5 modern parenting trends we're more than ready to ditch in 2025

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.