The college admission scandal that has ensnared students, parents, coaches, college officials and test administrators should be named Entitlement Parenting. Does it remind anyone of the case of the teen charged with killing 4 people while driving drunk? The teen received probation, then violated it and fled to Mexico with help from his mother. He was caught and required to serve 2 years jail time. His original defense what he was too rich and spoiled to know right from wrong. It was dubbed the affluenza defense. It seems like this current scandal is more of the same. Wealthy parents crippling their children by spoiling them.
Every parent wants their child to be a happy, self-supporting adult. Every parent wants to minimize the struggles their child has to endure. But, when did this parental protective instinct for some go off the rails? When did some parents stop recognizing that OVER protecting children from struggle is actually hurting them?
Did this all start with the participation trophy theory? In the effort to build self esteem for children does giving everyone a trophy instead of just those that win seem like a good idea? Life lessons come from both winning and losing.
Did the mantra that "You can be anything you want" cause affluent parents to believe that they must spend whatever it takes to make the statement true for their children? Did this then become a part of the mantra "Keeping up the the neighbors"?
Did all of this get magnified with the cell phone? It is the ubiquitous umbilical cord. Do parents feel compelled to monitor every school assignment, every grade, every sports practice or even the child's location at any given moment? Are children learning personal responsibility with parents that are micro-managing their lives?
Struggle and failure are painful to watch our children go through but they are important life lessons. When parenting becomes more about appearances (in this case--getting into the right school), the children will pay the price.
Happy self-supporting adults are the product of parents that balance helping their children with letting them struggle at times. This balance is different for every family and every parent/child relationship but the lesson should never be that it's ok to cheat.
Friday, March 15, 2019
Saturday, January 26, 2019
Dad's Winter Driving Advice
Currently my neighborhood streets are snow packed and icy and there are piles 3-4 feet high of snow that has been shoveled off my driveway. The main roads however are in good shape and life continues along with minimal winter disruptions. On my commute this morning I was thinking back to winter driving advice that I received growing up.
At age 14 and the oldest of 4 siblings, I became responsible for driving us 10 miles into town to attend school as we were not on a school bus route. This being in the days before SUV type vehicles were common, the car provided by my parents was a sweet Ford Pinto with an 8 track player. We loved the car but needless to say, the rear wheel drive little Pinto didn't love winter weather.
Our driveway was 1/4 mile from the county road and had a low-lying gully in the middle of it. This gully might have standing water in the spring or be full of drifted snow in the winter. It was the source of never ending driving challenges. It was also the ready source of frogs for our little brother but that is another story.
My father was usually the first one out the door most mornings. His days started early and he was well at work before any of the rest of his family was moving. If it had snowed the night before, he was the first one to deal with the gully. While he did use the tractor to plow open the drive, by the time we headed to school, the western Kansas wind had done it's job and drifted it back shut.
Dad was fearless on the roads. A chronic speeder, he attended safe driving school 3 times. He actually asked a highway patrol officer what the fastest way to the airport was one time as the officer was writing him a ticket. Dad never gave a moments thought to the driveway or that his daughter was not quite as fearless in the snow. His comment to me was always "Just get a good run at it and you should be fine." This comment along with the frequent "Give it a little more gas." could explain my driving habits today.
I have no idea how many times he had to come back home and pull the Pinto out of the snow drifts but it was usually several times a winter. I can still vividly see him in his coveralls with the tractor, hooking the chain up to the Pinto and dragging me out of the gully or a ditch along the county road. He never berated me but upon freeing me from the ditch, I could count on hearing "Just get a good run at it next time."
At age 14 and the oldest of 4 siblings, I became responsible for driving us 10 miles into town to attend school as we were not on a school bus route. This being in the days before SUV type vehicles were common, the car provided by my parents was a sweet Ford Pinto with an 8 track player. We loved the car but needless to say, the rear wheel drive little Pinto didn't love winter weather.
Our driveway was 1/4 mile from the county road and had a low-lying gully in the middle of it. This gully might have standing water in the spring or be full of drifted snow in the winter. It was the source of never ending driving challenges. It was also the ready source of frogs for our little brother but that is another story.
My father was usually the first one out the door most mornings. His days started early and he was well at work before any of the rest of his family was moving. If it had snowed the night before, he was the first one to deal with the gully. While he did use the tractor to plow open the drive, by the time we headed to school, the western Kansas wind had done it's job and drifted it back shut.
Dad was fearless on the roads. A chronic speeder, he attended safe driving school 3 times. He actually asked a highway patrol officer what the fastest way to the airport was one time as the officer was writing him a ticket. Dad never gave a moments thought to the driveway or that his daughter was not quite as fearless in the snow. His comment to me was always "Just get a good run at it and you should be fine." This comment along with the frequent "Give it a little more gas." could explain my driving habits today.
I have no idea how many times he had to come back home and pull the Pinto out of the snow drifts but it was usually several times a winter. I can still vividly see him in his coveralls with the tractor, hooking the chain up to the Pinto and dragging me out of the gully or a ditch along the county road. He never berated me but upon freeing me from the ditch, I could count on hearing "Just get a good run at it next time."
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