[R]egular, old, everyday germs are good for kids. So is regular, old dirt, disappointment, boredom, frustration, conflict, and the occasional playground accident. All of these help children to develop their own coping skills, creative and spiritual core, and sense of self.Yesterday's Stepford Wives are today's helicopter parents.
When parents micromanage children's lives, overly investing themselves in their kids, everyone loses. Mothers and fathers lose themselves in their roles as parents, while kids never find themselves.
Though, unlike Granju, I don't regularly hang with anyone who would buy a stroller from Bugaboo ($760) or Peg Pérego ($400) or Maclaren, where parenting is a "lifestyle" ($200). We went through three strollers with my daughter. One was a hand-me-down and the other two were $15 consignment-shop specials. The last one wore out about the same time my daughter grew too big to ride in it.
Speaking of which, I live near a well-known historical area here in Philadelphia, so on some days I see literally hundreds of tourists -- and some of 'em have kids who are so big for their strollers that they're folded into them like frogs. I guess when I was a kid on vacation I complained as loudly as the next kid about having to walk around all the time, but c'mon! Kid turns 3 or 4, and kid can leave the stroller behind!
My point, and I do have one, is two-fold. First, I wish I had enough money that I could drop several hundred dollars on a childcare accessory that I would use for 3 to 4 years per child. If I did, my daughter's college fund (not to mention my IRA) would be much larger than it is at the moment. And second, I want to make it clear that I don't actually want my daughter to break her other arm when we go up to the mountains again later this month for vacation. Last year's tumble out of the apple tree was enough.
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I wish I had enough money that I could drop several hundred dollars on a childcare accessory that I would use for 3 to 4 years per child.
Have you tried Powerball tickets? I came close tonight: I only missed 5 numbers and the Powerball.
Don't get me started. Oh, well, it's too late. I'm started.
When my girlfriend's daughter was little, she was sickly. Daughter, not girlfriend.
The doctor said, "Put her out in the dirt and let her play in the dirt."
Surprise! She stopped being sickly. It turned on her immune system.
I grew up in the most dangerous industrial environment there is: a farm.
I walked in the woods, I dug in the fields. I climbed the fig trees, I plunked cans in the back yard with the .22.
Once, when I was riding on the tractor with my father, I fell off and he stopped just before the disc harrow sliced my head (I still have the scar). (Yeah, maybe he shouldn't have let me sit on the battery, but he did everything else right.)
I don't get these parents who think that kids are, rather than persons who need to grow and learn, some kind of Stepford trophy to be wrapped in a bubble and molded like PlayDoh.
They are protecting the body and stunting the mind.
And (this is not directed at you, Glomarization, because you clearly know this), other people have had babies too. Having a baby doesn't make anyone special nor does it make the baby special as compared to any other baby.
What's special is the child and the adult the child should and could grow into. And I can't think of a better way to help them do that than to let them climb that tree.
It's our job as parents to let them learn about the world, not to hide the world from them.
And on the subject of $umpty-ump.00 toys and equipment: One of my and my brother's favorite toys was a towel. Fasten the towel around one's neck with a safety pin, and one became . . .
. . . Superman!
Beats the hell out of Dora the Explorer.
[Free Association Mode ON]
Old joke: The man sees the butler carrying the child, who is clearly at least six, to the Rolls Royce.
He says to the mother, "What a shame; doesn't he walk?"
"No," she replies, "and, God willing, he will never have to."
[Free Association Mode OFF]
And, when I first heard that joke, back in the Crenozoic Era, I thought is was fiction.
Frank, you forgot to close your rant tag.
/rant
(Grin)
My rants are normally easily recognizable without additional user warnings.
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