During the Olympics, we watched the incredible talent of young athletes from around the world strut their stuff. The cameras repeatedly panned to the eager parents, watching intently from the sidelines, no doubt riding a roller coaster of emotion. What parent watching hasn’t wondered: What do they know that I don’t? What is the special sauce for raising that kind of child—a successful one?
I contend that this thinking—endemic among modern-day educated, affluent parents—has led to a kind of parenting horse race that is making us all miserable. The pressure to get your child involved in every possible form of enrichment, so that they can be successful and get that competitive edge, is palpable in cities and towns across the country. Kids as young as 3 or 4 have already begun the slog with T-ball on Tuesday, violin on Thursday, and swimming on Saturday. All this is in preparation for the full onslaught during the elementary school years which continues unabated for many children straight through to high school graduation.
Now don’t get me wrong. I am all for hard work, dedication, and achievement. I greatly admire those who strive for their dreams and probably would be characterized as a striver by those who know me. And I think that exposing children to many activities while they are young, to discover what they enjoy and where their talents lie, is certainly a good thing. But the reality is a large majority of parents and children experience the full crush of activities as just plain too much—too much time, too much money, too much coordination, just plain too much. Where’s the common sense? Where’s the joy?
Our son played in an in-town soccer league in fourth grade and the coach was required to rank all the players on the team from top to bottom. Our son got amongst the highest rankings and the coach was surprised to hear that we weren’t planning on moving him to the cross-town league the following year. A friend in town, who was a soccer coach for the league, told my husband and me that the prevailing wisdom is a child still playing “in-town” by the time they are 9 or 10 couldn’t possibly have much talent. Talent dismissed before reaching double digits? Is it just me or is this madness? Our son did play another season in town but the following year there were so few kids that we succumbed and he joined a traveling team. Subsequently, Saturdays were spent navigating to find obscure fields in towns near and far. I continue to ponder: Is this necessary?
The word “success” as applied to children disturbs me. A quick Internet search on the definition of success focuses on achievement, prosperity, popularity. Now that is a certain aspect of success but certainly not my emphasis as a parent. To me the job of a parent is to help children discover their strengths and passions, to learn the value of hard work and, yes, accomplishment, to instill in them compassion and respect for others, and to figure out how they can be a contributing member of society. I’ve found that our modern focus on raising “successful” children seems to have transformed parents from guides or mentors to talent agents, continuously looking for the next angle to best position the child.
More disturbing, the focus on success gives the false impression that parenting is an input and output scenario, like creating a blueprint or programming a computer. The thinking seems to be that if you fine-tune all the details, the end product (your child) will be just as you had envisioned—successful and happy. If only it were that straightforward. And frankly it’s way to much pressure. In reality parents can mostly get it right and still their child may struggle mightily or they can make a whole lot of mistakes and their child’s greatest strengths may come from those learnings.