Noboby likes to be called a “wimp.” The Urban Dictionary defines “wimp” as: “A person who is scared or WEAK or cowardly.” I am not sure that definition encompasses all that Hara Estroff Marano envisions in her book “A Nation of Wimps.” Hara is an Editor-at-Large for Psychology Today and has an intense desire for parents to understand what it means for a child to grow up.
When I was a child, if you complained to your parents about how someone treated you, you might have gotten a spanking. Oh, there were some parents that were always going to the PTA meeting or to the principal to get something fixed, but even the kid thought their parent was a nut. As Hara emphasizes, those days are gone. The new phenonmenon: growing numbers of parents who are not only determined to fight their children’s battles, but whose goal is to make the road to adulthood and success paved and smooth for a bump-free ride.
Of course, that kind of parent could never be–me! Before you exclude yourself, I suggest you take a few minutes and read Hara’s article, A Nation of Wimps, which appeared in Psychology Today in 2004 and which led to the book. If you don’t see yourself, read it again! Here’s an excerpt from the article:
Parents need to abandon the idea of perfection and give up some of the invasive control they’ve maintained over their children. The goal of parenting, Portmann reminds, is to raise an independent human being. Sooner or later, he says, most kids will be forced to confront their own mediocrity. Parents may find it easier to give up some control if they recognize they have exaggerated many of the dangers of childhood — although they have steadfastly ignored others, namely the removal of recess from schools and the ubiquity of video games that encourage aggression.
Then, listen to the interview and hopefully, you will have a deeper appreciation for why kids binge drink, why teenage suicide is on the rise and why college kids experience depression and other aspects of mental illness at ever increasing rates.
For the most part, all of our kids that are wonderful, highly intelligent, and brillant are average and mediocre. That “B” in English is their fault, not the teacher’s. They don’t know what to do, because we have never let them decide what to do without telling them what to do. When they call to talk to mommy on the phone for an hour every day, feeling their pain is one thing, trying to eliminate it is another.
The bottom line: grow up, so your kid can, too!
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