That's a little bit different, from single child families, who see their relatives with newborns once a year. Not much chance to naturally learn parenting this way, until you are thrown in the cold water once it is your turn.
For me it was fortunately easier, mainly because I often visited and helped with my siblings children as they lived close. But if they would have lived far away, everything would have been way, way harder.
So formally teaching it for those who do not had that experience, makes some sense, I think. That is, until we find ways to be closer again by default.
There is an old saying: it takes a village to raise a child.
So many people bored and living alone. So many parents with no energy left to play with their children. It doesn't have to be this way forever.
Learning to rear young is also something to learn. We are not a species that abandons their young to their own behaviors. We are one that needs to rear our young and teach them behaviors. You see, there is a fitness advantage to leaning off the body in a way, of pairing down the organism to its most basic and necessary parts so that you might survive and breed on less resources while others, bogged down by unneccessary cost centers, are less successfull. As we gained the abilities to teach others things that we have learned, we have also gained an entire world of abilities that would not be innate, or would be much more statistically rare to establish innately (e.g. how many mutations would a human need to be born speaking mathematical proofs? consider this is also weighed against the likelihood that a mutagenic event does not hit on whatever site(s) contribute to this behavior).
Parents fulfill basic needs pretty well without much struggle learning how. Psychological needs are often neglected (though I say that without a good reference for statistics on this, but I suspect it's something that isn't hard to agree on.)
Sure, they say "No one knows how to raise kids merely by instinct," and this is maybe half-true, in that it's pretty instinctual to give them food, share the shelter you provide for yourself, and protect your kids from physical danger. But beyond that, it's not instinctual.
[0] https://canadacollege.edu/dreamers/docs/Maslows-Hierarchy-of... (PDF)
Why should we assume that? My own parents seemed to be generally clueless about parenting. I assume that our ancient ancestors were generally clueless too. Instinct is for animals, learning and science for humans.
There’s a vast array of character traits in children that require different parenting in a way that your parents haven’t treated you or your siblings or you’ve been unaware of the way they’ve treated you differently from your siblings.
I had on child, a girl, and I though the same way as you. Everything went well and was reasonable. Until my second was born. A boy with a “do-then-maybe-think” character trait. He’s awesome and loving and his emotions are like valleys and mountains. Totally different kid. Radically different way to communicate and raise him.
I’ve been reading “Good Inside” and this resonated with me. It’s a radically different way of looking and caring for your kids than I used to be treated. Can recommend
It should be vastly generalized but for many parents having a foundation of broad knowledge to build upon would be a major help.
I think the bigger issue is how are you going to come up with a curricula when you won’t get any group larger than 1 to agree on the right answer to any of these topics. And there are incentives to teach most kids the wrong answers for a few people, so their kids get a leg up.
I do believe parents should follow whatever instincts they do have though. A diversity of parenting approaches guarantees a diversity of children which I think is a good thing.
Aside from that parenting for as long as we have been around has been something that was taught -- from your own family, if nothing else. The evidence of that is the experience of literally every single person who has had children who have family members tell them that everything they are doing is wrong.
The world changes, society changes, cultures change, and parenting is contextual in all of these.
I mean, I have dogs. They have to be fed. One often doesn't tell me when he needs to go out because he's anxious. The other I can't walk with the other dog because he'll try to fight other dogs for whatever reason, so I walk them separately. Every being has nuances you have to work around feeding them and keeping them safe. Who knows what my kid would be like but they're my kid.
Maybe it is just pretty innate but that doesn't mean I know the best way to do it. I don't know HOW to train my dogs well, I know how I train my dogs. But without learning how professionals etc do it I'm not min-maxing, basically.
I've had a hard time training that one dog to let me know he needs to go out. He just doesn't tell me. So I've been looking around for better ways to do it.
I almost given up on my little dog being reactive to other dogs. It sucks. Poor guy never gets to go on walks but I can't keep him calm, I don't know his past life, and I'm by no means a dog trainer.