Viva la Resistance

Sorry to be late. Again.

The portrait of the modern, upper-middle class American family described in The New Yorker's article, "The Child Trap," has never been seen by my eyes. The idea that a parent has enough time in a day to monitor every aspect of a child's time is farce in my experience. That being said, I can find at least three of the traits described as "helicopter parenting" in so many of the people I know from high school. One prime example is a good friend of mine. Ever since he and I were in middle school, his breaks from school were all booked by his mother. The two of them went just about anywhere you could think. He spent summers in Greece, went to a french camp in Quebec, and when he was not globe trotting, every day at home had hours devoted to piano practice. The upside, from my point of view, and the perspective of the rest of our friends, was that he could play just about any song on the piano, including all of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, perfectly. The downside is that, even over his first winter break in college, he will be in Taiwan, and unable to share in experiences that the rest of us will.

The downside to all the pressure his mother places on him is that when there are bursts from the pressure, it is considerable. The article's assertion that it's impossible to smoke pot at lacrosse practice is probably true, but that does not mean that sending your kid to french camp won't introduce him, inadvertently, to cigarettes.

Hanoud4 makes a similar argument in her post, focusing on a friend of hers, who's friends are scrutinized for their worthiness to be associated with their precious. The mark of an ideal parent, according to Hanoud4 is engaging with other people on a social basis and, for all intents and purposes, relaxing. I've heard of a number of students who are pushed and pressured by their parents much in the same way as Hanoud4's friend, and once being accepted to a university that their parents wanted them at, in a major also chosen by their parents, it's like a bullet hitting a brick wall. The prodigies from high school all seem to fall prey to the sheer explosion of options available to them in college. For the first time, these teenagers have the option of choosing for themselves, and without the brackets of their parents, it's usually the wrong ones.

Children hand-reared by their parents are going to be in the hole when the get to college, unless they subvert their parent's grasp on their lives. Hanoud4's friend seems to be doing just that, and it's one thing to lie to your parents, but under the circumstances I find no fault with her, only the parents. In fact, I'm happy for this young girl, because she recognized that what her parents wanted for her and what she wanted were different, and acted on it. If she hadn't, things would have most certainly been different, and her parent's careful manipulation of her life may have ended only when they died.

Over-parenting an Emergency

Overall, I must say I do agree with "The Child Trap" It supports facts about the negative effects of overprotection from parents. I, myself, had experience the overprotectiveness and the excessive care of my parents. As I was younger and even still today, education was valued as number one priority. Next, would be my tennis. My schedule was filled up due to school and tennis all the time. It did keep my off the streets, keeping me innocent. However, as I grew older, my curiosity for other events continued to grow as well. I would soon rebel and have to sneak off. I wanted to know what things were like to be with other people doing things they do. It made me try cigarettes just to see what it's like, and even going to parties and such. All I'm saying is, reverse psychology seems to play a role from excessive protection. Sometimes, kids are in for a rude awakening when they hit college from it. They're minds are exposed to new and different things, and they may not know how to act either.

Response to Crazy Kids

The situtation could have played out differently if the parent backed off the child and let he or she do what they enjoyed rather than doing what the parents wanted. From my experience when you are being forced to do something by parents, you usually will not enjoy it. Obviously as parents you should make sure you montior and help your child suceed in school because education should be the number one priority. Getting your child involved in sports is a good thing, but don't force them to play things they dont want to participate in. Let your kids do what they will enjoy and if you want them to suceed in the athletic department pick one sport and let them concentrate on it.

Overbearing parents do not benefit children.

The idea of overbearing parents is actually one that I can relate to. In general, however, overbearing parents tend to unintentionally "harm" their children. They do this by preventing them from real world experiences that result in personality, expression, and identity of onse self. When parents do everything for their children hoping for it all to pay off in the end, usually never works. The more parents hover over their children, the more disobedient they tend to be. When my parents went through a phase where they were always on my case and always pushing me to do things that did not appeal to me, I felt that it was more necessay to disobey them and disrespect them. I lost a sense of respect and appreciation for them due to the amount of hovering they took part in. I felt that I was less able to experince things my own way and I felt that I was experiening less opportunities where I needed to deal with issues myself. Parents are not going to always be there for their children, past highschool. Yet these days, it seems that college and now the borderline where parents begin to slow down with the amount of aid they provide for their children in school. According to Marano, she too thinks that too much parenting is more harmful then good. Too much parenting does have the power to turn children into what she calls "wimps." Growing up with a nanny or a mother always in your face, tends to leave an impression on a child. Whether they mean to or not, they begin to feel the sense of security of having someone always there to help and fix all problems. This sense of security morphs into comfort, where the child knows no other way to live their life other than having a parent live it for them.

overparenting overburden

Reading “The child Trap”, I completely agree with what it has to say about issues pertaining to the modern child’s upbringing and parenting. The child today is over parented and forced into social and familial obligations. Every parent thinks and, I agree has a right to think that their child s the best. He is, but in his/ her own way. Their child might not be as bright as the other one or the neighbor’s child or his best friend. But parents today believe that their child has to be better than any other child. This leads to a syndrome mentioned “overparenting”. Parent’s spoil their kids, worry and fret unnecessarily and overprotect him. They overburden the child with tuition's and extra ‘extra’ curricular activities and other social camps and summer jobs just so that their child who get an A gets an A+ and gets into the best league universities et al. I have a friend who is in a similar situation. She has an elder sister who is doing extremely well and is in a brilliant university. She herself is also very smart, but in other fields. She is extremely athletic, talks well, cooks well and is smart. But she is not academically smart. She manages to get a B+ but her parents are very pushy. They keep taunting her. They put her up with four tuition teacher’s and put her into more extra classes and after school classes. I think this is unfair. The child does not need to get an A all through his life to be a successful person. Being successful is about being smart, laterally intelligent and the mind should work at the right place and time, which in her case, happens. I agree parents do this to help us make a successful future, but they should also understand that overburdening the child can lead to mental and emotional problems that are difficult to treat. They should encourage rather than force and leave the decision on the child after a point of time.

Will this get you into MIT?

While reading the article, “The Child Trap: The rise of overparenting”, one person came to mind: one of friends. I have a friend whose has very educated parents, both in the science fields. She’s the type of friend who never seems to have any time to do anything because she’s either at piano practice, tennis practice, or studying for her SATS which are not until three years later. It’s almost as if her parents have devised a perfect life plan that would get her into MIT or Harvard. They’ve chosen her electives for senior year, her extracurricular activities, and they even involve themselves in deciding who she can associate with and call “friend”. When she told me about this, I thought they had reached the extreme. Their “intelligent” and “well-rounded” daughter should be able to make her own friends. She has spent 2 years of high school so far hiding some of her friendships that her parents would deem as “not good enough”. Her parents have bought cell phones that can detect when she is talking to someone else on the other line. Several occasions have occurred where she had been caught on the phone instead of practicing her piano notes. The next face-to-face talk with her parents was surely to discuss how spending time chit-chatting on the phone will not get her into MIT. Where is the developmental of her teenage years? Teenagers are known for talking on the phone and exchanging certain things that will help them formulate stronger friendships. Does this mean that my friend will not have those strong friendships since her free time is filled with other activities? Sure, she can make friends at tennis practice; but, how can one get to know another during a game of tennis? Where is the exchange of ideas? Where is the realization that the person has similar values and trustworthy characteristics? I’m sure these substances cannot be quickly discovered through a game of tennis. They are rather discovered through close communication.
My friend never seems happy or relaxed, rather always stressing over things and complaining about making her practices. This reveals that she has no love or passion for the extracurricular activities she’s involved in. This surely fools the college admissions officers, who are swayed to believe this individual is well-rounded and has many interests with addition to excelling in academics. Overparenting seems to create artificial robots that religiously follow their parent’s selfish wishes and orders. The parents are not thinking on how to improve of the world, but concentrate on how to make their children “the best” and “top of the line.” How is the future going to be when the managers and top leaders in companies are led by selfish, unmotivated men and women?

In Response to: Face it, My mom...

This is crazy! I've never had to deal with anything like this.  If one of my peers had a parent write their paper for them, and then asked me about them, I would probably call them insane and be really quite ticked off about the matter.  I would feel this way because I probably spent hours of my time slaving away over the same paper that they maybe had to staple together.