Friday, 04 December 2009

  • Thoughts on Overparenting?

    Last week on my way to work, I was read this article in TIME Magazine, concerning over-parenting. The article discussed how parents these days are putting their children in bubbles and shielding them from all possible harms in the world. We all know that it's not possible to do that and in my opinion, actually harmful to the growth of their children.

    In the article, they mentioned someone nicknamed, "The Worst Mother in America." Her name is Lenore Skenazy, a mother in New York who allowed her 9 year old son to ride the NYC subway home on his own, unsupervised. She wrote a column about it and when news got out, she received sharp criticisms for endangering the welfare of her son. After reading that part, I quickly googled her when I got to work and read for myself the story.

    Basically, what happened was that her son always wanted to try to go home by himself and one day, she decided to allow him to do that.  She gave him $20, some quarters and a metrocard.  She didn't leave him a cellphone.  She left him in Bloomingdales's on 59th and Lexington Ave and left.  She didn't tail him and waited till he got home safe. 

    Was it really that dangerous for her to allow her 9 year old son to ride the subway and bus alone in New York City?  Besides the risk of terrorist and nuclear attacks, New York City is probably one of the safest major cities in the world.  The chance of being kidnapped and abducted is extremely unlikely.  I grew up in Brooklyn and was able to ride the subway on my own when I was 10.  This was almost 18 years ago, during a time where it was definitely less safe.  Even in hindsight, I didn't think it was anything out of the ordinary.  All my friends rode the subway alone.

    When I was a kid, we always played outside--riding our bikes around and going to the parks to play ball.  I realized that kids don't play on the streets anymore these days.  Most kids usually just go over to each others' houses and play video games or surf the web together.  A couple of years ago, I lived in an apartment where the landlord did not allow her 15 year-old son to go to the movies with his friends.  When I was 15, I was all around New York City during the day and going to parties at night.  I grew up in a time where there were many gangs--where you couldn't even look at certain people directly in the eye because they would come over and cause trouble. 

    Anyway, I'm sure that if I lived in a dangerous area of Brooklyn, my parents wouldn't allow me to take the train unsupervised.  I'm sure Mrs. Skenazy knew that the route home was safe.  She was teaching her 9 year-old son how to be independent and in case of an emergency, how to take care of himself and get home.  Parenting is about being there and preparing your children for the outside world, not shielding them in a bubble and protecting them from it.  Like the example I used in my email to her, I think parents these days are like Purell.  People think using Purell is good, but in fact, it actually weakens your body's natural defenses against germs and bacteria.  Parents are weakening their childrens' natural ability to take care of themselves in the outside world, not protecting them from every possible harm.

    Obviously, I am just touching on the topic.  Read the TIME article I linked, Lenore Skenazy's original article on letting her son ride the MTA (which I also linked), her follow-up article on the Huffington Post and if curious, even her blog, Free Range Kids.  We might not all agree with allowing our children to ride public transportation alone, but I'm sure that if we took a step back, we would notice that children are not growing up the same way we did.  Generally speaking, kids are more emo, have a greater sense of entitlement and less sense of independence. Can we blame them for this kind of behavior or should we direct the responsibility to their parents?

    What are your thoughts on overparenting? Have you ever experienced overparenting -whether as a parent or child?

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