There is a spate of new books on “overparenting” or “helicopter parenting” — spoiling one’s child (buying him too many toys) while subjecting him to “achievement pressure” (sending him to kindergartens with advanced math, forcing him into extracurricular activities that will look good on his college application, zealously monitoring his test scores). Most of the authors agree that overparenting is bad and may result in the children being so dependent on their elders that they may never move out of the house. All I can say is: Ha!
Arguably I am not qualified to give an opinion on parenting, having neither children to raise nor any intention of spawning. That is true, but I happen to be an authority on childhood: Mine. Owing to my staunch refusal to grow up (which is my own choice and not a consequence of overparenting), I have managed to extend my childhood for decades. In fact I have made a career of warding off adulthood; I would recommend it as a lifestyle, except that few of us are allowed by society to remain in a state of happy immaturity, and all the slots are taken. In any case, don’t be like me: if there were too many of us, civilization would grind to a halt.
As I read the review of the literature on overparenting, I recalled my early experience as a latchkey child. A latchkey child, for the benefit of you spoiled and overprotected types, is a child who goes home to an empty house after school because her parents are still at work. When I was growing up we were frequently without a maid, so I simply let myself into the house and looked after myself until my parents arrived three or four hours later.
Those were good times. I would make myself a snack and eat it while walking around the house, and no one would admonish me to sit down lest I give myself appendicitis. The homework would’ve been done on the schoolbus, where no one could scold me for reading in a moving vehicle. I could spend my time reading books I’d borrowed from the school library, and no one would suggest that I read “something useful” instead of the fairy tales, myths, and science fiction adventures I loved. (Advising the child to stick to “useful” reading is the fastest way to kill her interest in books. The Once and Future King by T.H. White is worth more than every self-help book ever written, I swear to you.)
Best of all, I could watch anything I wanted on TV, without getting a sermon on how I was ruining my eyesight by sitting too close to the screen. There was no cable in those days, but the local networks showed a lot of old movies. Between the ages of 9 and 12 I saw Take the Money and Run by Woody Allen, Deliverance by John Boorman, Al Pacino in Dog Day Afternoon, Martin Scorsese’s Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, and Jerry Lewis in Visit to a Small Planet. I had no idea who these filmmakers were at the time, but their movies made a lasting impression on me.
Concerned parents worry about the effects of unsupervised viewing, but they underestimate the intelligence and resilience of children (unless they think their own kids are stupid). Although the movies were censored, I understood that something horrible had happened to the men in Deliverance, and to this day I fear yokels with banjos. And once I’d gotten over the surprise of finding that bank robber Al Pacino had a boyfriend, I accepted that people don’t have to be exactly the same.
Aparticular favorite of mine was an overwrought melo-drama called The Oscar. I didn’t know it then, but I had learned at an early age the meaning of “camp.”
Those were some of the happiest times of my life. It never occurred to me to be lonely: if I wanted someone to talk to, I created imaginary friends. I knew that one, they were figments of my imagination and two, you never call something “only” a figment of the imagination. I learned how to be alone, and it is a skill that has served me well.
The self-esteem movement is cited as one of the factors that contribute to overparenting. Parents praise their kids for every little thing: each finger painting is hailed as a sign that the child will grow up to be Picasso. I have vast reserves of self-esteem because my parents never tried to boost it. No “What a smart kid we have, we’re taking you to Disneyland!” for me. Instead I got “A99? You couldn’t exert yourself a little to get 100?”
Thanks to overparenting, tutoring is now a $4 billion industry in the US. Today’s parents are often too busy to supervise their children’s schoolwork, so they hire a professional. When I was a kid, tutors were reserved for the “slow” students. Those were more cruel times: no one was diagnosed with learning disabilities, they were just “slow.” Since I was the class nerd, the slow kids were made to sit next to me, in the hope that I would be “a good influence.” Stop laughing.
In the fourth or fifth grade my seatmate was a nice girl who was having trouble reading. So I wrote her mother a note saying it was a self-confidence problem that could be solved if she were encouraged to read aloud. My seatmate’s mother, a district judge, sent me back a note thanking me for the suggestion. My mother talked about it for weeks. She was so amused at my chutzpah, she forgot to scold me for giving unsolicited advice to grown-ups.
What I’m saying is, give your children space. Leave them alone sometimes. Let them be their own people.