"Carter explained that she had thrown her daughter's iPad out of the window when she had been misbehaving on the way to school, and she films herself retrieving the tablet, now with a cracked screen. The video has been watched 4.9m times, and Carter was congratulated in the comments, with one person writing Learning Fafo at an early age: top tier parenting. Welcome to the parenting trend that doesn't seem to be disappearing: Fuck around and find out."
"In another video, when a small child announces he is going to leave home, his mother says see ya, shuts the front door behind him, and turns off the outside light then opens the door to him screaming and pounding to be let back in (it has been liked 1.5m times). He had learned, said his mother, the meaning of Fafo."
"Last summer, a piece in the Wall Street Journal heralded the rise of Fafo parenting and the end of gentle parenting a trend that began about 10 years ago as a response to the more authoritarian naughty step parenting of the early 2000s, which has been blamed for everything from entitled young adults destined for disappointment by the cruel realities of life to societal collapse itself."
A viral TikTok shows a Florida mother throwing her daughter's iPad out of a car window for misbehaviour and later retrieving it with a cracked screen. Other viral clips show parents shutting doors or switching off lights to let children experience immediate consequences. The 'Fafo' motto—'fuck around and find out'—frames a parenting trend that rewards toughness and teaching responsibility through discomfort. The trend arose as a backlash to gentle parenting, which emphasized emotional validation, constant explanation, and close guidance. Online attention and debate have amplified the trend, with advocates praising independence and critics warning of excess harshness.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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