The Overcontrolling Parent?
Judith Shluvetich published a thoughtful article a couple of weeks ago in The New Republic. She lives in New York; I live in a small town in Michigan some twenty miles from the Indiana-Ohio line. We nonetheless fret about the same problem.
You see, we both have children, and we do not let them run wild. Her parents did, and so did mine – and we both know that we profited from the freedom. But fearful that our offspring might get hurt, we do not do with regard to them what our parents did with regard to us. “What our children really want,” she says,
is not unstructured time, which in the absence of a playdate is often lonely, but unstructured social interaction, the collective effervescence that, if it isn’t interfered with, gels into play. That is precisely what they can’t have, because they no longer have access to the unmonitored spaces—the blocks, streets, yards, sandlots, fire hydrants, junk heaps, roofs, and sewer grates—where children used to gather, unbidden, for Red Rover or jump rope or hand-ball or other games whose names were not recorded because they were less respectable.
Perhaps because she is writing for The New Republic, Ms. Shluvetich blames her difficulties on the lack of public provision. Her son has better sense. He blames her “and my overcontrolling kind,” she reports, adding, “And I blame us too, but for a slightly different reason. I blame us for failing to challenge the ethos of bourgeois individualism that prevents local governments from building cities and towns that are more livable for children (though it must be said that the New York City Parks Department has either built or fixed up 140 playgrounds since Michael Bloomberg became mayor in 2002).” And to support her argument, being a good liberal, she cites a study by a couple of German sociologists.
But if Ms. Shluvetich’s knee-jerk response and her respect for sociologists is patently absurd – if she looks to the public authorities to create safe spaces for and thereby contrive what she rightly describes as “unstructured social interaction” – she is nonetheless right to worry. “I would never knowingly let my children get away with” sort of thing I went through myself, she observes, “and [I] would never want them to experience social humiliation, but I do worry about what will happen to them if they don’t.”
Last year I found myself in charge of an unusually large group playdate, half a dozen or so seven-year-old boys crammed into my apartment, and discovered, to my dismay, not that they couldn’t all get along—that was to be expected—but that they had no stomach for their own fighting. Every time an argument would break out about the choice of game or the distribution of lightsabers, a boy would run up to me. At first I thought I was being asked to adjudicate, but before I could figure out how to get out of doing so, I discovered that wasn’t what the boys wanted. They wanted me to turn on the television. If I turned on the television, they wouldn’t have to play anymore, and then they wouldn’t fight. I imagined legions of exhausted babysitters and mothers settling disputes in this way, and my son and his friends drawing the obvious conclusion: that group play is dangerous because conflict is intolerable, and that electronic entertainment is a good way to avoid both.
What Ms. Shluvetich cannot face up to is the fact that one cannot have “unstructured social interaction” between children without there being risks. She in San Juan and I in Tulsa, Denver, and Oklahoma City took those risks, and our parents would have been horrified had they known the whole story. I was in my late thirties before I told my mother about the night I spent in jail in Idaho Springs, Colorado when I was fifteen, and she was dismayed even then.
Fresh from skiing at Arapahoe Basin and on my way to Denver, I got stranded when the car – piloted by an older woman (aged a venerable sixteen) whom I had picked up on the slopes – broke down. The pass was closed because of a blizzard, and the midnight bus did not come. I was desperately in need of a warm place in which to sleep and so, with the friend who accompanied me on this adventure, I stopped the local cop car, and we asked whether the police could put us up. The jail was in the basement of the courthouse, and I laugh even now when I think of us rattling the bars, then settling down for a few hours of shut-eye under the filthy army surplus blankets used by legions of our predecessors in that cell. It was in consequence of this misadventure and other occasions in which I had to fall back on my own resources that I learned how to make my way in the world.
Like Ms. Shluvetich, I worry about my own children. She and I and our kind are apt to be overprotective. I see the consequences all about me. When I was a student in college – back, as I tell my students, in the penultimate quarter-century of the last millennium – I could not have imagined returning home to live after college, and I would not have been welcome. Now – and this was no less true before the current economic downturn – it is not at all uncommon for twenty-two-year-olds to reside in their parents’ home for a few years after college.
These kids leave home for college at eighteen, but they never sever the umbilical cord linking them to their parents, and they go back to the nest every summer thereafter. In my generation, college students may have made this mistake the summer after their freshman year, but not thereafter. Instead, they went to Maine, Martha’s Vineyard, or the Jersey Shore and worked as lifeguards, bartenders, waiters and waitresses in the beach towns there, or they migrated to New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago and landed summer jobs with firms such as IBM. Now servile labor in the beach towns is reserved for Ukrainians and Russians and Rumanians who come in on short-term work visas from abroad, and upper middle-class American kids miss out on the “unstructured social interaction” we had to cope with – and, frankly, they are worse off for being pampered.
In colonial America, young people became adults at the age of eighteen. When does adulthood begin these days? At the age of thirty? And will these thirty-year-olds be able to handle adversity? I have my doubts.
- Comment (24)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (1)
- Pages:
- 1
- 2
- Pages:
- 1
- 2
Comments :
Jun '10
Re: The Overcontrolling Parent?
The places where my childhood pals gathered to play are today known under a legal rubric called "an attractive nuisance." The list is legion. Did we ever get hurt? You betcha. I once crashed through the ice and found myself neck-deep in frigid water. Did we learn from the experience? Sure we did, and we kept our misfortunes a secret from our parents lest our liberties be curtailed. The result was a gang of kids with genuine confidence based in experience. Today's generation? Coddled pansies living in a world of virtual danger. In the basement. On mom's nickel.
May '10
Re: The Overcontrolling Parent?
But the problem now is that even if I turn my children out of the house -- there is no one else out on the street for them to play with. I also think the male/female divide enters into this. Mine is a second-class vote. I'd like to hear what Denise and Ursula and other moms have to say. Can this be fixed? Is sleep-away camp the answer?
Edited on Oct 5, 2010 at 6:29amMay '10
Re: The Overcontrolling Parent?
Professsor, I feel it all, just as you and the article's author do. But Trace is right. There's no one there.
To me this problem is one among many tied to the breakdown of community life. There is hardly any common life left. We all live among strangers. And we all seem to live either in fear or in indifference. The fear leads to overprotection; the indifference leads to neglect.
Parents who are afraid for their children are partly afraid of the kids who are neglected. There is so much moral sickness in the world.
Aug '10
Re: The Overcontrolling Parent?
I think Paules statement about the attractive nuisances is one of the most valid. How are we ever going to get the plaintiffs lawyers out of our lives ? Playgrounds are great, but do you know how much more they cost now that these parasites have gotten hold of them ? As they try to defy kid's natural energies, you'd think they were trying to defy gravity.
Another hint on letting them be independent. I told all of my kids one thing that probably helped my growing up adventurously: don't bother to bring your friends and later, your dates, anywhere near your parents. I know it sounds reckless, but I have noticed they're pretty good at picking their friends now. But if I haven't met them, it's usually due to my unproved " racism " that I have picked up since joining the Tea Party ( which they have to attend with me ). Now who told them that their parents are racists ??? Humm....
Aug '10
Re: The Overcontrolling Parent?
Who came up with the concept of the "super predator" kids that would be spilling out of the lawless urban centers ? This is refers to katievs observation.
Has it happened or was it yet another extortion for funding more useless programs,ala midnight basketball ?
Re: The Overcontrolling Parent?
Trace, sleep-away camp is still structured time. And male-female isn't as big an issue. I've lamented this problem and in my affluent area, the issue is that kids all go to different schools, so they don't know each other. Couple that with parents worried about resume building, the kids are overburdened with AYSO and homework, even if they wanted to meet other neighborhood kids, they don't have time.
One more issue is that when I was a kid my mother wanted me out of the damn house, so she could smoke her Tarringtons and relax. Now parents rarely see kids, so they actually want to. And then there's Amber Alerts. The stats are the same for strange danger as when we were kids, but the medias had its' effect. (See next)
May '10
Re: The Overcontrolling Parent?
When a number of unused invitations to her daughter's wedding opened up just prior to the event this summer, my cousin sent out the call to bring grown children, new boyfriends and any other hangers-on so that the very expensive food would not be wasted.
Not only was I taken aback by the fact that most of my college friends had 2 grown college graduates living with them but almost worse to me was that these "children" wouldn't prefer doing almost anything else on a summer Saturday night rather than going to a complete stranger's wedding with their parents. Granted they all seemed like nice families. But seriously, a summer Saturday night? In your 20s? With your parents? For a bride & groom you've never met? Not that I ever had a free Saturday night in my 20s, mind you, but I think if I had, I would have washed my hair.
Re: The Overcontrolling Parent?
Luckily I live in a neighborhood with kids who went to the same public elementary. By third grade I let them walk to each others house in twos. By fifth grade they were off on their bikes discovering secret paths and a neighbor who keeps turkeys. Of course I grew up in a rural paradise, so I l believe if you didn't break a bone as a kid, you lived a deprived childhood. Now my 8th grader gets off the school bus at local malls to have ice cream with friends.
And every year a large group of families go camping in Catalina. We hate the latrines. But we love to see kids running around unsupervised. (Except for swimming.) There's been splinters and bee stings and every year they beg to do it again.
Traveling we always take public transport. In London recently our daughter ran onto the train and it left us on the platform. She mouthed "next stop." We got on the next train and there she was, laughing at our freak out.
Get to know some families with kids in the neighborhood. Get some kids who like each other together and then let them go.
Edited on Oct 5, 2010 at 7:59amRe: The Overcontrolling Parent?
I wonder if all this over Nannying of children is why they want a Nanny State? Not to knock all Nannies. Mary Poppins was tough, taught self-reliance and and it took a lot to get her approval. "Well you don't look too badly turned out."
Re: The Overcontrolling Parent?
Trace, I guess I have to say that this is what was so attractive to me about homeschooling. In the homeschooling atmosphere, (at least what I discovered in my brief investigation phase) the kids' time is single-purpose. What I mean is that if it's math time, math gets done. Not teamwork, not big picture thinking, not literacy, etc. If it's handwriting time, you work on that and when you are done, you do it again or move on, instead of helping the person next to you who needs help with their cursive "f"'s in order to stretch the "helping others" muscle. There are no Diversity Assemblies in homeschool. You figure that stuff out when you play with other homeschooled students. (And, remember, I have a child with special needs that I desperately want included, so I am not insensitive to diversity). I feel like school has become a place for forced, planned socialization so that home now becomes the time to really learn the basics (e.g. HW). In the homeschooling circles, I believe, learning is learning and playing is playing. At least, that's what I'd hope to accomplish if I ever tried homeschooling.
May '10
Re: The Overcontrolling Parent?
My mind immediately drifted to the world of Tom Sawyer fighting with the other boy in the neighborhood. Drawing a line in the dirt. I used to have similar fights, but the boys that I work with at an all boy's summer camp don't today. There is plenty of unstructured time, and they could fight a lot, but it is a very rare occurrence. Maybe, it's because of what they are learning in very top public schools, which I am always shocked to learn about.
Aug '10
Re: The Overcontrolling Parent?
School is definitely a place for forced socialization. I know this because several kids like me were held back for being "under-socialized" despite being intellectually ready to skip one or even several grades ahead.
Really, it made no sense. I was a shy kid, prone to start a loud noises (ear infections left my ears very sensitive), so I'd get picked on no matter what. All that changed by my not being given more challenging academic material was that I was constantly bored in elementary school, and bored kids are more likely to cause trouble.
The same thing happened to the sweet little neighbor-boy I eventually babysat. At the age of six, he was beating his parents at chess, but he was, you know, a little odd -- not "socialized enough" -- so they held him back a year instead of promoting him. All that happened is that he got really bored in school and caused more trouble.
He was perfectly well-behaved when you engaged him, though.
May '10
Re: The Overcontrolling Parent?
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
School is definitely a place for forced socialization. I know this because several kids like me were held back for being "under-socialized" despite being intellectually ready to skip one or even several grades ahead.
Completely agree. We should be much more concerned about this.
There are people with "theories". Theories about how to engineer a better economy, a better education system, a better society, and eventually a better person. These theories are much discussed in academia and acquire credentials and respect. Whenever they are tried in the real world they fail utterly. But the social engineers don't notice.
Kids do need to develop socially, but they do it best on their own. However, the social engineers do not trust children or parents to direct that process. They believe only in the guidance of trained elites, and they are convinced that they themselves are that elite.
They are doing to our kids what they are doing to our economy.
Re: The Overcontrolling Parent?
Not to quibble, but "forced socialization" has not been my experience at my public charter school. Kids will gravitate to the ones they like no matter how much you try to social engineer. For special needs kids, or kids who have unusual situations, like yours, Rattlesnake, this can be more challenging, but I've also seen with my own daughter a boy who has some Asbergers tendencies become a central social figure in her life.
What I miss about my childhood was SELF-INDUCED socialization. If your A-list friend wasn't home to play with, you went to your B-friend across the street. Eventually you found someone. Even if you weren't exactly in love with each other, you made do because it was better than being alone. This taught you to get along with others.
Ursula, sometimes I think homeschooling, while academically superior, can be socially limiting. My daughter had 600 kids in her elementary school from which to pick friends. Now she has a large, diverse group of friends. Homeschooling requires even more parental involvement to get kids together...which is what we're trying to get away from.
Re: The Overcontrolling Parent?
These comments are, I must say, instructive. The lady at The New Republic and my wife and I are evidently not alone. So let me throw in some more raw meat.
How much does all of this have to do with divorce? Before we moved to Hillsdale, Michigan, we lived in Tulsa on the very street where I had lived when I was in kindergarten and grades one to two. It is a very nice neighborhood (an Englishman who visited in the Spring remarked to his wife that walking there was like being in a Hollywood film). But down the street the police showed up when the ex-boy friend of a divorcee who lived there paid her a visit with a gun in hand.
Is there so much chaos in the private lives of the parents of the children in our neighborhood that we have become wary. When I was young, the whole neighborhood kept us in line. My parents knew all of the other parents, and there was mutual trust. Is that gone?
Edited on Oct 5, 2010 at 9:25amRe: The Overcontrolling Parent?
Perhaps, Denise, but that was not what I saw/heard when I looked into homeschooling. I was surprised, actually. Your experiences may have been different. Fair enough. I guess what I mean by forced socialization is the over-ambitious efforts of schools to incorporate everything into the school day. Recess/lunch: highly monitored. Gym: a different animal. Classrooms: co-operative learning sted individually directed learning. So the kids, I think, come home totally wiped out and totally used to being "monitored" and sent off to "do" something, not up for homework nor up for being sent out for totally unstructured time. I think (homeschooling or not) parents saying, "let's all meet on Maple Street at 4 p.m. and go sit and read our papers/start dinner while the kids play for 2 hours" is less parent involvement than hosting a "playdate."
Aug '10
Re: The Overcontrolling Parent?
Perhaps the fact that it's a charter school has something to do with that? They give the teachers at charter schools more freedom to teach, generally.
After tutoring in a regular public school, I came to the conclusion that, much as the ordinary public school might need people like me to teach, they also gave teachers too little freedom to, umm... actually teach. The environment was simply too soul-crushing for me.
But teaching at a charter school I'd still consider.
May '10
Re: The Overcontrolling Parent?
I'm sure divorce plays a role. So does the dramatic increase in two-income families. No one's home anymore. So does the frequent moving. We lack roots; our neighbors are strangers; extended families are broken up. So does the internet. We can't responsibly trust that our children are safe alone at home or in other people's homes. So does a commuter culture. Being able to drive anywhere usually means we can't walk anywhere...
There's very little common life left.
Re: The Overcontrolling Parent?
katievs: I'm sure divorce plays a role. So does the dramatic increase in two-income families. No one's home anymore. So does the frequent moving. We lack roots; our neighbors are strangers; extended families are broken up. So does the internet. We can't responsibly trust that our children are safe alone at home or in other people's homes. So does a commuter culture. Being able to drive anywhere usually means we can't walk anywhere...
There's very little common life left. · Oct 5 at 10:07am
Amen
Re: The Overcontrolling Parent?
Paul A. Rahe
katievs: I'm sure divorce plays a role. So does the dramatic increase in two-income families. No one's home anymore. So does the frequent moving. We lack roots; our neighbors are strangers; extended families are broken up. So does the internet. We can't responsibly trust that our children are safe alone at home or in other people's homes. So does a commuter culture. Being able to drive anywhere usually means we can't walk anywhere...
There's very little common life left. · Oct 5 at 10:07am
Amen · Oct 5 at 10:10am
Amen II