I don’t think most of it is scientific. I think most of it is “this worked for my child, so it must work for every child” or “this didn’t work for my child, so it must not work for any child”. Parenting is one of the most individual personal things there is and people get really defensive about it and assertive about it and assume that they have all the answers and that they should pass those on to others. But every. kid. is. different. I can’t stress that enough. What works for some people doesn’t necessarily work for others. My parents did things that other parents would never do and other parents do things that my parents would never do. In the end, though, I felt my parents did an excellent job and I think they did what worked for me and my siblings, even though it might not have worked for others. The problem is just when people find success with one method or problems with one method, they want to share it with other people, but it gets to the point of being preachy and self-righteous to where they believe they are the “correct” side and the other side is “incorrect”. I really think that in many of these cases, minding your own business is good. No problem with sharing what does and doesn’t work for you, but you don’t need to make it into a business of trying to change other people’s methods. Like, I remember mentioning that my parents knew I drank, but weren’t overtly trying to stop it and one person commented on how I had “bad parents” because of that. Do they live in my house? Do they know my parents? Do they know me? Do they know what works for me and what doesn’t? Do they know what works for my parents and what doesn’t? No and no and no and no and no. It isn’t something you can just make judgments about easily. And yes, I’m also mainly referring to smaller issues rather than serious ones like drugs and abuse.