It's actually a pretty decent article on the site. Written by Hara Estroff Marano for Psychology Today, it touched on a huge nerve for parents. How much parenting is too much? Do we hover over the kid to ensure that we never end up as a Boston Herald headline? "Salem Mother Turns Back, Child Plummets From Changing Table". Or do we step back and nudge them to deal with the real world. For years I 've heard anecdotes from friends who teach school about parents that practically turn into Carmela Soprano when their precious pumpkin misses the deadline on their book report. Not to sound like one of those curdmudgeon types that grouses about "kids these days" and "walking twenty miles to school EACH WAY, but I did find myself talking with a group of adults about my age and one by one, we volunteered our complaints about the "new hire" at the office who flitted in and out and told them that the deadline for the financial report was "kind of a bummer."
I think the root of the problem here is that people are starting to feel the trickle-down effects of a spike in population. More people means more competition for things like education and well-paying jobs. So now everyone in the know is jockeying for the same few spaces so Tyler and Kaylie can get their shot at the brass ring. Well, what else is new? Some kids will become spoiled and convinced that nothing is ever really their fault. They'll probably end up being right, because nowadays people are as apprehensive about firing incompetent workers as landlords are about evicting unruly tenants. No one wants to be called discriminatory or (shudder) unfair, so people are allowed to drift along, blowing off their responsibility. Other kids will develope their own ways of getting along and learn through trial and error the basic equations in life and probably end up managing the first group.
By the way, two things about this article made me laugh. Right next to the sub-header at the top; "Parental hyperconcern maybe why kids can't cope." was a big ad for a video game company that featured a masked soldier with a rifle. Nothing in modern life T's me off more that seeing a family that lets their kids become surgically attached to a gaming console. Little kids bleeping and bonking their way through an entire family outing on their PSP's, kids that are allowed to play war simulation games in 10 speaker surround sound when there are actual WWII vets present who could probably scare the crap out of them with stories about what THEY were doing at 19. No wonder kids "these days" don't have a sense of the real world, they never see it. The other thing was that the article contained a quote from a Bernardo J. Carducci, founder of Indiana University Southeast's Shyness Research Institute, a concept that would have made my grandparents giggle in disbelief.
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A family member (my wife's side) sent me this article with the subject line titled, "hmmmm..."
It seems that her "side" has been pushing since our twins were born to send them off to Outward Bound.
I resented the implication that, because I am particularly vigilant on safety issues, such as knives that my wife doesn't attend to; allowing one of our two almost 4 year olds to handle large hedge pruning shears; nearly crushing my son's foot in the hinge area of a volvo car door, etc, that I am creating "wimps".
Although I could have, and probably should have, ignored the bait, I took it - but penned a warning to those who were fishing: "Note: I see your email as baiting me. That's fine. I will take the hook. Just beware that there are times when the fish is larger than you thought and, should you grab a firm hold on the rod, could well pull you into the sea".
That set the beginning tone. Then I completed the evisceration.
Needless to say, no one has dared debate me since, particularly when I laid down the boundaries: "Thanks for the advice," I wrote, "but there's a point where the advice leaves off and my responsibility as a parent has to kick in. In the end, I will be left answering the questions of the hospital social worker as to "why did you allow your child to " (fill in the blank). Will you be there to back me up?
The primary role of a parent is, in my view, to parent - which means to protect, defend, and bring a child into adult living through guided experiences. We are here to protect our children from harm. There is no particularly compelling learning gained by sticking ones finger into a fire.
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