, the burden falls overwhelmingly on mothers. Gentle parenting is repackaged attachment theory, and we should learn from earlier feminist critiques to understand how superficially progressive ideas can reinforce traditional gender roles in practice.

Gentle parenting is the millennial gold standard for child-rearing. The gentle parent is empathetic, validating their child's feelings and viewing them as an autonomous individual whose thoughts and needs deserve adult-level respect. Instead of using rewards and punishment, they teach and problem-solve collaboratively with their child.

Gentle parenting developed within the lineage of attachment parenting, characterised by high parental responsiveness. Its pitch is all about autonomy: by being led by your child and meeting their needs, you help them become a more genuine and confident person.

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Gentle parenting is seen as the progressive option, but it can create distinctly traditional dynamics in the home.

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But its advocates often overlook the trade-off: your interests as a parent will be subordinated to your child, and therefore to the home. The claims of gentle parenting are underpinned by theories that rose to popularity in the post-war era and cast women's workforce participation in a sinister light. Second-wave feminists identified these accounts of mothering as reactionary ideas that created guilt for women who wanted lives outside the home. Today, gentle parenting is seen as the progressive option, but it can create distinctly traditional dynamics in the home.

During the Second World War, women entered the workforce and excelled there. The idea that women might permanently opt to work outside the home was unsettling for many postwar conservatives. This felt like it was somehow bad – for society, for family values, and for children.

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The British psychologist and psychoanalyst John Bowlby had studied the impact of children being separated from their parents during the war. This led him to investigate attachment, and how the early bonds between a child and its mother weren't just biologically important, but psychologically important too. Bowlby’s work influenced Mary Ainsworth, who carried out experiments to observe babies and their mothers in the 1960s and 70s.

Ainsworth’s Strange Situation demonstrated three main clusters of attachment styles by temporarily removing babies’ mothers: some babies were initially upset but then quickly calmed when their mother returned, some were inconsolable until she returned and remained upset afterwards, and some were less upset and seemed more self-reliant. Ainsworth labelled these secure, insecure-ambivalent and insecure-avoidant. These, she and her colleagues concluded, were shaped by the sensitivity and responsiveness of the mother.

‘Young children, who for whatever reason are deprived of the continuous care and attention of a mother or a substitute-mother, are not only temporarily disturbed by such deprivation, but may in some cases suffer long-term effects which persist,’ wrote Bowlby, Ainsworth and others in 1956. The implication was clear: if your child was either too needy or not needy enough, you had failed as a mother and created lifelong problems for their temperament and relationships.