The 90s Kid Revenge Era
Saturday, April 19, 2025.
“We were raised on Pop-Tarts, punitive silence, and Saturday morning cartoons that taught us to suppress emotions (unless you were a villain, in which case: yell at everything).
Now we pack bento boxes, negotiate screen time, and ask our toddlers how their nervous systems are doing.
Welcome to the revenge arc of the 90s kid: parenting not from a handbook, but from the raw, unprocessed ache of “I will never do to my kid what was done to me.”
This meme isn’t just catharsis. It’s generational reparations.
Developmental psychologists have long recognized that early adversity predicts emotional dysregulation and chronic stress responses (Felitti et al., 1998; Shonkoff et al., 2012).
Many 90s kids—especially those raised during the height of the latchkey era, spankings as default discipline, and “stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about”—accumulated Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) like poker chips in a family game no one wanted to play.
And so, they vowed to parent differently. Not perfectly, but intentionally.
This shift toward “gentle parenting” isn’t just ideological. It’s biochemical. Perry and Szalavitz (2017) note that emotional co-regulation from caregivers literally shapes brain architecture. We’re not just parenting our children—we’re re-parenting our limbic systems.
That’s why we cry while reading “The Rabbit Listened.” That’s why we go to therapy after the kid’s tantrum, not instead of.
Critics say this style of parenting is indulgent, even enabling. I’ve critiqued it myself from time to time.
But studies suggest otherwise: emotional responsiveness in parents is associated with increased resilience, self-regulation, and moral development in children (Eisenberg et al., 2005; Siegel & Hartzell, 2013).
Of course, overfunctioning is still a risk.
Some 90s kids have swung so hard against their upbringing that they’ve recreated a new tyranny: the tyranny of overcorrection.
This meme reminds us of the delicate line between protection and projection.
Not every unmet need in your childhood has to be over-met in theirs. Your toddler doesn’t need a perfect home to feel safe. They need a real one. A warm, flawed, emotionally present one where “I’m sorry” is modeled, and meltdowns don’t mean moral failure.
The revenge isn’t about spoiling kids—it’s about sparing them from the shame they mistook for structure.
It’s not revenge on your parents. It’s revenge on generational amnesia. And it’s probably the most loving rebellion they ’ll ever pull off.
Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed.
REFERENCES
Eisenberg, N., Spinrad, T. L., & Eggum, N. D. (2005). Emotion-related self-regulation and its relation to children’s maladjustment. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 1, 495–525. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.clinpsy.1.102803.144019
Felitti, V. J., Anda, R. F., Nordenberg, D., Williamson, D. F., Spitz, A. M., Edwards, V., ... & Marks, J. S. (1998). Relationship of childhood abuse and household dysfunction to many of the leading causes of death in adults. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 14(4), 245–258. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0749-3797(98)00017-8
Perry, B. D., & Szalavitz, M. (2017). The boy who was raised as a dog: And other stories from a child psychiatrist’s notebook (3rd ed.). Basic Books.
Shonkoff, J. P., Garner, A. S., & the Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health. (2012). The lifelong effects of early childhood adversity and toxic stress. Pediatrics, 129(1), e232–e246. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2011-2663
Siegel, D. J., & Hartzell, M. (2013). Parenting from the inside out: How a deeper self-understanding can help you raise children who thrive. TarcherPerigee.