Author and TikToker KC Davis recently made waves when she shared a parenting tip that essentially boils down to refusing to indulge in her children’s desires for enjoyment and merriment: saying “no” when her kids ask her to play with them.


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Specifically, Davis declines to engage in “imaginative play,” so she avoids playing with toys or playing pretend with her kids. Instead, she does other activities with them: baking, going on walks, doing arts and crafts and visiting museums, to name a few examples.


Framed like that, it doesn’t seem as objectionable — to me at least. How many times have we heard about how much better kids used to have it because they could roam their neighborhoods freely with their friends, getting up to all sorts of mischief? How many movies have been made about this era of unsupervised childhood fun — The Goonies, Now and Then and Stand By Me, for example? Not a parent in sight, just kids having fun on their own.



The interesting thing to me is why, given that context, the backlash against Davis was so severe. People even tagged a child development professional who’s popular on TikTok hoping she would join in on the condemnations of Davis’ parenting, but all she did was affirm Davis’ parenting choices, revealing that she doesn’t play pretend with her kids very often either. Her advice to parents is to choose ways to play with your children that you also enjoy. “When you’re having fun, your child is going to be having more fun,” she says in a response video. “When you feel connected, they’re going to be feeling even more connected.”



Part of the problem appears to be Davis’ method for training her kids to play independently, which involves saying no every time her kids ask if she wants to play until they eventually stop asking. Later in the video, she describes her children as initially feeling sad and mad about her refusal to play, also likely setting people off.


It’s a hardline approach, to be sure, and many commenters argued that there has to be a middle ground between encouraging independence and never playing with your kids. On the flipside, Davis would obviously be miserable if forced to play with her kids, which wouldn’t be an enjoyable experience for anyone involved, so maybe things in her household are better this way.


Sorry, did I bring too much nuance to the online outrage fest? My bad.