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| I loathe 'Whac-a-Mole' |
Are parents today overprotective of their kids? Recently I heard the expression “Helicopter Mom” for the first time and found it funny. As the mother of a 3-year-old boy, and having been around other mothers, I think a lot of us are sometimes guilty of it. But I know for myself, I try to walk the line between being a mama bear and letting my cub roam free. Both are important, and I feel I strike a healthy balance, regardless of what anyone else might think. But it does beg the question: Why do some parents hover? Where does it come from? And what’s the deal with some children’s schedules being packed with activities all the time? Some of these youngsters have busier calendars than I do!
Freud believed that one’s childhood determines who they will be as adults, which I think is absolutely true. But how can kids become successful, confident grown-ups when their 21st century parents pack their schedules so tightly with activities, when they control their days so much, that there’s little or no time for “free play”? I’m not saying that children can’t learn about conflict resolution or being a team member from organized sports; I’m sure those situations are rife with learning opportunities. But I think some of us, in an effort to groom our children for entrance into Duke starting at the age of five, all while keeping them inside a protective bubble, are forgetting the importance of letting children choose their own unstructured play time. It’s so important.
When I was a child, my summer days were spent outside. I know a lot of you had the same experience: From dawn until dusk, I was either playing with friends or running from (or spying on) the neighborhood boys. I’d see my mom a few times a day, usually for a meal or to go to the bathroom (sometimes I just went outside; if boys could do it, why couldn’t I?), but many hours would pass before I’d hear her screaming my name to come in for the night. Since this usually happened when I was involved in a kick-ass game of kickball, Mom had to yell for me many times before I finally went home and collapsed into bed with slight sunstroke, only to repeat it all the next day. It was awesome.
From ages two through nine, I lived with my mom in a trailer. We were incredibly poor and on welfare, but I never knew it. Mom made a nice home and I never went hungry. She was pretty strict with bedtimes and mealtimes, but when school was out, that was my time. Don’t get me wrong: even during the school year, I might take part in some extracurricular activity or another, but a lot of my ‘free time,’ both after school and during the summer, was “free play” time. In fact, some of my happiest memories stem from those halcyon days. But in retrospect, the trailer park was a mighty rough place in which to grow up! I think back on some of the shenanigans my friends and I got into and am scared that my son might go through some of the same things (even though we live in Fairfield County). But as Freud argued, I think that childhood is also what made me who I am today. So how does a modern-day parent know when to step in and when to step aside? I’m still figuring it out myself, but below are some examples of situations I found myself in as a child and how I would react if my son was ever in the same predicament.
I was the victim of bullying. I ’m not sure why, but I was always the girl the boys were after. I don’t think they actually had crushes on me and were showing it in weird passive-aggressive ways; I think they really wanted to hurt me. I can’t count how many times I was picked up by the worst bully of all, a boy named Adam (whose last name I will conceal, mostly because I can’t remember it) and thrown into a nearby thorn bush. Or how, when he’d amble by and see me playing happily in my OWN YARD with, say, a new beach ball, he’d suddenly appear next to me, remove something sharp from his pocket, and stab a huge hole into the large, pink orb before disappearing just as quickly as he’d arrived. I was left with a deflated ball, matching my temporarily-deflated spirit.
Me as Mom: If I ever catch my son carrying a sharp item in his pocket, he’s in trouble. And if he stabs a hole in someone’s property, he’s in deep, DEEP trouble.
Out of all the neighborhood kids, I was one of the fastest runners. And boy, did Adam and his henchmen hate that! Sometimes we’d have races around the one house that incongruously stood in the middle of all those old trailers. If I ever won a race (when I avoided being purposely tripped), my elation was short-lived; retribution was swift and brutal. The next day at the bus stop, which was a long walk from home, I was forced to bend over so Adam’s crony, a 6-year-old with no soul, repeatedly hit me on the head with an apple, which was concealed inside his brown paper lunch bag. It was as though I were in a real-life game of Whac-A-Mole.
Me as Mom: If I ever catch my son purposely tripping someone in a race, I will explain to him what a “sore loser” is, appealing to his sense of right and wrong. And if I ever see him hitting someone in the head with a fruit or vegetable, or aiding and abetting someone in such an assault, he will be in deep, DEEP trouble.
I don’t recall my mother ever getting involved in any of these scuffles, but maybe I never told her. She was probably too busy watching “Young and the Restless” or enjoying a frosty beverage. It was the ‘80s; you just never really saw parents outside with their kids much. But really, what could she have done, anyway? I think in Kid World, a lot of times we’d just deal with these things on our own because it just seemed like a normal, everyday occurrence. Plus, the repercussions of ratting out another kid were too horrible to contemplate! I think in today’s world, bullying is taken a lot more seriously – as it should be! But I can also see how parents in the new millennium might overprotect their young ones if there’s even a hint of discord between two children. In my case, these experiences made me tough. As an adult, I try not to let people railroad me.
Speaking of railroads, the upper level of the trailer park was anchored by a bridge on one side, and train tracks on the other. The latter was a popular destination for us kids. I cringe as I recall walking the length of the tracks until we felt the unmistakable vibrations of a train in the distance, or placing McDonald’s ketchup packets and coins on the tracks and stepping back, watching with glee as the a train roared by, squirting red sauce all over the snow or smashing our coins into little, misshapen mini pancakes. Or the times when, a few years after moving away, I’d return to see my best friend and we’d scour the tracks for– don’t read this, Mom! – castoff cigarettes we could smoke.
Me as Mom: If I ever catch my son playing near train tracks, he will get a major talking-to. That’s dangerous, doesn’t he know that? And don’t even get me started on smoking! Like it’s not bad enough to smoke in the first place, but sucking on the butts that strangers put their mouths on could lead to a lifelong case of herpes.
Unfortunately, the train tracks were also the sight of a double-murder. One of our neighbors was very fond of archery, so much so that he regularly walked around with a bow and arrow. And his yard boasted a large, colorful foam archery target. Adults can be just as childish as, well, their children, and he was often the recipient of harassment by a couple of the dads who lived at the trailer park. As a result, on one dark, wintry night, the hecklers were shot dead right there near the train tracks. This time the snow wasn’t red from the ketchup packets.
Me as Mom: Some things stay with you forever. I will always teach my son to please think of the feelings of others. I will do my best to teach him empathy. And if I ever live near a weird guy who carries a bow and arrow, I will move.
There was an old lady who lived a few doors down from Archery Man. She often made homemade root beer in her bathtub. My best friend and I would often go inside her trailer and happily drink the disgusting concoction. We were always up for an adventure!
Me as Mom: If my son EVER goes into a stranger’s house without my permission, I will definitely get medieval on his hiney. That’s dangerous, doesn’t he know that? And drinking anything out of someone’s dirty tub is just disgusting. Assuming that they actually clean their bathroom, it could still contain traces of cleaning supplies or, worse, Drano. Not to mention another instance in which he could pick up a lifelong case of herpes.
So I have to agree with Freud: We are all shaped by our experiences as children, and naturally those experiences infuse how we parent. We should instill in our own children the basic concepts of right and wrong, and really should step in which necessary. We are there to help guide them, and lazy parenting sucks. But we also have to let them be free to explore the world in their own way. If they want to do 10 extracurricular activities a week, more power to ‘em! But don’t force them. Let them enjoy being kids in their own way. Encourage free play time, so long as they’re not hanging around train tracks, or drinking soda out of bathtubs, or hitting little girls with apples. You get the gist.
