I hate the sound of those words! Immediately it makes me feel like a bad mother. Soon after those words are spoken I fear the next ones I’ll hear will be ‘helicopter parent’ and the like. But is it such a bad thing these days to be an overprotective parent? Honestly, I’m not sure.
I’m reading (and by reading I mean, listening to an audible book), titled How to Raise and Adult. It’s by Julie Lythcott-Haims and I’m finding it so, so, fascinating. Full disclosure here, I haven’t finished the whole book just yet. I’m currently bouncing around between this book, and another book called: The Four Tendencies: The Indispensable Personality Profiles That Reveal How to Make Your Life Better (and Other People’s Lives Better, Too). This book is by Gretchen Rubin. Both UTTERLY FASCINATING!
While I was listening to How to Raise and Adult it struck me. I am an overprotective Mother. I do want to protect my kids from the hardships or bad decisions I made growing up. I am not a “free range” parent who would ever feel comfortable pinning a note to the back of my kids’ shirt explaining that my kids were indeed “free range” and then watching them skip out and onto the subway. Honestly, I’ve just seen too much. I’ve heard too much! The nightly news noise, fear, and caffeine course through my veins at lightning speed on a daily basis. This feels like how I survive. How I get these sweet people who mean everything in the world to me back into bed safe and sound each night. But is this really the case? Is my fear helping them?
There has to be a happy medium. Right? I mean somewhere in-between latch-key kids and kids who can’t venture outside of a 4-ft radius from the parent is the golden ‘happy spot’ right? I mean toiling away each night about the best preschool fit for my kids to get into, doesn’t necessarily mean I’m going their college essays right? Or does it. Is it a slippery slope? I think it darn well might be.
So what do you do? Honestly, I don’t know. Maybe the ending to the book will unveil it for me. But until that “ah-ha” moment, all I can do is hope and pray. Hope that my good intentions for my kids will only bless and not hinder them. Pray that I can restrain myself from fixing things or stepping in when I need to let them fall and fail. While at the same time, continuing to look for ways to loosen my grip and prepare myself for the inevitable pitfalls and stumbles that come with watching little ones growing up. Until then, I’ll pour myself another cup of coffee and turn off that damn news.
Details on the book are below:
In How to Raise an Adult, Julie Lythcott-Haims draws on research, on conversations with admissions officers, educators, and employers, and on her own insights as a mother and as a student dean to highlight the ways in which overparenting harms children, their stressed-out parents, and society at large. While empathizing with the parental hopes and, especially, fears that lead to overhelping, Lythcott-Haims offers practical alternative strategies that underline the importance of allowing children to make their own mistakes and develop the resilience, resourcefulness, and inner determination necessary for success.
Relevant to parents of toddlers as well as of twentysomethings–and of special value to parents of teens–this book is a rallying cry for those who wish to ensure that the next generation can take charge of their own lives with competence and confidence.
