Anyone looking for admirable parenting styles to emulate may want to look no further than Michel Janse (@michel.c.janse), a TikTok user who’s gone viral for sharing how her parents raised her.
In a 7-part series on her TikTok, Janse laid out the details of what she initially called her “weird” upbringing. She described things like “poker chips” she and her sister had to amass to earn screen time over the summer, only being allowed to eat sugary cereal on odd days of the week, and having themed team dinner competitions.
“We would think of a very specific theme and decorate the table like the theme, and just see who could out-theme each other,” she explained. “It was so fun.”
After Janse shared the first video, however, both Janse and the 5.5 million people who watched it quickly realized that her “weird” upbringing was actually a recipe for parenting success.
“I have bookmarks under ‘Parenthood’ and most videos are yourss,” gushed a TikToker.
The people demanded more about how Janse and her sister were raised, and the YouTuber went on to explain more about her parents, her upbringing, and how it shaped the adult she is today.
In her fist video, Janse explains that she realized her 'weird' upbringing actually reflected 'brilliant' parenting hacks.
Janse attributed her parents' parenting success to having kids later in life, being financially stable, and her mother being a full-time stay-at-home mom.
In a FAQ video about her parents, Janse revealed that there were many factors that contributed to her parents’ ability to raise children well. She explained, for instance, that both she and her younger sister were conceived via in vitro fertilization (IVF) after her parents experienced a “long journey” with infertility.
Janse pointed out that had her parents had children earlier in their marriage, she may have been raised much differently, as her mother was “very much in the grind of her career and really trying to make ends meet.”
Instead, not having children for over eight years allowed both her mother and father to build their careers and have a thriving business that provided them with financial stability by the time they did have a baby. She added that her mother also spent the time before having babies reading and researching everything she could about parenting, so she could be a thoughtful and intentional parent.
“I’m thankful to have had older parents and parents that spent those eight years just like learning and being intentional and growing themselves,” Janse noted.
It was nice to see Janse acknowledge the “luxury” her parents had in being able to afford a full-time stay-at-home mother and finances that allowed for much of their intentional parenting methods. Because I admit that I watched all seven of Janse’s videos, and as a mom myself, hearing her describe the idyllic and downright magical childhood she had almost started to make me feel bad about myself as a mom. (There are no family campfires or dinner parties happening here, I assure you; it’s more like survival of the day-to-day.)
But it’s a good reminder that every family is different, and resources and support can go a long way in helping both parents and children succeed.
Janse also pointed out that no one is perfect, and even with her nearly picture-perfect upbringing, she still struggles with a few issues, such as being a people-pleaser, struggling to place boundaries, and even having “really thin skin.”
Overall, however, she says she is “so thankful” for the childhood her parents provided her, and it’s made her decide to wait to have children until she feels she can give her own kids a similar upbringing.
“I hope to do so much of the same things for my children, which is why I’m always like, ‘Oh, I don’t want to have kids yet. I need to. I need to get, you know, my life to a certain point, because I want to have the time to invest in my children,” she explained in a video. “I want to raise them to be adults just like my parents so intentionally did, even if it wasn’t the timeline that they were necessarily hoping to have kids.”
