5 modern parenting trends we're more than ready to ditch in 2025
CBC
What a year 2024 was for parents. What a … time.
Sure, there were some positive moments in the world of parenting news that had us cheering. Bluey made us weep happy tears. The U.S. surgeon general's warning about parental stress helped many of us feel less alone. Roblox added more parental controls. Hooray!
But if you are currently in the position of raising small humans, this year you also may have found yourself:
Like we said — it was a year. One we're mostly ready to let go of and set free, just like the soother you may have sent soaring into the clouds at your kid's "bye-bye binky" soiree.
So, from Sephora kids and "sharenting" to lying on the grocery store floor next to your screaming toddler, here are all the modern parenting trends we're happy to say "see ya!" to in 2025.
Is it not enough that Millennial and Gen X parents had to survive middle school with frizzy hair, braces and our faces scrubbed raw with St. Ives apricot scrub? Must we now suffer the added indignity of our own children looking better at age nine than we can ever hope to look in our own lives?
This was the year "Sephora kids" entered the public lexicon. The trend, where kids as young as eight or nine use anti-aging skin-care products purchased from beauty retailers such as Sephora, has been dividing parents, dermatologists, retailers and social media.
Many people argue the trend is harmless (after all, there are worse ways for kids to spend their time), but a growing group of health-care professionals warn that using products meant for adults can harm pediatric skin.
Call us shallow, but here's why we're over this trend: Our kids look too darn good. You're 10! You're not supposed to be glowing! Between their dewy skin, mewing-induced chiseled jawlines, and curly-girl hair products, we're done. May 2025 be the year kids look like kids again, ie., like wrecks.
In 2024, we started to see a "sharenting" reckoning. A term that describes parents who share their children's lives online, sharenting has existed since the 2000s, with the rise of so-called mommy bloggers and family influencers. But research suggests the trend increased dramatically during the pandemic.
Now, some kids of parenting influencers are growing up and sharing their negative experiences.
On top of that, we've also seen some extreme situations that highlight what we may not see online. In one case, a U.S. parenting influencer and YouTube personality was sentenced in February to up to 30 years in prison after pleading guilty to four counts of aggravated child abuse. Another mom in Utah is being investigated by police after an internet uproar over a video that appeared to show her son flinching as his father approaches.
Meanwhile, the aforementioned U.S. surgeon general's report warned that part of modern parenting's unique struggles are what he calls our "culture of comparison," propagated by influencers and online trends that create unrealistic expectations for parents to pursue.
Parents are inundated with elaborate school lunch ideas, strategies for breaking generational cycles and videos on back-to-school party themes. Sharenting is why we all felt like we needed to start celebrating "inchstones." It's why we embraced beige nursery decor.
Prospectors staked claims around Nova Scotia in high numbers this year after Premier Tim Houston unveiled his new open-arms approach to natural resource development.
The Holt Liberals have found a way to keep their promise of lower gas prices just days before Christmas.
A man convicted of human smuggling last year has asked a United States court to continue his appeal without a lawyer, in a case where a family from India froze to death near the Manitoba-U.S. border in 2022.
The dream of those who wanted to breathe new life into Saskatoon’s bus barns in Caswell Hill is expected to come tumbling down next year.
Jill Finn is still haunted by the voice.
P.E.I.'s deputy premier Bloyce Thompson is expected to be sworn in as the province's next premier one day after Rob Lantz announced his resignation from the role and his bid for the permanent leadership of the province’s Progressive Conservative Party.
WARNING: This article may affect those who have experienced sexual violence or know someone affected by it.
The Ontario government has sided with the City of Hamilton in its push to continue a long-delayed James Street N., housing redevelopment, which proposes the creation of several hundred homes in the north end.
There's still no timeline on the official designation of an Ojibway National Urban Park — and a Parks Canada representative is asking the community to adjust its expectations.
As the cost of groceries continues to increase, one Edmonton organization is harnessing the power of bulk buying to ensure its members aren’t going hungry at a critical time every month.
A drug alert has been issued in Thunder Bay, Ont., over a toxic substance first found in Toronto earlier this fall.
Ontario’s municipal affairs minister says the province will move forward with a much-delayed mandatory review of the Greenbelt, but opposition critics say there's still no word on when the study of the ecologically sensitive zone will take place or who will conduct it.
A three-year-old girl is dead and a 31-year-old woman suffered serious injuries after they were hit by a vehicle near a Cambridge, Ont., plaza on Thursday afternoon.