[Lockranor]

We do teach people parenting. The action is called parenting.

I teach my kids how to parent by practicing it. I learned how to parent my children by observing my boomer parents, and doing the opposite in nearly every circumstance.

[mitthrowaway2]

My parents did a fantastic job of raising me. However, at the time that I was a child being raised, I didn't take notes about the things they were doing that worked so well. I was just a kid, and had only the vaguest notion at the time that I might someday be a parent myself. I had no mind about me to study how I was being parented.

Now I wish I had a more detailed memory. I have many memories of my childhood of course, but I don't remember the little things that my parents were doing "behind the scenes" to make it all work.

[tivert]

> We do teach people parenting. The action is called parenting.

Even the unpaywalled part of the article mentions that experience is too narrow and obviously inadequate. For instance: being parented is quite different from parenting; there's a long important period where the child will have no memory (or only vague disconnected memory) of being parented; and the experience of being parented gives insight into other parenting styles.

> I teach my kids how to parent by practicing it. I learned how to parent my children by observing my boomer parents, and doing the opposite in nearly every circumstance.

The opposite of one mistake isn't the correct action, it's usually a different mistake. Even though you gave zero details, I suspect "doing the opposite" will just set your kids up to repeat your parents' mistakes.